Responding to Trouble: An Interactional Approach to Empathy In Catalan and English
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Responding to Trouble: An Interactional Approach to Empathy In Catalan and English Carme Sanahuges1 · Hortènsia Curell1 Received: 16 May 2020 / Accepted: 14 July 2020 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Abstract This paper explores how empathy is verbally expressed in two different languages, Catalan and British English, by analysing the linguistic strategies used by speakers of these languages when responding more or less empathically in interactions. These different strategies are described according to their nature and aim. Data was obtained from dyadic open role-plays where participants had to discuss some trouble-telling situations affecting the teller, in which some empathic response was expected. A definition and classification of these strategies is developed providing contextualised examples in the two languages in order to illustrate what seem to be the most typical verbal resources used when reacting to the telling of a trouble. Since empathising is a process that is jointly constructed by the participants throughout the interaction, the sequential outline of this kind of conversations is also proposed and discussed. Keywords Empathy · Affiliation · Conversation analysis · Discursive psychology · Intercultural pragmatics
Introduction Our everyday interactions imply the mastery of complex aspects: not only do they have to make effective use of appropriate linguistic resources but they must also fulfil a series of implicit norms to be considered satisfactory according to established social and cultural conventions. Failing to do so can negatively affect the participants’ perception of the interaction, threaten or distort the participant’s face (Goffman 1955; Burleson and Samter 1985; Brown and Levinson 1987; Burleson and Holmstrom 2008), or even affect the nature and development of future interactions, just to mention a few of the possible resulting consequences. This becomes obvious in those interactions in which empathy is required: since it is so closely related * Carme Sanahuges [email protected] 1
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
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to affectivity and emotional states, when it is not properly provided, it can often lead to feelings of frustration, annoyance or disappointment. Empathy is therefore an essential part of our social competences and expressive functioning. Showing empathy leads to different positive consequences at different levels, from promoting prosocial, cooperative action (Eisenberg and Miller 1987; De Vignemont and Singer 2006; Hoffman 2008; Hein and Singer 2010; Eisenberg et al. 2010) or fostering social bonds (Gallese 2003; Galinsky et al. 2005) to helping interactions flow (Redmond 1985; Preckel et al. 2018). The analysis of empathy first implies clarifying what we understand by it since, under the broad description of empathy, some different definitions can be identified. Batson (2009) distinguished eight different concepts of empathy related to eight different psychological states and Cuff et
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