Aligning Actions: Types and Social Distribution*

Hunter, Christopher

doi:10.1525/si.1984.7.2.155

Cited by 27 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 66 publications

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“…Building on Scott and Lyman's (1968) notion of accounts, Wagner (1980) developed the concept of dismissals, which refers to instances when individuals and institutions defend themselves by dismissing the attack and the attackers (or challenge and challengers). As Hunter (1984: 160) adds, “Dismissals do not challenge the inappropriateness of the act itself” but “challenge the real or imagined challenge to the inappropriate act.” Here, I replace “dismissal” with “rejection of challenge,” which I define as a justification for the rejection of the challenge or challenger. I found that RAs use three ways to reject the challenge.…”

Section: Public Accountsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Public Accounts: Defending Contested Practices

Silva

2007

Symbolic Interaction

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Little attention has been paid to how actors account for controversial institutional conduct or contested practices. Relying on a content analysis of letters to the editor, I explore how actors operating in the Habermasian “public sphere” justify the contested practice of linking Native American symbols with sports teams, and suggest that in their rejection of challengers to their definitions of the situation, authors create public accounts. Consisting primarily of justifications rather than excuses, these accounts are of four types: “denial of injury,” “assertion of benefit,” “claim of authority,” and “rejection of challenge.” For those who wish to conduct comparative analyses of contested practices, these concepts may prove useful.

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Section: Public Accountsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Public Accounts: Defending Contested Practices

Silva

2007

Symbolic Interaction

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“…As Goffman () and other scholars (e.g., Hunter ; Scott and Lyman ; Stokes and Hewitt ) have shown, individuals have a variety of tools and strategies at their disposal to accomplish protective face‐work. One such tool—and the one most important for the present analysis—is “accounts.” According to Scott and Lyman (), an account is an argument individuals construct to mitigate or neutralize the impact face‐threatening conduct has on individuals’ faces.…”

Section: Face‐work Theodicy and Saving Imagined Others' Facesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As Goffman (1967) and other scholars (e.g., Hunter 1984;Scott and Lyman 1968;Stokes and Hewitt 1976) have shown, individuals have a variety of tools and strategies at their disposal to accomplish protective face-work. One such tool-and the one most important for the present analysis-is "accounts."…”

Section: Face-work Theodicy and Saving Imagined Others' Facesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Monotheistic Theodicy as Imaginary Face‐Work

Sharp

2014

Sociological Forum

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In this article, I outline the cognitive process involved in accomplishing monotheistic theodicy, or the act of reconciling the belief in an omnipotent and morally perfect God with personal experiences of suffering. Based on in‐depth interviews with intimate partner violence victims, I argue that believers accomplish monotheistic theodicy by performing imaginary face‐work—or protective face‐work on the behalf of significant imagined others—that saves God's face as a morally perfect being. Believers perform this imaginary face‐work by constructing accounts that portray God as morally innocent of their suffering. These accounts fall into three main types: (1) fidelity to a higher principle, (2) ultimate benefit, and (3) shifting blame. These accounts serve as new cognitions that resolve the cognitive dissonance and concomitant negative emotions believers experience because of their suffering. Overall, the findings and analysis contribute to sociological theory by further extending the concepts of face and face‐work to imagined others.

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“…While there are many types of aligning actions (see Stokes and Hewitt and Hunter for more extensive typologies of aligning actions), there are two types of aligning actions that social actors use prayer utterances to accomplish: (1) disclaimers (Hewitt and Stokes ) and (2) accounts (Scott and Lyman ). Disclaimers, on the one hand, are speech utterances “employed in advance of an action that the person thinks may discredit him or her in the eyes of others and lead to an undesirable retypification” (Stokes and Hewitt :845).…”

Section: Prayer Utterances As Performativementioning

confidence: 99%

How to Do Things with Prayer Utterances

Sharp

2013

Symbolic Interaction

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While the social scientific study of prayer is growing, little work has investigated prayer utterances—or statements where social actors say the term “prayer” or various cognates—in everyday talk. Drawing on insights from ordinary language philosophy, I argue that prayer utterances are performative utterances that help social actors accomplish a variety of actions in social interactions. To illustrate the performative nature of prayer utterances, I describe three types of actions that prayer utterances can accomplish: (1) aligning potentially problematic or questionable conduct with cultural expectations, (2) signaling to others an intense yearning for an object or occurrence on the behalf of oneself or others, and (3) signaling to others authentic feelings of care for another person or group of people. I conclude with a discussion of the implications of the analysis.

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Aligning Actions: Types and Social Distribution*

Cited by 27 publications

References 66 publications

Public Accounts: Defending Contested Practices

Public Accounts: Defending Contested Practices

Monotheistic Theodicy as Imaginary Face‐Work

How to Do Things with Prayer Utterances

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