会话分析实验：绝对/事件时间、社会行动与沟通性承诺（SPQ, 2017）

荐读：

Raymond, Chase Wesley, and Anne Elizabeth Clark White. 2017. “Time Reference in the Service of Social Action.” Social Psychology Quarterly 80 (2): 109–31.

1. 问题意识

这篇文章想研究的是time-reckoning—— ‘‘the choice of temporal reference points and use of instruments to measure time’’ (Bergmann 1992:99)

这个choice的意义还在于它的“交互主体性”，因为这是个公共选择，能够使得每个人的social actions得以协调。

The achievement of intersubjectivity and the constitution of action must therefore be conceptualized as a temporally emergent, collaborative, and publically accountable process between interactants

比如Zerubavel研究了“一周/7天”这个社会时间制度的社会起源（The Seven-Day Circle: The History and Meaning of the Week ）毕竟，和year, month不一样，week是没有natural world作为基础的，而只是一种制度、社会发明。

换句话说，time-reckoning的提问方式是：

What exactly are ‘‘temporal reference points’’? How do social actors ‘‘use’’ them? And how are these ‘‘choices’’ implicated in the collaborative production and recognition of social action in everyday life?

2. 研究取向

但是，相较于目前的研究方式：（1）existences研究：这些时间范畴存在不存在？（2）socialtemporal order研究：这些时间范畴的社会起源是什么？这篇论文尝试给出另一种研究方式（3）actual usage研究：到底这些人们在表述他们的time时，是怎样去用一些词汇来cut时间呢？这意味着，即使要研究时间是社会建构的，也别忘了，时间也是everyday use。

3. 方法与测量

如何去看一个行动者怎样使用他的time-reckoning词汇呢？

Referring expressions are formulations that a speaker uses to bring about mutual orientation to a ‘‘person, place, object, time or other ontological category’’ (Enfield 2013:433)

比如：

医：你酗酒多长时间了？

患：自从我结婚以后就这样了。Since I’ve been married

医：那是多长时间？

患：四年了。 Four years.

Raymond and White 使用了会语分析（conversation  analysis）。首先是用induction的方式归纳上述这些标志性的词汇。然后再使用corpus去看行动者在回答时，到底这些词汇有没有发挥cut时间的作用，以linking form to function。

4. 类型分析

最后就是得到这个表格

4.1 绝对时间

就是以时分秒、年月日这样的由社会成员共享的一种建构来作为基础，不需要参与某一特定对话的人来自己设置个参考标准。

An absolute time reference, as we define it, is a reference form that is accessible

to all through its use of shared constructs for parsing the timeline. By ‘‘shared constructs,’’’ we refer to concepts such as an hour, a day or a year.

——absolute的用法Our use of the term absolute is borrowed from Levinson’s (2003) work on references to space.

绝对时间也分两种：（1）uncounted。无需参考当下对话，直接说出一个在任何场景下都能成立和理解的时间参考点，比如“1968年”。（2）counted。要参考当下相遇谈话的场景，以当下来推论某个绝对的时间点和现在的距离，比如“三天前”。这种时间既includes a quantity and a unit of duration of time，也to frame the hearer’s conceptualization。

4.2 相对于事件的时间 event-relative time

这一概念吸引自Adam的理解：

as Adam (1995:21) describes: The existence of clock and calendar time does not prevent us from locating the past, present, and future with reference to events, processes, and social relations. . . . That is to say, the existence of clock time, no matter how dominant, does not obliterate the rich sources of local, idiosyncratic, and context-dependent time awareness which are rooted in the social and organic rhythms of everyday life

Raymond and White提出了三种子类型：

a. Shared between interactants (jointly framed)

b. Speaker-centered (A-framed)

c. Recipient-centered (B-framed).

对a类型，R and W又分了两种类型：a1）公共的shared，比如“圣诞节前……”，称为O-framed。a2）只有会话的双方知道的，称为AB-framed。. AB-framed TRs include interpersonal events known to the coparticipants (A and B) but not necessarily to the community at large (e.g., (7) ‘‘the last time we had Chipotle’’

5. 时间参考与社会承诺 social affordances

有意思的是，R and W并不限于提出类型学，而是指出当日常生活中使用不同的时间参考方式所具有的承诺意义。how the inclusion of a single time reference, with a particular design, can contribute to a speaker’s aims

5.1 从绝对时间中加入事件时间

比如，奥巴马总统的一个重要的承诺是从阿富汗撤军，但他说了绝对时间，又补充相对时间：

he adds a counted absolute TR to complement his uncounted absolute TR in line 2. By including ‘‘next year,’’ Obama mobilizes a time reference to minimize the distance between the speech event and the removal of troops. It is the consecutive use of an uncounted and a counted absolute TR which therefore maximizes the accomplishment of Obama’s goal to demonstrate commitment to a plan that is both specific and soon-to-be-realized.  

 5.2 从事件时间中加入绝对时间，能够Pursuing Intersubjectivity

比如，医生和患者间如是问答：

医：你酗酒多长时间了？

患：自我结婚以后就这样了。

医：那是多长时间？

患：四年了。

患者首先是以event-relative time来回答，并且是Speaker-centered (A-framed)。这种回答是建立了自己的婚姻——酗酒之间因果关系，可能会误导医生（听者），也使其无法专业判断。但随后以绝对时间回答时，将是public，使得医生能将A-framed带入O-framed进而促进二者之间的医患沟通。

（Sociological理论大缸第147期）

已推送链接：时间社会学