Talk: Management of advice and relational work among the interactions in the Facebook group 'PCT Class of 2020'

Advice is not only present in our every-day offline world but also online. The speech acts containing advice can be realized on a vast continuum that ranges between linguistic forms such as classic conditional clauses followed by should-instructions, I would do X-statements, indirect statements realizing suggestions, imperatives or questions inviting introspection and information-giving which is yet taken up as advice by the advice-seeker. Advice-giving can be quite a delicate matter as there is a natural asymmetry between advice-giver and advice-seeker, this topic is also closely tied to relational work, politeness and considerations of face.

This talk is focused on a case-study of how advice and relational work are managed in the Facebook group ‘PCT Class of 2020’, a group that was originally intended as a platform for people to connect in terms of the common endeavour of wanting to hike the Pacific Crest Trail (a long-distance trail along the west coast in the USA). This is as such traditionally a place where advice is exchanged freely among this particular community of practice. However, in March 2020, discussions turned to whether people should quit the trail due to the on-going pandemic (following governmental guidelines and the statements from the official association that manages the trail) where comments would more often than not, change from an advice-friendly environment to a rather moral and sometimes even hostile tone, therefore providing an opportunity to study various levels of how advice and relational work are managed amongst members of the Facebook group.

Info

Day: 2020-11-19
Start time: 09:00
Duration: 00:30
Room: Clotilde Tambroni
Track: Applied Linguistics
Language: en

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