A single-case analysis of one story told in a recorded video call by a long-distance couple. It traces how the teller described one story character and how the partner took that character up.
Six couplesAlmost 57 hours of video calls by six self-selected long-distance couples, at least one partner in the Northeastern USA, recorded over two months.
One storyIn the first call of one couple, Des and Kay, Des tells a story about sneaking into a pool.
Categorisation analysisMembership Categorisation Analysis, the study of how people use social categories in talk, traced how the lifeguard character was described and taken up.
BWhat the study found
Telling the storyhow the teller built the lifeguard character
•In this story, Des first introduced the lifeguard as a gatekeeper to get past.Des was telling his girlfriend Kay about sneaking into a pool. The lifeguard first appeared as an unknown character who belonged to the setting.
•Des then described the lifeguard as 'this girl' who was 'super nice'.The authors argue this played down her official role and played up her attractiveness.
•Des held back until late that the lifeguard was a friend of a friend.Her name also came late, which built drama. The paper argues her shifting descriptions left unclear why she mattered, opening her to other readings.
Hearing the storyhow the partner recast the character
•When Des mentioned giving the lifeguard a number, Kay asked him to clarify.The paper argues this first hints that Kay heard the story as answerable to the relationship. The authors note Kay may instead have misheard a word.
•Kay recast the lifeguard as someone Des had to account for as her partner.Kay summed up that Des had flirted with 'the bitch' a whole day. Kay kept pursuing inconsistencies despite his efforts to keep the story funny.
•The paper argues categories can shift between tasks within one conversation.Telling a story and being a couple are two such tasks. The paper argues ordinary listeners, not only analysts, can recast a category whose relevance is left unstated.
CKey takeaway
A storyteller who leaves a character's relevance unclear creates a promiscuous category that listeners can recast, for example through the couple's relationship. Holding back details for drama can be risky.
Made for this site with AI assistance from the verified research brief. It is not the paper's own figure.
Abstract
This paper examines a single case of story telling between a couple in a long-distance relationship conducted via video calling. Drawing on Membership Categorisation Analysis (MCA) we examine the way the teller incrementally reveals information about a character in order to build a story of coincidences. In doing this, however, the recipient begins to treat the evolving character as relevant to a different device, that of their relationship. Our discussion develops on the analysis of omnirelevance devices (Sacks, 1995) by examining how categories can be shifted between devices. In so doing, we highlight the way categories introduced for one task may be put to other uses; that is, how categories may become 'promiscuous'.
Research brief
By Richard Fitzgerald and Sean Rintel.
Takeaway: Story characters can become 'promiscuous categories' in a couple's talk. When a teller leaves a character's relevance ambiguous, a partner can recast them through 'our relationship', which is always available. So a friendly lifeguard in a boyfriend's pool story became someone he had to account for as her partner.
Why this matters
What was known
Membership Categorisation Analysis has begun to study tacit, 'always possibly relevant' devices such as therapist/patient, and Schegloff warned that analysts may read their own assumptions into unstated categories. Schegloff describes this concern as analytic 'promiscuity'(§Data and method, p. 4)
What this paper adds
Schegloff raised category promiscuity as a risk for analysts. Using one extended story from a naturally recorded video call, we show that participants face it too: we argue that it is also not restricted to those engaged in formal analytic procedures, but rather it is a members' phenomenon(§Data and method, p. 4)
Who it matters to
Researchers of membership categorisation, conversation and story telling, especially work on how participants orient to who they are and what they are doing. This research seeks to begin to draw attention to the way participants invoke and orient to a locally relevant organisational device of 'who we are and what we are doing'(§Data and method, p. 3)
Research questions
How does a teller incrementally reveal information about a story character, and how does the recipient treat that evolving character?
How can categories introduced for one task (telling a story) be shifted into a different device (the couple's relationship), becoming 'promiscuous'?
Method and data
Design
Single-case analysis using Membership Categorisation Analysis of a conspicuous instance of story telling.
Setting
Recorded video calls of couples in long-distance relationships, at least one member in Northeastern USA, using supplied cameras, headsets and video calling software, on their own schedule and with no set tasks.
Participants / data
From a corpus of six self-selected couples (almost 57 hours of talk), one story told in the first video call of one couple, Des and Kay (pseudonyms).
Duration
Couples were asked to talk for at least 20 minutes once a week for two months.
Analysis
Detailed sequential and categorial analysis of how the lifeguard character is described and taken up across the telling.
Findings
The lifeguard starts as a gatekeeper. Des tells his girlfriend Kay over a video call about sneaking into a pool. He first introduces the lifeguard as an unknown character who simply belongs to the setting, someone he and a friend had to get past. #
“The two characters also belong to story-relevant indirect membership categories of gatekeepers.”
