Building Solidarity through Interruption in Face-to-Face Interaction amongst Iranian Men

Abstract

This paper investigates interruptions among upper middle-class Iranian men and the way they strategize and manipulate turns in face-to-face interaction. The recordings of informal conversations of these well acquainted men were transcribed and Beattie's Interruption Model (1981) was adapted and applied as the framework of analysis. This study employed qualitative research design whereby natural-occurring conversation of participants from 15 participants from five groups, with each group comprising three participants, was recorded in the living room of one of the participants. The recorded conversations were transcribed according to an adapted version of Jefferson's (1979) transcription convention and were qualitatively analysed. The transcribed data were analysed using Beattie's interruption model (1981) and conversation analysis (CA) to examine the utterances and occurrences of interruptions based on turns being successful and complete at the time of interruptions. The findings of this study suggest that Iranian males interrupt each other cooperatively in order to show their support and solidarity. Although interruptions provide an opportunity for the interlocutors to dominate the interaction, there were no instances of dominance or any traces of intrusive behavior. In fact, the strategic use of interruptions denotes a collective effort to create in-group power that emphasizes solidarity amongst men in this study. This paper yields findings that go against stereotypical characteristics of men who exert power in their interactions. Such findings can be the result of the moderated patriarchal norms in Iranian society, which may have implications for studies on men's interactional attitudes.

Exerting power through interruptions: A case study of arbitrators’ discourses in Chinese Arbitral Tribunals

“…To summarize, emotional interruptions contain a gentle tone, low coerciveness, and face-threat, demonstrating arbitrators and disputants’ ‘mutual attentiveness’ that ultimately lead to enhancing their rapport (Fogarty et al, 2013). In fact, the emotional interruptions denote a collective effort to create in-group power that emphasizes rapport and solidarity among the participants in CATs (Mohajer, 2018). However, from the lowest frequency of emotional interruptions, we can assume that arbitrators rarely adopt this category, because they have to undermine both their institutional power and personal power by using these interruptions.…”

“…The arbitrator's positive attitude was reinforced by the subjective marker 'yes', which in turn made the interruption full of encouragement and praise. Thus, it is reasonable to assume that the purpose of the interruption here is to support the plaintiff and build rapport, which ultimately creates a friendly interaction rather than exert power (Mohajer, 2018). In this way, the arbitrator realizes his role-change as persuader with relatively low institutional power.…”

Hedges as A Conversational Strategy in Women’s Gossip in The Bold Type Season 1

“…In recent years, there has been growing interest in the study of how gender affects the way people gossip, such as the study to analyze several aspects of women's gossip (Mangul & Mirahayuni, 2013;Sari et al, 2015), a study on men's gossip (Mohajer, 2013), and study that compared the types and functions of men's and women's gossip (Nabilah, 2019). In line with this, hedges in written gossip or gossip articles have also been analyzed (Hasanah & Wahyudi, 2015;Wulandari, 2016).…”