1.1Access claims and affiliation

The management of agreement is consequential for the solidarity between participants (Heritage and Raymond 2005Heritage, John, and Geoffrey Raymond 2005 “The Terms of Agreement: Indexing Epistemic Authority and Subordination in Assessment Sequences.” Social Psychology Quarterly 68 (1): 15–38. ). In the context of making assessments, agreement can be “operationalized” as a sequence of two assessments by two different speakers, where the second assessment is in line with the first speaker’s stance (Goodwin and Goodwin 1992Goodwin, Charles, and Goodwin, Marjorie H. 1992 “Assessments and the Construction of Context.” In Rethinking Context: Language as an Interactive Phenomenon, edited by Alessandro Duranti, and Charles Goodwin, 147–190. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.; Pomerantz 1984aPomerantz, Anita 1984a “Agreeing and Disagreeing with Assessments: Some Features of Preferred/Dispreferred Turn Shapes.” In Structures of Social Action, edited by J. Maxwell Atkinson, and John Heritage, 57–101. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.). There are several methodic ways for speakers to display that “they are ’truly’ in full agreement” (Pomerantz and Heritage 2012Pomerantz, Anita, and John Heritage 2012 “Preference.” In The Handbook of Conversation Analysis, edited by Jack Sidnell and Tanya Stivers, 210–228. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. , 214). Agreements that are to be seen as genuine are generally performed without delays and/or are upgraded by adding an intensifier to the responding turn (e.g. “A: This is great music. B: Really great”; Pomerantz 1984aPomerantz, Anita 1984a “Agreeing and Disagreeing with Assessments: Some Features of Preferred/Dispreferred Turn Shapes.” In Structures of Social Action, edited by J. Maxwell Atkinson, and John Heritage, 57–101. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.). Thus, when formulating their agreement, second speakers often engage in interactional work not to be interpreted as merely ‘going along’ with the first speaker, without there being a genuine stance behind the utterance (Heritage 2002Heritage, John 2002 “Oh-Prefaced Responses to Assessments: A Method of Modifying Agreement/Disagreement.” In The Language of Turn and Sequence, edited by Cecilia E. Ford, Barbara A. Fox, and Sandra A. Thompson, 196–224. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.; Pomerantz and Heritage 2012Pomerantz, Anita, and John Heritage 2012 “Preference.” In The Handbook of Conversation Analysis, edited by Jack Sidnell and Tanya Stivers, 210–228. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. ; Stivers 2005Stivers, Tanya 2005 “Modified Repeats: One Method for Asserting Primary Rights from Second Position.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 38 (2): 131–158. ).

A crucial thing the second speaker must deal with concerns the first speaker’s inherent epistemic primacy (Heritage and Raymond 2005Heritage, John, and Geoffrey Raymond 2005 “The Terms of Agreement: Indexing Epistemic Authority and Subordination in Assessment Sequences.” Social Psychology Quarterly 68 (1): 15–38. ). One of the resources that second speakers use in these circumstances is oh-prefacing, which is “a method persons use to index the independence of their access and/or judgment in relation to the state of affairs under evaluation” (Heritage 2002Heritage, John 2002 “Oh-Prefaced Responses to Assessments: A Method of Modifying Agreement/Disagreement.” In The Language of Turn and Sequence, edited by Cecilia E. Ford, Barbara A. Fox, and Sandra A. Thompson, 196–224. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press., 204). In Finnish, a similar phenomenon has been studied by Sorjonen and Hakulinen (2009)Sorjonen, Marja-Leena, and Auli Hakulinen 2009 “Alternative Responses to Assessments.” In Conversation Analysis: Comparative Perspectives, edited by Jack Sidnell, 280–300. Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society (SKS). , who found that by responding to an assessment (e.g. se mekko on hieno “that dress is great”) in subject-verb order (se on “it is”), the second speaker both asserts agreement and implies the independence of their stance (agreeing and confirming; Sorjonen and Hakulinen 2009Sorjonen, Marja-Leena, and Auli Hakulinen 2009 “Alternative Responses to Assessments.” In Conversation Analysis: Comparative Perspectives, edited by Jack Sidnell, 280–300. Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society (SKS). ). The function of the Finnish subject-verb response comes very close to that of the partial modified repeats in English, which Stivers (2005)Stivers, Tanya 2005 “Modified Repeats: One Method for Asserting Primary Rights from Second Position.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 38 (2): 131–158. has argued are linked with the display of independent epistemic stance. Displaying independent stance in second assessments is one of the resources with which recipients can “assert stronger affiliation precisely by asserting more agency over their response” (Stivers, Mondada, and Steensig 2011Stivers, Tanya, Lorenza Mondada, and Jacob Steensig 2011 “Knowledge, Morality, and Affiliation in Social Interaction.” In The Morality of Knowledge in Conversation, edited by Tanya Stivers, Lorenza Mondada, and Jacob Steensig, 3–24. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. , 22).

