The Co-construction of Intersubjective Identity Within “Frames of Play”: From the Perspective of Stancetaking

Abstract

This paper examines the process whereby participants' “intersubjective identities” are dynamically produced through the metacommunicative speech activity of “play framing.” Special attention is paid to metamessages concerning the participants' identities treated as the target of play, which display tacit opposition to hegemonic values. The data examined was collected from a conversation between two Japanese female friends. The intersubjective identities observed were classified into three types: 1) characteristics held by one participant only, 2) characteristics that both participants have in common, and 3) complementary characteristics, as represented in the alignment pattern of “complementary resonance” in play framing. I argue that through the situated activity of “stancetaking” (which is dialogic and intersubjective in nature), intersubjective identities are reinforced and reproduced among the participants in relation to each other, and that this dynamic helps drive the co-construction of the participants' social relations. Whereas identity in sociolinguistics and related fields has traditionally been regarded as an accumulation of social attributes shared by members of a social category, this study introduces “individual and interpersonal characteristics” as important aspects of identity, and proposes that the process of identity-building is an intersubjective social phenomenon shaped through metacommunicative interaction.