Complaint stories and subsequent complaint stories with affect displays

The paper investigates cases in which the recipients' affiliation with the speaker's affect in telling a complaint story is not (or not only) expressed through assessments or shorter comments or response cries but (also) through tellings of a complaint story of their own. After first complaint stories, next speakers may continue with similar or contrasting second or subsequent stories, in order to accomplish affiliation with the prior speaker's story and affective stance. Similar stories are contextualized as such with similar footings or similar embodiments; contrasting stories are contextualized as such with other footings and/or other embodiments. Nevertheless, not all subsequent stories are receipted as affiliative: the study of a deviant case shows how a subsequent story can be produced and treated as disaffiliative. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.