When the first speaker describes their own personal experience, the situation becomes more complex. Tellings of personal, first-hand experience usually invite others to produce something similar to agreeing second assessments – namely, an evaluation which affirms the meaning and nature of the experience and in this way affiliates with the tellers’ stance towards the experiences (Heritage 2011Heritage, John 2011 “Territories of Knowledge, Territories of Experience: Empathic Moments in Interaction.” In The Morality of Knowledge in Conversation, edited by Tanya Stivers, Lorenza Mondada, and Jacob Steensig, 159–183. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ; Stivers 2008Stivers, Tanya 2008 “Stance, Alignment, and Affiliation during Storytelling: When Nodding is a Token of Affiliation.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 41 (1): 31–57. ). However, the problem here is that the recipients often lack the specific experiences described by tellers and therefore also the epistemic rights to claim access to them. Heritage (2011)Heritage, John 2011 “Territories of Knowledge, Territories of Experience: Empathic Moments in Interaction.” In The Morality of Knowledge in Conversation, edited by Tanya Stivers, Lorenza Mondada, and Jacob Steensig, 159–183. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. has described some of the resources that are available for recipients under these circumstances. For example, by using so-called subjunctive assessments, the recipients can enter provisionally into the other’s experience (e.g. “this sounds so good”). With so-called observer responses the recipients can place themselves as imaginary witnesses to the experiences described by tellers (e.g. “I wish I could’ve seen his face”). Finally, with parallel assessments the recipients display agreement with the teller by describing a similar, but de-particularized, experience (Heritage 2011Heritage, John 2011 “Territories of Knowledge, Territories of Experience: Empathic Moments in Interaction.” In The Morality of Knowledge in Conversation, edited by Tanya Stivers, Lorenza Mondada, and Jacob Steensig, 159–183. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. , 168–171). In addition to all this, extra caution is needed in situations where the recipients have in fact encountered similar experiences as the tellers: a recipient’s display of independent access to the teller’s experience may strengthen the endorsement of the affective stance, but it runs the risk of appropriating the teller’s experience (Heritage 2011Heritage, John 2011 “Territories of Knowledge, Territories of Experience: Empathic Moments in Interaction.” In The Morality of Knowledge in Conversation, edited by Tanya Stivers, Lorenza Mondada, and Jacob Steensig, 159–183. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ; Raymond and Heritage 2006Raymond, Geoffrey, and John Heritage 2006 “The Epistemics of Social Relations: Owning Grandchildren.” Language in Society 35 (5): 677–705. ).

Hence, the studies above have suggested that second speakers’ upgraded epistemic stances serve as a resource of affiliation. At the same time, however, we see that sometimes these second speakers’ epistemic stances can also be too strong to be fully affiliative. Thus, the careful fine-tuning of the strength of the access claim is an important part of the affiliative reception of tellings of personal experiences.

1.2Generalizations and affiliation

Now we turn to another important resource that recipients of tellings of personal experiences can turn to in order to achieve affiliation with the teller. This aspect was implicitly present in the consideration of access claims described above. As stated earlier, with a parallel assessment “the recipient affiliates with the teller by describing a similar experience but in a de-particularized manner” (Heritage 2011Heritage, John 2011 “Territories of Knowledge, Territories of Experience: Empathic Moments in Interaction.” In The Morality of Knowledge in Conversation, edited by Tanya Stivers, Lorenza Mondada, and Jacob Steensig, 159–183. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. , 168–169). These assessments may take the form of “my side” assessments that support the first speaker’s stance, without attempting to enter directly into the experience that is reported (e.g. “I have always liked to do X”). These assessments may also involve a component of impersonal generalization that links the teller’s experience to a series of analogous experiences by many people (e.g. “she can be rude”; Edwards and Fasulo 2006Edwards, Derek, and Alessandra Fasulo 2006 “ ‘To Be Honest:’ Sequential Uses of Honesty Phrases in Talk-in-Interaction.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 39 (4): 343–376. , 357). These kinds of generalizing actions allow recipients to make stance-congruent assessments without stepping into the teller’s epistemic domain (Couper-Kuhlen 2012Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth 2012 “Exploring Affiliation in the Reception of Conversational Complaint Stories.” In Emotion in Interaction, edited by Anssi Peräkylä, and Marja-Leena Sorjonen, 113–146. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. , 124). Thus, generalizations are a valuable resource for recipients of tellings in their attempts to achieve affiliation with the teller. It is also the case that the tellers themselves might facilitate the recipient’s production of affiliative agreement by bringing the description of the story to a more generalized level at the end of the telling (Drew and Holt 1998Drew, Paul, and Elizabeth Holt 1998 “Figures of Speech: Idiomatic Expressions and the Management of Topic Transition in Conversation.” Language in Society 27 (4): 495–522. ; Goodwin and Goodwin 1992Goodwin, Charles, and Goodwin, Marjorie H. 1992 “Assessments and the Construction of Context.” In Rethinking Context: Language as an Interactive Phenomenon, edited by Alessandro Duranti, and Charles Goodwin, 147–190. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.; Holt and Drew 1995Holt, Elizabeth, and Paul Drew 1995 “Idiomatic Expressions and Their Role in the Organization of Topic Transition in Conversation.” In: Idioms: Structural and Psychological Perspectives, 1st ed., edited by Martin Everaert, Erik-Jan van der Linden, André Schenk, and Rob Schreuder, 117–131. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.; Jefferson 1984Jefferson, Gail 1984 “On Stepwise Transition from Talk about a Trouble to Inappropriately Next-Positioned Matters.” In Structures of Social Action, edited by John Maxwell Atkinson, and John Heritage, 191–222. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.).

However, similarly to what was previously stated with reference to access claims, making generalizations can also go too far: when recipients generalize to other, similar occasions, their responses can disattend the specifics of the previous telling and run the risk of being heard as flat or pro forma (Heritage 2011Heritage, John 2011 “Territories of Knowledge, Territories of Experience: Empathic Moments in Interaction.” In The Morality of Knowledge in Conversation, edited by Tanya Stivers, Lorenza Mondada, and Jacob Steensig, 159–183. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ; see also Couper-Kuhlen and Selting 2018Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth and Margret Selting 2018 “A “Big Package”: Storytelling.” In Interactional Linguistics: Studying Language in Social Interaction. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Online chapter retrieved 20.5.2021 from https://​www​.cambridge​.org​/files​/2615​/1497​/6102​/Online​-Chapter​_D​.pdf, 31). The fine-tuning of the optimal degree of generalization also requires an understanding of the kinds of experiences that the participants can assume to be shared (the generalizability of the event), based on their local interactional history or socio-cultural ‘common knowledge.’

In sum, in order to achieve affiliation, recipients of tellings must calibrate both the strength of access claim and the degree of generalization. We refer to the act of fine-tuning these two dimensions of responsive utterances as epistemic calibration (see Figure 1).

