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Article published In:
Advances in the Study of Social Action in Online Interaction
Edited by Valeria Sinkeviciute
[Internet Pragmatics 7:1] 2024
► pp. 101–136

Multimodal joint fantasising as a category‑implicative and category‑relations‑implicative action in online multi‑party interaction

| The University of Queensland

Drawing on interactional pragmatics and membership categorisation analysis, with a focus on (un)accomplished intersubjectivity, categories and social action, this paper explores some new aspects of multimodal joint fantasising in online interaction. The data for this study comes from the public Facebook event page regarding the ‘ski field opening’ in Brisbane, a sub-tropical city in Australia. The first part of the analysis examines how intersubjectivity is accomplished through joint fantasising co-constructed among the posters, serving entertainment purposes. Invoking their membership in the category ‘fantasisers’, this is done in two ways: (1) flat co-construction gradient; and (2) upgraded co-construction gradient. The second part focusses on the instances wherein intersubjectivity in relation to the fantasy world is unaccomplished. It is indexed through (1) metapragmatic labels of humour types; (2) treating the event as real; and (3) doubting the authenticity of the event and challenging the joint fantasising posts. As a result, additional categories emerge, thereby constructing category relations, namely, oppositional categories such as ‘fantasisers’-‘the gullible’ and ‘fantasisers’-‘sceptics’. This in situ change, I argue, creates a shift in the pragmatic function of joint fantasising, moving from a category-implicative action (serving entertainment) to a category-relations-implicative action (serving jocular criticism). This paper adds to the research on joint fantasising, categorial work and social action, and broadly contributes to our understanding of how members of the society orient to contexts and categories in and through talk-in-interaction.

Keywords: multimodal joint fantasising, intersubjectivity, category-implicative action, category relations, interactional pragmatics, membership categorisation analysis, online multi-party interaction
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Joint fantasising
  • 3.Data and methods
    • 3.1Methodological approaches to data analysis and the key analytical concepts
  • 4.Multimodal joint fantasising, categories and (un)accomplished intersubjectivity
    • 4.1Joint fantasising as a category-implicative action: A case of entertainment
      • 4.1.1Flat co-construction gradient
      • 4.1.2Upgraded co-construction gradient
    • 4.2Joint fantasising as a category-relations-implicative action: A case of jocular criticism
      • 4.2.1Metapragmatic labelling of ‘doing humour’
      • 4.2.2Treating the event as real
      • 4.2.3Doubting the event authenticity/challenging joint fantasising
  • 5.Concluding remarks: Multimodal joint fantasising, categories and social action
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at [email protected].

Published online: 28 May 2024
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ip.00110.sin
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