Described as a girl, not an official. As the story goes on, Des describes her as 'this girl' who is 'super nice', which plays down her official role and plays up her attractiveness. #
“a "lifeguard" (a safety official who is presumably physical active and hence potentially physical attractive)”
A question hints at a different frame. When Des mentions giving the lifeguard a 'number', Kay asks him to clarify. This gives a first hint that she may be hearing the story as answerable to their relationship rather than as just a funny tale. #
“indexes a partner giving a telephone number to a (potentially attractive) person outside of the relationship”
Holding back builds drama, and ambiguity. To build drama, Des withholds until late that the lifeguard is a friend of a friend, and her name. Her changing descriptions leave it unclear why she matters, which opens her to other readings. #
“the character becomes treatable as a 'promiscuous' category through it being open to different and divergent devices”
The story becomes a relationship matter. Kay's summary, 'now that you've flirted with the bitch a whole day', recasts both the story and Des's telling of it as conduct he must account for as her partner. She keeps pursuing its inconsistencies despite his efforts to keep it funny. #
(p. 13)
Categories don't stay put. Categories and their relevance are not fixed, even when someone names them outright. Within one conversation they can shift between tasks, such as telling a story and being a couple. #
“can also shift between different levels of the interaction in relation to differing sequential and categorial tasks, and furthermore these can and do overlap and entwine as they traverse through the interaction”
Questions this paper answers
Why can a harmless story told to a partner turn into a relationship issue?
Because holding back details to build drama can leave a character's relevance ambiguous, so a listener may fill the gap. In a video call between a long-distance couple, the man called a lifeguard a 'super nice' girl without saying who she was. His girlfriend made her a relationship matter. (See pp. 7–8; p. 11; p. 13.)
What is a 'promiscuous category' in conversation?
It is a category one person introduces for one purpose, such as a character in a story, that another person recasts for a different purpose, such as 'our relationship'. It happens most easily when the speaker leaves the category's relevance unstated. (See p. 11; §Conclusion: Recasting promiscuous categories, p. 16.)
Is reading unstated meanings into what people say only a problem for researchers?
No. Schegloff warned that analysts may read their own assumptions into categories people leave unstated. We argue ordinary participants do the same. When a speaker leaves a character's relevance implicit, a listener can repurpose it for their own concerns. (See p. 11; p. 13.)
Contributions and implications
Holding back information to heighten a story's drama carries interactional risk. a story telling device that involves incrementally releasing relevant information at various times in order to heighten the drama of the story can become problematic for both the teller and the recipient(§Conclusion: Recasting promiscuous categories, p. 15)
Character work in news-of-the-day story telling is a negotiated process with emergent relevancies and divergent outcomes, not static information transfer. The goal of the paper is to illustrate the extent to which the development of characters in news-of-the-day story telling is far more than one part of a static information transfer.(§Data and method, p. 3)
We propose 'omnipresent' in place of Sacks's 'omnirelevant', since such devices are always available but not always relevant.
Limitations
Kay's first clarification may have come from mishearing, though we argue her response still orients to the relationship. Kay's request for clarification may be the result of mishearing "phony" as "phone".(p. 9)
Kay's later clarification and correction could also be ordinary clarification by an observant listener. We argue that, taken together, they point to the relationship. it is possible that Kay's clarification formulation and her exposed correction of the subsequent discrepancy may be just matters of non-relational clarification from a highly observant recipient(p. 10)
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Concepts
Membership Categorisation Analysis (MCA)
The study of how people use and orient to social categories in interaction, following Sacks. The analysis draws upon the method of Membership Categorisation Analysis (MCA) as a way of revealing the artful interactional work of the parties as entwined and multilayered(§Data and method, p. 3)
Omnipresent device
Our renaming of Sacks's 'omnirelevant' devices, such as 'our relationship', chosen to indicate they are available (present), but not always relevant or made relevant within the interaction(§Data and method, p. 3)
Promiscuous category
The paper's central term, taken from Schegloff's warning to analysts and applied to participants themselves: by which we mean a category that is recast by other parties as a membership category of a different device(§Introduction, pp. 1–2)
How to cite
Richard Fitzgerald and Sean Rintel. 2013. From lifeguard to bitch: How a story character becomes a promiscuous category in a couple's video call. Australian Journal of Communication 40 (2), 101–118.
This brief was prepared with AI assistance and published by Sean Rintel. It is not the authors' published text. Page numbers refer to this PDF.
BibTeX
@article{fitzgerald2013from,
author = {Fitzgerald, Richard and Rintel, Sean},
title = {From lifeguard to bitch: How a story character becomes a promiscuous category in a couple's video call},
year = {2013},
month = {October},
url = {https://seanrintel.com/publications/from-lifeguard-to-bitch-the-problem-of-promiscuous-categories-in-story-telling-via-video-chat-by-a-long-distance-couple.html},
journal = {Australian Journal of Communication},
volume = {40},
edition = {Australian Journal of Communication, 40 (2)},
number = {2},
pages = {101--118},
note = {Fitzgerald, R. & Rintel, S. (2013). From lifeguard to bitch: How a story character becomes a promiscuous category in a couple's video call. Australian Journal of Communication, 40 (2), 101-118.
Online version is free and includes video (use Publisher URL)},
}