Access claims and generalizations are also mutually linked, since generalizing actions allow the recipient more independent access to the described events. Drawing on a dataset of Finnish quasi-natural conversations with neurotypical participants and participants diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, we explore recipients’ practices of calibrating the strength of their access claim and the degree of generalization. Our focus is especially on the different challenges that recipients sometimes face in the calibration of their responses, which, we argue, play an important role in influencing the hearing of these responses as less than fully affiliative.

1.3Autism spectrum disorder, affiliation, and epistemics

Normative expectations of epistemic calibration, and the specific interactional work and competencies that it requires, is a challenging topic to study due to the subtlety of the phenomenon as a whole. Epistemic calibration is usually done “below the surface” and thus often escapes explicit appeals to accountability. Therefore, it can be argued, looking at interactions with participants diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) might offer valuable insights into the norms relating to epistemic calibration and also bring to light the subtle competencies required in it (cf. Maynard 2019Maynard, Douglas W. 2019 “Why Social Psychology Needs Autism and Why Autism Needs Social Psychology: Forensic and Clinical Considerations.” Social Psychology Quarterly 82 (1): 5–30. ). In 2013, Asperger syndrome (AS) was merged into the diagnostic category of ASD (American Psychiatric Association 2013American Psychiatric Association 2013 Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed.). Washington, DC: Author. ). The main diagnostic criteria for ASD are (1) difficulties with social interaction, and (2) restricted and repetitive patterns of behaviors, activities or interests. Especially relevant for the ideas in this paper are findings regarding ASD’s connection to the management of epistemics and affiliation in interaction: Previous research has indicated that persons with ASD can have challenges in Theory of Mind, i.e. considering the co-interactants’ knowledge and perspective (Baron-Cohen 1995Baron-Cohen, Simon 1995 Mindblindness: An Essay on Autism and Theory of Mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. ; Happé 1991Happé, Francesca 1991 “The Autobiographical Writings of Three Asperger Syndrome Adults: Problems of Interpretation and Implication Theory.” In Autism and Asperger Syndrome, edited by Uta Frith, 207–242. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ; see also Ochs and Solomon 2005Ochs, Elinor, and Olga Solomon 2005 “Practical Logic and Autism.” In A Companion to Psychological Anthropology: Modernity and Psycho-Cultural Change, edited by Robert B. Edgerton, and Conerly Casey, 140–167. Oxford, UK: Blackwell. ) and trouble in comprehending the socio-emotional meaning of stories (e.g. Happé 1994Happé, Francesca 1994 “An Advanced Test of Theory of Mind: Understanding of Story Characters’ Thoughts and Feelings by Able Autistic, Mentally Handicapped and Normal Children and Adults.” Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 24: 129–154. ) – both crucial for displaying affiliation with the teller’s stance. These challenges, however, might be due to atypical ways of expressing affect instead of clearly defined deficits in Theory of Mind (see Belmonte 2008Belmonte, Matthew K. 2008 “Does the Experimental Scientist Have a “Theory of Mind”?” Review of General Psychology 12 (2): 192–204. ). In light of these earlier findings, it is possible that analyzing actual, turn-by-turn unfolding telling sequences with participants with and without ASD could provide us with more variation in epistemic calibration patterns, which, in turn, can increase our grasp of the normative orientations to these patterns.

3.1Epistemic calibration: Fine-tuning the strength of access claim

In Example 1 the teller (T) describes the experience of how he finally got accepted to the university after several years of trying. The recipient (R) produces affiliative responses throughout the telling and displays agreement with a strong access claim in line 9.

01  T:   kesällä ku tuli kirje ni se oli niin .h 
         in the summer when the letter came it was so .h
02  R:   no[ni?
         alright?

03  T:     [ihanaa >niiku< (0.6) kolme vuotta oli hakenu sillee, (0.8) 
            lovely >like< (0.6) had applied for three years like, (0.8)

04       yliopistoon yleensäkki [ni, (0.5) sitku se vihmoi- viimeinki
         to the university in general so, (0.5) when it fin- finally

05  R:                          [joo.
                                 yes.

06  T:   tuli se kirje ni. °°.hh [jee°° 
         came the letter so. .hh yess ((makes a fist bump in the air))

07  R:                           [niinpä?
                                  I know?

08  T:   ihanaa. 
         lovely. ((with a breathy voice)) 

09  → R: no kyl o.
         PRT PRT BE.3SG
         well indeed [it] is.

10       (2.5)

In line 6, T uses something resembling direct reported speech when he quotes himself saying “yes” while receiving the acceptance letter and also imitates his celebratory gesture. In this way, T can be seen to bring R to the “brink of the action” (Heritage 2011Heritage, John 2011 “Territories of Knowledge, Territories of Experience: Empathic Moments in Interaction.” In The Morality of Knowledge in Conversation, edited by Tanya Stivers, Lorenza Mondada, and Jacob Steensig, 159–183. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. , 177) and allows him more access to the described events. At this point R indeed displays access with his supportive turn in line 7 (niinpä “I know”). In line 8, T makes a summarizing evaluation of the experience with the assessment term “lovely,” which R agrees with in line 9 (no kyl o “well indeed it is”). T’s assessment is not formulated in a way that it would refer only to his own experience (e.g. “it was lovely”), so again, T can be seen to offer epistemic access of the evaluation to the recipient. The Finnish discource particle kyl in R’s response adds an additional epistemic element to the response, for kyl(lä) can convey a stance to a state of affairs as belonging to common experience or general knowledge (Hakulinen 2001bHakulinen, Auli 2001b “On Some Uses of the Discourse Particle ‘kyl(lä)’ in Finnish Conversations.” In Studies in Interactional Linguistics, edited by Margret Selting, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, 171–198. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. ). Thus, R makes a strong access claim displaying agreement with the affective stance of T’s telling, which brings the telling sequence to a close. What is also revealed in the discussion a short while later, is that R himself has got into the study track he wanted:

55  R:  mä ↑ite alotin koulun kans, (0.4) (to)taa, (0.6) pu:oltoist 
        I myself started school also, (0.4), like, (0.6) a year and 

56      vuotta sitte,
        a half ago,

57  T:  ↑missä päi.=
         where at.=

58  R:  =seki oli, (0.9) mä oon tuo:l, (0.3) tai mä opiskelen 
        =it also was, (0.9) I am, (0.3) or I am studying to become
59      röntgenhoitajaks nyt tuol-la (0.6) Myllypurossa. 
        a radiographer now at (0.6) Myllypuro.

