Mitigation and epistemic positions in troubles talk: The giving advice activity in close interpersonal relationships. Some examples from Italian

The study presents an analysis of giving advice activity in Italian natural troubles talk exchanges, exploring the possible impact of mitigation strategies and speakers’ epistemic management. We investigate the giving advice activity as organized in a triplet: the confider’s request/ solicitation/neither request nor solicitation for advice (Initiation); the confidant/e’s giving advice (Advice); the confider’s alignment/partial alignment/misalignment to the advice (Reaction). The main findings of our study show that an advice coming after an explicit request, although unmitigated, is normally followed by alignment, while a mitigated advice, if not requested, is prevalently followed by misalignment. Such results suggest how relevant the speakers’ agreement in the management and negotiation of their reciprocal epistemic positions (less knowledgeable/more knowledgeable) is for the conversational outcomes.