Multiplex Tactics and Involvement in Small Storytelling: A Case Study from the Global South

Abstract This article examines some characteristics and functions of multiplex tactics in small storytelling. It uses a case-study based on three long informal interviews with a participant from the Gauteng, South Africa. Analysis and discussion raise questions of conversational resources and involvement, and thereby of a critical understanding of creativity and cooperation in interactional doing being. Multiplex tactics produce effects on several levels of interactional and discursive organisation simultaneously: signalling participative and narrative framing, footing and stance, whilst also effecting story entry and exit, or providing coherence between storied elements, for example. Multiplexity is a resource for accessing intersubjective meaning-making and narrative co-construction. Furthermore, it contributes to the vast body of work on indexicality and discourse marking. The article focuses on the creative, affective, and evolutive nature of involvement in interactional work.