60  T:  ↑joojoo.
         yesyes.

61      (1.8) ((T and R both nod and gaze at each other))

62  R:  se o:n kans ollu, (0.3) tosi jees, (0.3) pääs, (0.8) sitä mitä
        it has also been, (0.3) really nice, (0.3) (I) got to, (0.8) study 

63      haluu ni opiskelee.
        what I wanted.

64  T:  ↑mm. 
         mm.

65      (1.4)

Since T originally described the experience in a way that allowed R access to the events and, as the extract above demonstrates, R also shares the experience with T, the strong access claim is very much in line with R’s epistemic status in relation to the teller.

Example 2 further illuminates the process of epistemic calibration as fine-tuning the strength of the access claim in relation to the participants’ epistemic statuses. The example is from the same discussion as Example 1. Here the teller (T, the same participant as in the previous example) describes a break-up with his girlfriend, which happened sometime after he had got back from military service. The recipient (R) again displays agreement with the stance of the telling with a strong access claim, but subsequently alters it to a more tentative, subjunctive assessment.

01   T:   ni mua niinku se, (.) senki jälkee oli >sillee niinku.< (0.7) 
          so it like, (.) after that (I) was like. (0.7)

02        @mikä maa mikä valuutta@ eiks mun £tarviikaa lähtee takas niinku 
          @what country which currency@ don’t I have to go back like11.“What country which currency” / Mikä maa mikä valuutta is a Finnish idiom referring to the state of being confused.

03        kassulle e[nää£ >sillee (jo)ku< ↑kak[s kuukautta sen jälkee,
          to the barracks anymore >like< two months after that,
                                       ↑_________________________↑ 
                                        ((T lifts his hand)) 

04   R:             [nii,                [niinpä, 
                     yeah,                I know, 

05        (0.7) ((T & R gaze at each other, R smiles weakly))

06   R:   [joo.
           yes.

07   T:   [ni siin, (.) kesti jonku aikaa totutella, (0.3)
           so that (.) it took some time to get used to,

           sit niinku, (0.8) eros tyttöystävästä jossai vaiheessa ja,
           then like, (0.8) (I) broke up with my girlfriend at some point and,

09        (0.6)

10   R:   joo.
          yes.

11        (0.7) ((R is nodding))

12   T:   se oli kyl, (.) niinku, (0.7) suht paskaa aikaa?
          it was indeed, (.) like, (0.7) quite a crappy time?

13        (0.8)

14   →  R: no se o joo vo- (.) in (.) uskoa.
          PRT it be PRT I+can believe-INF
          it is yeah I- (.) can (.) believe [it].

15        (0.6)

16   T:   siin menee ↑aina sillee, (0.8) joku, (0.3) kuukaus (0.3) pari et 
          it always takes like, (0.8) some, (0.3) a month (0.3) or two that

17        niinku, (1.0) pääsee siit fiiliksest[ä et niinku et,
          like, (1.0) for the feelings to pass away like,

18   R:                                       [mm,
                                               mm, 
19        (1.1)

20   R:   no kyl sii ↑ite kans joskus, (0.3) no siit on jo aikaa mut, 
       well indeed I have also sometimes, (0.3) well it was a while back but,

21        (0.8) [oli pitkää ollu, (0.6) sama tytön kaa niinku, 
         (0.8) had been together a long time, (0.6) with the same girl like,

22   T:         [.nff 

[SECOND STORY CONTINUES]

The teller (T) makes a “summary assessment” (Jefferson 1984Jefferson, Gail 1984 “On Stepwise Transition from Talk about a Trouble to Inappropriately Next-Positioned Matters.” In Structures of Social Action, edited by John Maxwell Atkinson, and John Heritage, 191–222. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press., 211) inviting recipient uptake (“it was indeed like quite a crappy time,” line 12) to which R displays strong agreement (“it is yeah,” line 14). However, R then alters his response by transforming the agreeing turn “it is yeah” to a more subjunctive assessment “I can believe it.” This can be seen as a case of self-repair, which exposes or brings to the surface (cf. Drew, Walker, and Ogden 2013Drew, Paul, Traci Walker, and Richard Ogden 2013 “Self-Repair and Action Construction.” In Conversational Repair and Human Understanding (Studies in Interactional Sociolinguistics), edited by Makoto Hayashi, Geoffrey Raymond, and Jack Sidnell, 71–94. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.) the work of epistemic calibration. Even though R shares the experience of military service with T, and also the experience of a break-up (both of these are revealed later in the discussion), here the teller is specifically evaluating a particular, difficult and “crappy” time period in his own life, which the recipient does not have access to. Here, we argue, R at first claims a position that can be considered too strong to suit his real-world epistemic status in relation to the teller: orienting to this miscalibration, R fine-tunes his access claim online to be in accord with his epistemic status. Here, R chose to use a more qualified access claim, which focused more on the teller’s particular experience, while the route of generalization would have allowed a more independent epistemic stance.

3.2Epistemic calibration: Fine-tuning the degree of generalization

Now we turn to the other dimension of epistemic calibration: the degree of generalization. Here the teller (T) tells a story about his grandmother, who has Alzheimer’s disease. He describes an incident where his grandmother mistook her son (T’s father) to be her late husband. The recipient (R) responds to the telling in line 13.

