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Article published In:
Pragmatics and Society
Vol. 12:3 (2021) ► pp.437–460

Sancte et sapienter

Joint fantasizing as the interactional practice of micro and macro contextual understanding

| University of Łódź | Sechenov University

The practice of joint fantasizing concerns interacting participants’ collective construction of imaginary realities with internal consistency and coherence. Based on a corpus of conversations held by an informal Italian prayer community of elderly Catholic women, this contribution aims to show that joint fantasizing is not necessarily a humorous activity and is embedded in the participants’ social and personal background. The analysis also indicates that through joint fantasizing the participants conceptualize themselves as victims and idealized opponents of the unfair present and past societies. Framing joint fantasizing as a cross-contextual activity of social criticism allows us to understand that the participants use this interactional practice as an activity endowed with moral suffering and responsibility. This rhetorical seriousness contrasts with other studies in which joint fantasies are generally connected with playful, jocular and laughable practices.

Keywords: community of practice, context, elderly women, interactional pragmatics, Italian, joint fantasizing
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical background
  • 3.Dataset, participants and context
  • 4.Data analysis
  • 5.Discussion and conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
Published online: 5 July 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.18043.ind
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