On My-Case-Telling Series

Doing Co-Membership in Experience “Sharing” Activities

Abstract

This article describes the practice of telling one's own experience after another has told his/hers (“my-case-telling series”) from the perspective of conversation analysis. It tries to answer two questions. First, the act of telling one's experience has a specific difficulty as a way of “sharing” because the experience cannot be “owned” by the hearer in the way the speaker has “owned” it. How can people “share” someone's experience in interactions ? Second, experience “sharing” activities can be facilitated through interaction between people who share some co-membership. How does such activities constitute doing co-membership in interaction ? By analyzing several conversation materials, the author attempts to explicate the following four points. First, telling the same kind of experience as the preceding one constitutes proving that one has understood the preceding “case-telling.” Second, the series of my-case-tellings constitutes doing co-membership even if the experiences told are not similar. Third, the series of my-case-tellings constitutes a special kind of topic generating sequence. Finally, when this topic generating sequence is at its strongest, it can be used to renew co-membership in interaction.