01   T:   isän ↑äidillä se oli sitte pahempana niinku se alzhaimeri jo että 
          father’s mother had it worse I mean the Alzheimer already that

02        sielt tuli vähä jo näitä, (.) .hhh näitä näitä, hhh (.) mite 
          there was already these, (.) .hhh these these, hhh (.) how 

03        sanois niinku, (0.3) vois sanoo tämmösii, (0.2) pahallaatusen 
          would one say like, (0.3) one could say these (0.2) seriously 

04        dementikon, (.) hömppä (.) puheita ja muita ja,
          demented person’s (.) nonsense (.) talk and so on and,

05        .hh (.) [että] 
          .hh (.) so 

06   R:           [joo.]
                   yeah.

07   T:   tota, (.) kuvitellaa esimerkiks, (.) m- kuvitteli, (.) isääni 
          that, (.) one imagines for example,(.)[she] imagined (.) my dad

08        elikkä, (.) poikaansan ni, (.) häne mieheksee ja. 
          who is, (.) her son so, (.) to be her husband and.
 
09        (0.3) ((T gazes at R; R nods))

10        joka oli kuollu et sitte et tämmöstä niiku, (.)(monenlaist)
          who was dead so this kind of thing like,   (.)  (all kinds)

12        .hh ne o aika surullisii kyllä sillo et.
          .hh they are really rather sad [situations] then.

13   → R: onha ne kyllä.
          be-3SG-CLI dem3.pl prt
          they are yes.

14   T:   mm,
          mm,

15   R:   et siin mieles sitä vois, (0.2) vois sanoo että toivois aina et 
          in that sense (one) could,(0.2) (one) could say that one always hopes

16        se tapahtus sillee niinku suht, (0.2) nopeesti
          that it would happen like quite, (0.2) quickly

T’s description of his grandmother’s dementia includes many hesitations, hitches and reformulations (lines 2–5) that display some awkwardness concerning the topic. In line 7, T begins his turn with a general passive verb form (kuvitellaan “one imagines”) but changes to an active imperfect verb form (kuvitteli “[she] imagined”), now clearly referring to his own grandmother. There is a slot for recipient uptake (line 9), when T first describes his grandmother’s confusion, but R withholds a verbal response at this point. Then T continues by stating that the error was more severe, for her husband was actually dead (line 10). Next, T moves to a more general perspective by using a plural form and assesses the type of experiences: “they are really quite sad [situations] then so” (line 12). R agrees with the generalized assessment (onha ne kyllä “they are yes,” line 13). Importantly, he uses the Finnish -han clitic, which implies that the subject matter is shared knowledge or a “general truth” (Hakulinen 2001a [1976]Hakulinen, Auli 2001a [1976] “Liitepartikkelin -han/-hän syntaksia ja pragmatiikkaa. [Syntax and pragmatics of the clitic –han/hän].” In Lukemisto – kirjoituksia kolmelta vuosikymmeneltä, edited by Lea Laitinen, Pirkko Nuolijärvi, Marja-Leena Sorjonen, and Maria Vilkuna, 44–90. Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society (SKS).), thus indicating an epistemically independent position on the matter.

R’s response could easily be characterized as “flat” or “pro forma” (cf. Heritage 2011Heritage, John 2011 “Territories of Knowledge, Territories of Experience: Empathic Moments in Interaction.” In The Morality of Knowledge in Conversation, edited by Tanya Stivers, Lorenza Mondada, and Jacob Steensig, 159–183. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ), as the response orients to the experience as common and somewhat apparent (note: the -han clitic). Importantly, however, R’s response is facilitated by the teller’s own generalization in line 12 (the move to plural form). Another important factor is what happens next: after T responds to the agreement minimally (line 14), R elaborates on his reception turn (lines 15–16). In his elaboration, he continues the general perspective by stating that one always hopes that one’s death would happen quickly. The use of “always” highlights the general perspective, but the elaboration also gives some more substance and detail to his earlier response. Here, even though R can be considered to be somewhat inattentive to the particulars of T’s experience, his generalized reception turn (in line 13) is facilitated by the teller and it displays agreement with the stance of the telling (formulated by T himself in line 12).

Example 4 further illuminates the process of epistemic calibration regarding the fine-tuning of the degree of generalization. Here the recipient (R) makes very explicit and observable work in generalizing the teller’s experience. The teller (T) has been describing his time in evening high school, which was not enjoyable in any way. He concludes with the assessment “didn’t like feel at all at home there at that place” (line 16).

01   T:   ja ku mä kävin iltalukioo.=se oli aika masentavaa s[iinä mielessä ku,] 
          and as I went to evening high school=it was quite depressing when,

02   R:                                                      [hyi että.      ]
                                                             [ew.            ] 

03        (0.2) joo,
          (0.2) yes, 

04   T:   tosiaanki, (0.5) ↑o:ppitunnit <alkaa> tossa no:in (0.5) <vii:eltä> ja 
          indeed, (0.5) the lessons start about (0.5) five pm and 

05        sitte, (0.8) ne k- hh kestää tohon noin (.) ↑kaheksaa saakka ↑illalla, 
          then,(0.8) they l- last until about (.) eight o’clock at night, 

06        (.) >aina ku< (.) pääsee sielt ↑kotii niin on ↑pimeetä. 
          (.) >always when< (.) one gets home from there it is dark.

07   R:   joo,
          yes, 

08   T:   ja sitku se ↑alue oli viel, (.) #osittai jopa aika masentavaa
          and then the area was also, (.) partly even quite depressing

09        että siel ei ollu niinku ollenkaa kiva käyä ihan sen takii?#
          that it wasn’t like nice to go there at all because of that?

