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Anthropology

Debra Spitulnik
Tracking the Speaking Subject: Epistemologies of "the Real Self" in Talk

Debra Spitulnik
Associate Professor
Department of Anthropology
Emory University

Conference
9th International Pragmatics Conference, International Pragmatics Association
Special theme: Pragmatics and Philosophy
Riva del Garda, Italy, 10-15 July 2005

Abstract
Within poststructuralist and postmodernist philosophy, the concept of a unitary speaking subject has been roundly critiqued and replaced with more fluid and polyvalent models of subjectivity. A philosophical tradition dating back to Nietzsche and Heidegger continues to interrogate the degree to which people's voices and stances can be considered to be authentic and individually possessed versus temporarily inhabited and socially owned. Joining this philosophical tradition has been more recent work taking inspiration from Bakhtin's concepts of heteroglossia and dialogicality.

While numerous researchers within pragmatics, linguistic anthropology, and discourse analysis have built this skepticism over unitary selves into the heart of their research agendas, limited advances have been made to sharpen the ways that we track the emergence of multiple voices and stances within different kinds of discursive events and then move to synthetic conclusions. For example, Goffman's work on footing provides an invaluable model for disaggregating the multiple relations that agents may have to a stretch of discourse (cf. Levinson, Irvine, and Hill for later elaborations). Hill, in particular, offers a nuanced model for unpacking the multiple laminations of self that can occur within a narrative. Others have focused on the use of particular linguistic forms such as evidentials in conveying attachment to stances or the ways in which there are significant cross-cultural differences both in how subjectivity manifests in discourse and in the degree to which individual subjectivity matters within particular cultures (cf. Briggs, Duranti, and Haviland). While these various lines of analysis have been added to the discourse analysis toolkit (i.e. researchers are now better equipped to track multiple voices and stances), are there ways that they might also be used to develop new ways of theorizing the speaking subject? Do the data-driven studies of the emergence and fluidity of speaking selves inform philosophical theory or are they merely empirical demonstrations of philosophical positions?

This paper engages such questions and takes them further by investigating how the pragmatic dimensions of the discourse context itself shape the way that subjectivity emerges in discourse and how this impacts the types of synthetic conclusions that can be made. At the core of the paper is an analysis of the discourse emergence of speaking selves during recorded interviews (conducted in 2004-2005) on the subject of immigration history and multilingual language use among Zambia immigrants in Atlanta. The paper examines how contextual factors such as who is present, the discourse genre, who is viewed as the ultimate audience, how the discourse began (e.g. as an elicited interview, as a conversation) relate to the expression and the discovery of speaking subjects. Using a self-reflexive stance, I also ask how the researcher's perceptions of the discourse event and task at hand possibly guide conclusions about "the real" self in talk (cf. Briggs, Fabian). While such epistemological questions easily proliferate, this paper argues that finding ways to keep them at the forefront of both research and writing is perhaps the most productive way to examine the discourse emergence of speaking subjects within a postmodern philosophical climate.