III. DISTINCTIVE CHARACTERISTICS OF PARTY CONVERSATION - Personal surrogates

People coming to a party were likely to select from their own experience topics that they could make interesting to others. When they succeeded in doing this, so that the topic proved to be of interest to the listener(s), we would say that the connection between the participants was provided by a personal surrogate. If the topic was not in itself interesting to the listener(s), so that the listener(s) continued in the conversation only out of a friendly feeling toward the speaker, then we would consider the tie between persons to be one of friendship or goodwill rather than a personal surrogate.

Any aspect of a person’s work, values, knowledge, experience, or any person with whom he or she was connected could serve as a personal surrogate, provided that it had intrinsic interest for the person(s) listening. Personal surrogates were sufficiently separate from self so that others could talk about them without direct personal comment, but sufficiently tied to the protagonist to bring into the conversation something of his or her personal quality.

Personal surrogates were used in slightly less than a third of all coded episodes, and frequency of use did not vary significantly between one type of party and another.

However, there was some relation to acquaintance. Use of personal surrogates was relatively high in conversation among partners who were already in the process of becoming acquainted, and relatively low among people who saw each other routinely, or who were observed in non-party sociable situations. Familiars and institutional colleagues both showed about half the typical party usage of personal surrogates. The college students at the summeri resort used personal surrogates with about the same frequency as familiars and colleagues at parties.

Example: Self-Surrogate.

(Lila, a professional woman with children who does some of her work at home, got into) …

---a discussion of income tax. She noted having been called in by the IRS because she had claimed deductions for the rent of a study, for book depreciation, and such things, which the agent disallowed. He told them flatly that these considerations were out of the question, and that……

© 2008 Jeanne Watson Eisenstadt. All Rights Reserved
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