10   R:   nii just,
          right yes,

11   T:   sitku, (0.5) mä olin, (0.3) nh tyylii yksii harvoi niinku, (.)
          and, (0.5) I was, (.) nh like one of the few like, (.)

12        ↑mun ikäsist opiskelijoist siellä.
           students of my age there.

13   R:   mm,
          mm,

14   T:   ja: (0.4) suurin osa oli (.) iha reippaasti vanhempia. 
          and: (0.4) most of them where much older. 

15        (0.3)

16   T:   [ni ei siel] niinku, (0.3) mhh ei niinku tuntunu ollenkaa kotosalta
          so it wasn’t like, (0.3) mhh didn’t like feel at all at home

17   R:   [okei,     ] 
          okay,

18   T:   se mesta.
          at that place.


19   → R: joo, (0.7) mm, (0.5) ↑joo tommone (0.5) il-,(.) ilta kautta yö- yötyöt 
          yes                  yes DEM2.SG DEM.2SG.ADJ evening or night+work
          yes, (0.4) mm, (0.5) yes that kind of ev-, (.) evening or night work 

20        nii. (0.4) tai ni, (.) työt ylipäätää työ ku työ ni, (0.5) niin nii, 
          so. (0.4) or I mean, (.) work in general whatever work, (0.5) so so, 

21        (.) on kyllä, (.) masentavaa puuhaa? (.) [tota,] (.)
          (.) really is, (.) depressing stuff (.) like,

22   T:                                            [mm-m?]
                                                    mm-m?

23   R:   ite, (.) ite tota, (0.5) lukion jälkeen olin, (.) olin
          I myself, (.) myself like, (0.5) after high school I was, (.) I was 

24        (.) puol vuotta enne armeijaa niin, (0.7) 
          (.) six months before the military service, (0.7) 

[SECOND STORY CONTINUES]

T’s final assessment is a description of the particular place where he was studying (“didn’t like feel at all at home at that place,” line 16). R responds with a generalizing turn “yes that kind of evening or night work so…” At this point, however, he seems to be faced with some trouble. T was talking about evening school, whereas R makes a generalization to working during the evening, which could be considered quite a big leap that perhaps does not relate to T’s experience anymore. Thus, R begins a repair, “or I mean work in general, whatever work so.” With this turn, he is making it clearer that he refers to all work that has to be done during the evening, including T’s experience of attending school. R then makes an independent assessment of evening work as “depressing stuff” (line 21), which mirrors T’s evaluation of his experience (“it was quite depressing,” line 1; “partly even quite depressing,” line 8). R’s assessment works as a preface to his own “second story” (Sacks 1992Sacks, Harvey 1992 Lectures on Conversation, volumes I & II (edited by G. Jefferson). Cambridge, UK: Blackwell.) that he begins in line 23. The second story concerns a six-month time period in R’s life when he was working during the evenings. Here, R picks up on the main focus of T’s telling and produces a generalization concerning the affective stance, which allows him to make a parallel assessment (cf. Heritage 2011Heritage, John 2011 “Territories of Knowledge, Territories of Experience: Empathic Moments in Interaction.” In The Morality of Knowledge in Conversation, edited by Tanya Stivers, Lorenza Mondada, and Jacob Steensig, 159–183. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ) or an independent evaluation that endorses that stance, while the other route would have been to use a more subjunctive (i.e. “that must’ve been depressing”) assessment.

Now, based on the examples above, we can update the picture we presented earlier on epistemic calibration by including two additional aspects or dimensions into the mix: the real-world epistemic statuses of the participants, and the focus (affective stance) of the telling, which are deeply related to the access claims and generalizations of the recipients, respectively.

In the next section, we demonstrate how the two additional dimensions of ‘epistemic status’ and ‘focus of the telling’ can become critical, as we show two examples where the tellers do not treat the recipients’ responses as affiliative.

3.3Epistemic miscalibrations

In this final section we examine two cases where the tellers do not treat the reception turns as affiliative. In Example 5, the teller (T) describes one of the biggest losses in his life: his father’s death, which came as a complete surprise to him. At the end of the telling he turns to the “bright side” (cf. Holt 1993Holt, Elizabeth 1993 “The Structure of Death Announcements: Looking on the Bright Side of Death.“ Text 13 (2): 189–212.) and states that the experience has made him stronger (lines 13–16). The recipient (R) makes a strong access claim (similarly to Example 1) in line 18.

01   T:   ilman et ei ollu @mitää@ sairaut tai @mitään@. (.) ni se et 
          without having @any@ sickness or @anything@. (.) so when
                          ↑______↑           ↑________↑
                          ((T waves his hand twice.))

02        toine vaa kualee pois nii .hh et, (.) sä et >tiedätsää<
          one just dies so .hh that,        (.) you don’t >you know< 
                   ↑___↑ 
                ((T waves 
                 his hand.)) 

03        (0.3)((T does an ‘inviting’ circle motion with his hand;
                R keeps his forefinger in his mouth and looks up))

04        .hh emmäen ↑tiijätoisaalt et, (.) #ä:# (.) olisko se 
          .hh i don’t know on the other hand that, (.) #um# (.) would

05        sit ollu helpompaa et ois ollu joku sairaus mut se tuli, .hh
          it have been easier if had been some sickness but it came, .hh

06        niin yllättäen et, (.) et se sillon ainaki tuntu, (.) tu[ntu
          so suddenly that, (.) that it at least then felt, (.) felt

07   R:                                                           [m:;
                                                                   m: 

08   T:  pahalta mut, .hh nyt o aika hyvin nii, (.) ko, (.) aika 
         bad but, .hh now (I) have quite well so, (.) like (.) time

09        just parantaa ↑haavat niinko itekki sanoit ni on,
          just heals the wounds like you said so (I) have,
10   R:   .hh[hhhhhh ( 

