Common Ground or Conceptual Reframing? A Study of the Common Elements in Conflicting Positions in French Interactions

Abstract

The notion of “common ground” is one of the most used tools when people want to describe the elements that the speakers engaged in a discursive interaction share. In this paper, some phenomena are presented involving common elements in two conflicting positions whose description is inadequate if we apply the notion of common ground, understood as pieces of information accepted by both parties. In particular, the way in which some repliers organise their opposition seems to require considering the positions as concepts, rather than as pieces of information. We define these concepts as connective entities, which can be interrelated. We analyse three conflicting discursive sequences in French (one from a political debate broadcast on television and two from Internet forums) by mobilising a theoretical approach in which meaning involves connective concepts. We claim that in a conflicting pair statement—reply, there is one kind of reply strategy which consists in reinterpreting the statement of the opponent, a strategy that we call reframing, which accepts two versions depending on which part of the opponent’s position is maintained (internal vs. external reframing). Moreover, the connective concepts approach is motivated both at the level of the conflict and at the level of the individual positions taken per se.