{"title":"Constructing collective agency through narrative positioning in group meetings within a Chinese professional team","authors":"Liangping Lan , Clare Mehta","doi":"10.1016/j.langcom.2022.07.008","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Recent research has linguistically explored collective agency through the concept of group speech acts. However, how the “we-perspective” is constructed in narrative<span> discourse has received less empirical attention. Drawing on positioning theory informed by linguistic anthropology, this study explores how a professional team in China constructs collective agency through conversational storytelling in their group meetings. The analysis shows that collective agency is constructed through a we-narrative of positive evaluation and the collaborative narrative of problem solving, vis-à-vis community cultural value of moral responsibility, positive thinking, and agentic beliefs. This study highlights the distributed nature of collective agency and the importance of examining multilayered narrative practices in professional settings.</span></p></div>","PeriodicalId":47575,"journal":{"name":"Language & Communication","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.3000,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Language & Communication","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S027153092200060X","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"COMMUNICATION","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Recent research has linguistically explored collective agency through the concept of group speech acts. However, how the “we-perspective” is constructed in narrative discourse has received less empirical attention. Drawing on positioning theory informed by linguistic anthropology, this study explores how a professional team in China constructs collective agency through conversational storytelling in their group meetings. The analysis shows that collective agency is constructed through a we-narrative of positive evaluation and the collaborative narrative of problem solving, vis-à-vis community cultural value of moral responsibility, positive thinking, and agentic beliefs. This study highlights the distributed nature of collective agency and the importance of examining multilayered narrative practices in professional settings.
期刊介绍：
This journal is unique in that it provides a forum devoted to the interdisciplinary study of language and communication. The investigation of language and its communicational functions is treated as a concern shared in common by those working in applied linguistics, child development, cultural studies, discourse analysis, intellectual history, legal studies, language evolution, linguistic anthropology, linguistics, philosophy, the politics of language, pragmatics, psychology, rhetoric, semiotics, and sociolinguistics. The journal invites contributions which explore the implications of current research for establishing common theoretical frameworks within which findings from different areas of study may be accommodated and interrelated. By focusing attention on the many ways in which language is integrated with other forms of communicational activity and interactional behaviour, it is intended to encourage approaches to the study of language and communication which are not restricted by existing disciplinary boundaries.
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