11   T:      [päässy: (.) hyvin yl[i siit, (.) ↑asiasta ja, (.) °.hh°
              gotten (.) well over the (.) matter and, (.) .hh

12   R:                           [↑m,
                                    m

13   T:  se on enemmän (.) ↑enemmänki toiminu just niinku vahvistavana
         it has been more (.) more like a strenghtening 

14        tek[ijänä ku et (.) #et se#, (.) vaivais niinku
          factor than that (.) #that it# (.) would bother me like

15   R:      [m:h.
              m:h

16   T:   enti@sest[(h)ää@,
          still

17   → R:          [mm. (0.2) °m° joo ↑n:, (0.3) on (.) onhan se. (.) 
                                   yes        be-3SG  be-3SG-CLI DEM3.SG 
                    mm. (0.2)  m   yes     (0.3) it is (.) it is. (.)
                             ↑__________________________________↑
                        ((T is nodding, glancing away and then looking at R))

18        .hh[hhh onhan se tottakai tollee ett(h)ä. (1.2)
            be-3SG-CLI DEM3.SG of+course dem2.sg.man prt
           .hhhhh it is of course like that so. (1.2) 
                          ↑_________________________↑

19   T:      [mm.         ((T ’freezes’, looking at R))
              mm.

20   R:   .mt (.) että tota, (0.2) .hh mä, (.) ↑mä usein oon semmosella 
           .mt (.) that like (0.2) .hh I’m (.) I often have that kind of 
            ↑______________↑                   ↑______________↑
          ((T stays immobile))                 ((T looks away))

21        elämänasenteella liiken[teessä ku mä mietin (.) aina
          attitude towards life that when I think (.) every once
           ↑_____________↑
           ((T covers his mouth, stroking his nose))

22   T:                          [mm. ((T purses his lips))
                                  mm.

23   R:  välillä °n° noit(h)a .hh kuolemia että nythän, (.) tosta(.)
          in a while those deaths that now, (.) from (.)

24        khmr .mt meijän naapurintäti kuoli tossa[ #y::ö::::# kaks
          krhm .ch our lady next door died about #um# two 

25   T:                                           [mm.
                                                   mm.

26   R:   viikkoo sitte itteasi’s mut hän oli jo aika iäkäs ja vanha 
          weeks ago as a matter of fact but she was already quite old

[[10 lines omitted about the death of the neighbour]]

37   T:   ↓mm, (0.4) .mt (.) ja(ja) huomannu just ite, 
          mm, (0.4) .tch (.) and(and) I myself have noticed,

38        (.) ↑muuttunu ehkä, (.) elämän niinko, (0.2) °.hh° (.) 
          (.) perhaps a changed, (.) outlook on life, (0.2) .hh (.)
39        katsomus sillai just et et °.hh° pyrkii niinko 
          like that that .hh (I) try to 

[TELLING BY NT CONTINUES]

In lines 1–4, T concludes his telling by stating that the experience of his father’s death has made him stronger. Here, the ending of T’s telling is not formulated as a generalized assessment in search of agreement. R, however, still displays agreement with the previous turn (“Mm. Yes. It is it is. It is of course like that so,” lines 17–18). There are linguistic elements that indicate that the recipient has an epistemically independent position on the matter, as the -hän clitic points to shared epistemic access (Hakulinen 2001a) and the use of “of course” makes the statement seem self-evident (cf. Stivers 2011Stivers, Tanya 2011 “Morality and Question Design: ‘Of Course’ as Contesting a Presupposition of Askability.” In The Morality of Knowledge in Conversation, edited by Tanya Stivers, Lorenza Mondada, and Jacob Steensig, 82–106. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ; Vatanen 2018Vatanen, Anna 2018 “Responding in Early Overlap: Recognitional Onsets in Assertion Sequences.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 51 (2): 107–126. , 108). When we look at T’s multimodal behavior, we can see that when R utters the word “of course,” T’s bodily demeanor and facial expression “freezes” and he seems to wait and see where R’s response is going. When R begins to share his own experience (lines 20–21) T looks away and covers his face, stroking his nose.

What is relevant here, we argue, is that R’s strong access claim is not unpacked after the utterance making his epistemic status clear (as in Example 1). The sudden death of one’s father is not an experience which is readily shared at this stage of life, and even though T uses some common idioms (“time heals the wounds,” line 9), T did not describe the experience in a way that would allow R access to the experience (as in Example 1). The following second story by R describing the death of his neighbor (lines 24–26) does not really mirror the affective stance of T’s telling, as the neighbor was old and in poor condition and the death was not a surprise. The second story also does not relate to the strengthening aspect of losing a close family member. All this can also be seen in T’s subsequent response: he does not treat R’s second story as relevant, since he immediately returns to his own situation and describes the change in his outlook on life (lines 37–39). His turn is and-prefaced (line 37), which marks continuity and links his turn with his prior story (cf. Heritage and Sorjonen 1994Heritage, John, and Marja-Leena Sorjonen 1994 “Constituting and Maintaining Activities across Sequences: And-Prefacing as a Feature of Question Design.” Language in Society 23 (1): 1–29. ), indicating that neither the agreeing reception turn nor the second story is treated as affiliative or sufficient for topic closure. R’s access claim was not accompanied by shared knowledge about the participants’ epistemic statuses, nor was it made clear after the utterance. This example brings forth the issue of epistemic status described in the previous section and hence the right to make strong access claims. In Example 1, the recipient had experienced the happy moment of getting into the school he wanted. In this example the recipient similarly makes a strong access claim and follows it with a second story, but his epistemic status vis à vis the teller was not in line with his access claim. In this way R’s access claim implicitly challenges the tellability of the telling or even trivializes the experience (note: the phrase “of course”), which contributes to the hearing of the response as not fully affiliative.

In this final example the recipient (R) uses generalization to achieve independent agreement (as in Example 4). T tells a story of how his girlfriend’s grandmother died of cancer. Due to a doctor’s mistake, they did not get a diagnosis for her in time for treatment.

