Sancte et sapienter

Joint fantasizing as the interactional practice of micro and macro contextual understanding

Bibliographic Data

ID21200958
AuthorsF I M Poppi (0000-0002-0731-3099, Sechenov University, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume12
Issue3
Pages437-460
Publication date2021-07-05
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePragmatics and Society (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1878-9714 • E-ISSN: 1878-9722
PublisherJohn Benjamins Publishing Company (PUBLISHER • NL)
DOI10.1075/ps.18043.ind
OpenAlexW3178597425
LanguageEN
Citations received10
References cited45

The practice of joint fantasizing concerns interacting participants’ collective construction of imaginary realities with internal consistency and coherence. Based on a corpus of conversations held by an informal Italian prayer community of elderly Catholic women, this contribution aims to show that joint fantasizing is not necessarily a humorous activity and is embedded in the participants’ social and personal background. The analysis also indicates that through joint fantasizing the participants conceptualize themselves as victims and idealized opponents of the unfair present and past societies. Framing joint fantasizing as a cross-contextual activity of social criticism allows us to understand that the participants use this interactional practice as an activity endowed with moral suffering and responsibility. This rhetorical seriousness contrasts with other studies in which joint fantasies are generally connected with playful, jocular and laughable practices

Epistemology · Prayer · Seriousness · Theology · Education, sociology, and vocational training · History · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition · Linguistics and Discourse Analysis · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology

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