+

A Mirror Only Says So Much

A Variation Study of Preferred & Dispreferred Responses in Dressings

Rooms

+Topic and Research Questions

It’s the classic dressing room scene: A woman takes her clothing in the room, tries it on, and what happens next?

What are the linguistic and paralinguistic forms a dresser utilizes to elicit a response?

How does the dressing room judge formulate preferred and dispreferred responses? Do these responses depend on relationship to the dresser?

E.g. Stranger, Sales Person, Friend, Family Member.

How does the dresser exhibit acceptance or rejection of the judger’s response?

+Response Elicitaton (66 tokens)3 variables Interrogative (including tag ?s): 24

“Do you like this?” “What about this?” “What do you think?” “This looks ridiculous, huh?” “Should I get these?” “These?” “This?”

Declarative Statement: 20 “I love this skirt!” “This feels really nice.” “I feel like I’m

wearing a burlap sack.” “I look like an oompa loompa.” “I need a convertible bra.” “This might be too small.” “I can’t breathe.”

Silence: 22 37%

30%

33%

Interrogative DeclarativeSilence

+To explore further…

Syntactic formulas for interrogatives (You + think, You + Like, What about _____? In other words – Dresser gauges opinion of subject either

through focusing on “you” or clothing item.

Syntactic formulas for declarative statements (I look, Clothing item is/look/make me/feel, I Love/like, I feel/look like/think In other words – The dresser already has an opinion and

makes an assessment on the clothing item rather than herself. (No instance of “I am”)

Tag questions fit better here? (This looks ridiculous, huh?)

+Dressing Room Judges’ Preferred Responses (37)

I think these follow Politeness Theory (response to a FTA that may trigger another FTA) & Maxim of Truth

Syntactic Formula NP {is, looks} Adjective: 21 I {like, love}: 12 Yeah!: 2 Command: 2 Other 1: (Hmmm… *shakes head*) NO instances of interrogatives! Compare with

dispreferred (forthcoming…)

55%32%

5%5% 3%

is/looks like/love Yeah!Command Other

+To Further Explore…

All preferred statements focused on clothing item. Only two that didn’t: “Your boobs look big!” and “Your waist looks awesome!” Construction here includes “looks.”

How does the response elicitation influence judgers’ preferred comment ? Very interesting: All silent presentations in preferred categorization elicited

emphatic responses: “I love that!” “So far, that’s the cutest!” “Estas! Estas! Comprate estas botas!” “I love that on you! It’s really flattering.” Was the dresser saying, “I know I look good!” without

saying it?

+Dressing Room Judges’ Dispreferred Responses (29)My favorite eavesdropping tokens!

Again related to Politeness Theory and Maxim of Truth. FTA in action.

Certain dispreferred responses triggered acceptance or rejection on dresser’s behalf. Compare Syntactic structure with preferred comments. (Next Screen)

FTA & Intimacy.

62%

38%

Family Friend Other

29%

21%18%

14%

18%

Interrogative ExclamationCommand OtherDeclarative

+Dresser’s Response to FTA

Judger flat out said “No,” laughed, stayed silent (again, an interesting use of silence), mitigated (“I think”, “throwing me off”, “maybe”, asked a question), “I don’t know”

“I think what’s going on is that you’ve got black tights on and it’s throwing me off. “ A highly mitigated declarative.

Only exhibited between family: Mom/Daughters, Sisters, Grandmother/Granddaughter

10 tokens. 8 initiated with a question, 2 with silence.

6 implicated size. Only instances of this in dispreference. “Too tight.” “Do you think you need a bigger size?” “Oh my god, no. Way too short!” “Maybe try the curvy fit.” “I think the next size smaller would be too small.” “Let’s see, what would it look like with a sweater?”

Acceptance Rejection

+Hmmm? 2 Spanish examples

BF/GF Girlfriend: What do you think? Boyfriend: Yeah, that looks good. Girlfriend: You’re just saying that. (walks away)

Laughter! In response to strong statements: “But your butt looks good.” “Ooooo! Your boobs look big!” “It’s sexy! If you wear that tonight, girl…!”

Silence with Silence Daughter: - - Mom: - - Daughter: You don’t like it?

Friend 1: - - Friend 2: (laughs) Friend 1: - - (goes back in)

+Literature Review Question to consider: Do you think these interactions fall under compliment giving and acceptance/rejection and politeness theory/FTA? Anything about seeking opinion?

Herbert, R.K. (1990). “Sex-Based differences in compliment behavior”

Hauser, E. (2008). “Compliments and compliment responses: Grammatical structure and sequential organization.”

Holmes (1988). “Paying compliments: A sex-preferential politeness strategy.”

Brown, P. and S. Levinson. (1987). “Politeness: Some universals in language usage”

Arundale, R. (2010). “Constituting face in conversation: Face, face work.”

Ephratt, Michal. (2008). “The functions of silence.”

Compliments Politeness Theory

+Where my study is going!

Use of silence, laughter

Syntactic structure of Preferred vs. Dispreferred Responses

Responses to FTA’s (Acceptance/Rejection) and Why?

Mitigation in FTA’s with concern to looks.

As you can see, there are a lot of relationships to explore. Which do you find most interesting?