The relevance of narrative ratifications in talk-in-interaction for Japanese pre-service teachers of English

In everyday conversation, narratives are used as rhetorical tools for managing identities, allowing participants to carve out identity positions in moment-to-moment interactions. An interesting, yet understudied, focus of these narratives involves exploring the links between the discourse identities (or narrative participation roles) and larger, social identities of participants in the narrative interactions (e.g., Georgakopoulou, 2002, 2003, 2006, 2007). In this paper, I build on this work by looking specifically at the relevance of narrative ratifications for the emergent discourse and social identities of those offering the ratifications. Following Bamberg’s (1997, 2003) analytical framework for examining narratives in talk-in-interaction, I examine how participants are positioned with respect to whose contributions they choose to ratify and how their ratifications (or lack thereof) make available certain discourse identities, which may then point to larger, social identities. Findings not only demonstrate the relevance of ratifications for identity work in narrative interactions, but also advance our understanding of certain aspects of narrative structure, in particular, sequences of narrative openings in talk-in-interaction.