Narratives of vicarious experience in talk at work

Abstract

This panel brings together an international group of scholars interested in narrative pragmatics, in particular in the forms and functions of narratives in talk at work and institutional contexts more generally. The panel focuses on narratives of vicarious experience and the range of narrative practices surrounding figures other than the teller proper. Talk at work/institutional talk includes interactions through which professionals and organizational representatives engage in various work-related activities (Drew and Heritage, 1992). Such talk is conducted in organizational and professional settings, but it may include work-related interactions in other (ordinary) settings. It may also range from face-to-face interactions to new interfaces for interactions (e.g. computer- or mobile device-mediated) due to the expanding range of new media in organizational and professional settings. Narrative approaches to the study of professional and organizational culture and context have been prominent in organization and management studies from the 1970s onward. These studies have shown that organizational narratives provide perfect sites for investigating individual and collective action and meanings. Taking a narrative pragmatic approach allows examination not only of what people do with narratives (that is the functions of narratives) but also how people do it in a moment-by-moment unfolding of a narrative. The participants in the panel will discuss a wide range of forms that narratives take with special attention to narratives of vicarious experience, which have received little systematic attention in the past, as research has tended to focus on stories of personal experience. We will investigate the purposes for which people tell these stories in professional and organizational settings, including contributing to corporate culture and institutional identity in various ways, serving as exempla in topical discussion, preserving stories about the founders or employees significant for the history of the organization, presenting stories about model employees--or about less than model employees, who are laughable and/or blameworthy, illustrating particular practices on the job, what to remember, and the consequences of not remembering. People may tell, re-tell and co-tell stories as a sign of membership and status in the local community, leaders and mentors may tell stories to motivate other group members among many others. The panel participants will examine particularly stories about other people, both second-hand, retold stories and narratives constructed from various sources, but also narratives of personal experience containing or related to stories about others. They will investigate why stories about other people are told, how tellers establish their authority to relate these stories, how they link these stories to their current context, and how they participant design these stories and shape them for various purposes in workplace/ institutional interaction. Finally, the international group of panel participants will contribute perspectives on the forms and functions of narratives from the main stream research on English-dominant contexts, as well as the research on non-English dominant contexts that remains largely underrepresented, thus providing an innovative comparative angle to narrative pragmatic studies.