Having meals with one another is one form of social interaction that is very important in our society (and to my personal enjoyment) and I spend a good deal of time discussing various restaurants, eateries, and dishes with friends. Oftentimes, I will ask for restaurant and entrée recommendations from friends who frequent certain places and afterwards will follow up with feedback on whether or not I agreed with a recommendation or shared a similar experience.
I had a conversation on AIM that started out directly with feedback:
Kayla: mmmm
Kayla: soooo good
Will: what??
Kayla: the Korean food
Will: oh lol
Will: I’m jealous
In this case, I had expected Will to understand my first two utterances in the presentation phase until he provided negative evidence that he had no idea what I was talking about. When I realized this, I quickly provided clarification that he accepted with positive evidence by simply stating “oh” and subsequently “I’m jealous,” indicating to me that he knew I had just eaten Korean food. The reason why this conversation worked is because I had told him earlier that day that I was going to eat Korean food for dinner at a certain restaurant, and he already knew that the restaurant was a good one so he was able to affirm envy that I had visited there.
Later in the conversation, we were able to draw on common ground based on an earlier conversation so that we could refer to entrees without using names or descriptors.
Will: so what did you order?
Will: or what # did you order?
Will: haha
Kayla: lol
Kayla: 30
Here, we did not need to establish any more mutual information because we were drawing on common ground, being a conversation that we had had earlier and also the fact that he visited the restaurant frequently enough to know which number represented which entrée. The earlier conversation had specifically brought up the numbering system because I’d asked to be recommended an entrée and he did not know the name but rather the number. Because of this, he could safely assume that while I was at the restaurant, I would pay attention to the numbers on the entrees so that if he asked me “what # did you order?” I could respond with an appropriate “30,” to form a functional adjacency pair with evidence that I had understood his question.
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Interesting. Am I correct in assuming that you began with mmmm, because Will knew you were going to a Korean restaurant? I know that he understands where you went after you explain it to him, but it would have been tricky for him to put two and two together. That's why he was probably so confused at the beginning. You had common ground, but the reference was not strong enough.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Adam. The way you started off the conversation would have confused any one who wasn't in the same visual space as you and could see why you were going "mmmm".
ReplyDeleteYou definitely see the evidence of common ground, however, if you hadn't told me that you had told Will earlier about going to a certain restaurant, I would have assumed the jealousy came just from the Korean food and not necessarily the specific restaurant.
Yes, i also find your initial presentation interesting. You start the conversation based on an assumption of common ground. Perhaps Will had some idea what you may be talking about, but since your statement was so vague, he had to clarify.
ReplyDeleteAnother interesting thing about this conversation is "lol" and the idea of humor in it. I find the shadings of "lol" intriguing; it is used as a colloquial "uh huh" but it also conveys the sense of acceptance in that he finds your statement humorous (in a good way) or that he may also be laughing at his initial confusion. 'lol' could be short for "ohhh ok I get it. You were like mmm so good and i was all like haha what?? lol". 'lol' could mean he is both laughing at you, himself, and the conversational situation.
Your response 'lol' to his revision of his question is also interesting. There is subtle humor in how he revises his question, because it is short for "or should i say...what NUMBER did u order?" I think this is interesting because so much humor is based on common ground, as with inside jokes, and his revision works as a reference to your previous conversation about menu items. Thus, there is an element of an inside joke to his question and your 'lol'.