01   T:   sitte to-[ta, (0.8) nii] siinähän ihan selvästi mä olin 
          then like, (0.8) yeah there very clearly I was

02   R:            [.hh hhh      ]

03   T:   sitä mielt kyl et se on vähän niinku,(.) hoitovirhe ja,
          of the opinion that it is kind of like, (.) a malpractice and,

04        (0.7) ((R is nodding))

05   T:   sit [tosiaa ite, (0.5) tää tapaus no hän sitte, (0.7) kuoli
          then indeed, (0.5) this incident well she then, (0.7) died

06   R:         [mm
                 mm

07   T:   tosiaa tos, (0.5) viime joskus, (0.4) keväällä et, (0.3) 
          indeed like, (0.5) around last, (0.4) spring so, (0.3)

08   R:   se mummo?
          the granny?

09   T:   joo.
          yes.

10   R:   joo, (.) [juu juu (.) (kyllähä) ] 
          yes, (.) yeah yeah (.)(indeed)   ((R is nodding))

11   T:            [et joku, (0.4) puolisen vuotta sinne meni.
                    so it took about (0.4) six months.

12        (0.6)

13   R:   juu,=
          yeah,= 

14   T:   =meni ja siel on suurinpiirtein se keskimääränen et toi, 
           =took and there it is about the average so that,

15        (0.5)

16   R:   m[m,
           mm,

17   T:    [et sitä ei pystytty leikkaa eikä mitään (ni)
             that it couldn’t be operated on or anything (so)
                                ↑_____↑
                           ((T waves his hand))

18   → R: ↓°näinhän se ↑on.° 
            PRT-CLI DEM3.SG be-3SG 
            that’s how it is.

19        se on nii [jotenki tuolla keskellä [ihan, 
          it is somehow right there in the middle


20   T:             [(joo)                   [nii, (.) 
                     (yeah)                   yeah, 

21        nii on joo,=
          it is yes,=

22   R:   =jotenki nii olennainen o[sa ihmistä se ruokatorvi     ]
          =somehow such an essential part of a human the esophagus

23   T:                            [niinpä ja siin oli se oli    ] 
                                    I know and there was it had

24        jotenki, (0.7) menny jonku ↑valtimon ympärille se kasvain 
          somehow, (0.7) gotten around some artery the tumour

25        tai jo[tain tällasta] et ei- (.) jos se ois [leikannu ni
          or something like that so not- (.) if it had been operated 

In the elaboration, the first possible closure is already in line 11 (“so it took about six months”). Here T is still talking about the specific situation of the grandmother. When R responds only minimally (“yeah,” line 13), T refers to the average course of illness (“and there it is about the average so that,” line 14) but comes back to the particular reported event (“that it couldn’t be operated or anything so,” line 17). The affective stance is embedded in T’s description of a specific experience – it is not formulated as a generalized assessment in search of agreement. At this point, however, R still displays agreement (Näinhän se on “This is how it is,” line 18) apparently with the statement that the cancer couldn’t be operated on. Again, the -hän clitic implies that the subject matter is shared knowledge or a “general truth” (Hakulinen 2001a). R continues by referring to his knowledge of the location of the esophagus (line 19), to which T displays agreement (lines 20–21). Next, R says “somehow such an essential part of a human the esophagus.” Interestingly, T starts to talk in overlap, not waiting for the transition relevance place (Sacks, Schegloff, and Jefferson 1974Sacks, Harvey, Emanuel A. Schegloff, and Gail Jefferson 1974 “A Simplest Systematics for the Organization of Turn-Taking for Conversation.” Language 50 (4): 696–735. ) and almost competing with R’s turn. T starts with niinpä, which can be translated as “I know,” which also conveys an epistemic element of competition (simultaneously with displaying agreement). After this, T goes into further detail (lines 23–25) how the specific condition of his girlfriend’s grandmother led to the terminal result. In this way he shifts the focus back from the more general perspective to his particular experience, which can be seen as a subtle way to pursue affiliation or some other, more fitted, response (Jefferson 1978Jefferson, Gail 1978 “Sequential Aspects of Storytelling in Conversation.” In Studies in the Organization of Conversational Interaction, edited by Jim Schenkein, 219–248. New York: Academic Press. ; Pomerantz 1984bPomerantz, Anita 1984b “Pursuing a Response.” In Structures of Social Action, edited by J. Maxwell Atkinson, and John Heritage, 152–163. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.). This example brings forth the issue of ‘what’ aspect of the experience to generalize. R focuses on the usual consequences of esophageal cancer and not on the affective stance of disappointment and losing someone because of malpractice conveyed in the telling. Thus, the generalization here is not facilitated by the teller himself (as in Example 3), nor is it focused on the affective stance of the telling that leads to the endorsement of that stance (as in Example 4).

To summarize this section: In Example 5, the recipient claimed an extremely strong epistemic position and followed it with a report or a second story about a similar personal experience. The second story, however, did not make his entitlement to a strong access claim regarding personal loss apparent, and so the original reception turn (“it is of course like that”) is not accounted for. Hence the recipient’s access claim, we argue, was not in line with his real-world epistemic status in relation to the teller and ended up trivializing the experience. In Example 6, the recipient used generalization to achieve affiliation. The focus of the generalization, however, was not on the emotionally salient aspects of the experience but the objective facts, and so it rather invoked an image of a doctor who has experiences of these types of tumors than a recipient of an emotionally valenced experience. In both of these examples, the tellers did not treat the recipients’ responses as affiliative and sufficient for topic closure, but continued their telling and provided additional slots for affiliation (cf. Jefferson 1978Jefferson, Gail 1978 “Sequential Aspects of Storytelling in Conversation.” In Studies in the Organization of Conversational Interaction, edited by Jim Schenkein, 219–248. New York: Academic Press. ).