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Introduction: Family Talk

SHARI KENDALL

Families are the cradle of language, the original site of everyday dis-course, and a touchstone for talk in other contexts.1 Families are created in part through talk: the daily management of a household, the intimate

conversations that forge and maintain relationships, the site for the ne-

gotiation of values and beliefs. Yet there has been a greater focus on lan-

guage in workplaces and other formal institutions than on discourse in

this first institution. The chapters in this volume fill this gap in socio-

linguistic research by bringing together a variety of linguistic studies based

on a single set of data: the naturally occurring, face-to-face interactions of

four American families. The studies emerged from a three-year socio-

linguistic project carried out at Georgetown University to examine how

parents in dual-income families use language to constitute their identi-

ties as parents and professionals at home and at work, as well as the in-

teractional and social consequences of these ways of speaking. Since the

workplace has received relatively more attention in studies of discourse,

this volume focuses on the language the four women and four men use as

1. I appreciate Deborah Tannen’s and Cynthia Gordon’s helpful comments on this chapter.

McPherson, James M., et al. Family Talk : Discourse and Identity in Four American Families, Oxford University Press USA - OSO, 2007. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=415302. Created from apus on 2018-10-11 11:28:41.

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4 | Family Talk

they interact with one or more family members, with the addition of one

father’s social talk about family at work.

The volume contributes to the discourse analysis of naturally occur-

ring interaction in general, and of family interaction in particular, while

also making significant contributions to theories of framing in interac-

tion and the linguistic creation of identity. Together, the chapters extend

our knowledge of family discourse and identify new ways in which family

members construct, negotiate, and enact the individual and collective iden-

tities that constitute a family. Furthermore, whereas the vast majority of

work on family discourse focuses on mothers, several chapters consider

the relatively understudied language of fathers. Likewise, a substantial

amount of research on family discourse has been based on mealtime in-

teractions recorded in the presence of researchers (Blum-Kulka 1997;

Erickson 1982; Ochs & Taylor 1995; Ochs et al. 1992; Pontecorvo & Fasulo

1999; Paugh 2005). In contrast, the studies in this volume are based on

interactions that occur in a wide range of settings, which more fully rep-

resent these families’ experiences. As such, the chapters contribute to the

sociolinguistic analysis of face-to-face interaction, some in areas that have

been studied primarily through experimental observation, self-report sur-

veys, and interviews. The data set is unique in discourse analysis because

the audio recordings span a more extended period of time than previous

studies, encompass a wider variety of contexts, and are relatively uncen-

sored, as recordings were made with no researcher present. In addition,

we, the researchers, were able to get to know the speakers well enough to

place their utterances in context; and we have kept in contact with the

families and have thus been able to observe how the families have changed

during the seven years since the recordings were made. The volume is also

unique in the fact that the same families are considered from multiple

perspectives by different authors. This is especially notable in those in-

stances in which different authors examine the same interactions for dif-

ferent purposes.

Three broad themes emerged in the authors’ considerations of family

discourse in these four families: the underlying dynamics of power and

solidarity in the family context in general, and in the interactional fram-

ing of individual and shared family identities in particular; the negotia-

tion of gendered identities in conjunction with family identities, especially

in relation to the challenges dual-income couples face; and, finally, the

complex discursive means through which family members actively assert,

negotiate, and confirm their family’s beliefs and values when children are

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Introduction: Family Talk | 5

present to create individual and shared family identities. These themes are

explored further in the next section. In subsequent sections, I describe the

genesis of the volume, explain the research methodology, introduce the

families, and provide an overview of the chapters and the organization of

the volume.

Themes in Family Discourse

Interactional Dynamics: Framing, Power, and Solidarity

The chapters in this volume use an interactional sociolinguistic approach,

each drawing on research in one or more areas: linguistic anthropology

and the ethnography of communication (e.g., Erickson 1975; Gumperz &

Hymes 1972); discourse strategies (e.g., Becker 1995; Gumperz 1982; Tannen

2007 [1989]); dimensions of power and solidarity in interaction (Tannen

1994a); framing theory (e.g., Bateson 1972; Goffman 1981; Tannen 1994b;

Tannen & Wallat 1987); and those frameworks similar to framing in their

use of stance, alignment, and/or positioning (e.g., Davies & Harré 1990;

Ochs 1993; Schiffrin 1996). Two of these frameworks in particular are

fundamental to understanding language in interaction in general and fam-

ily discourse in particular: the frameworks of power and solidarity and

framing. In previous work, Tannen (1994a) develops a framework of the

ambiguity and polysemy of power and solidarity, arguing that in studying

interaction, scholars need to understand that power (or hierarchy, or

control) and solidarity (or connection, or intimacy) are not separate, but

inextricably intertwined. Tannen (2003) applies the model to family dis-

course to address the trend to focus exclusively on the power dimension

of discourse in families at the expense of the equally influential dimen-

sion of intimacy and connection (Blum-Kulka 1997; Ervin-Tripp et al.

1984; Ochs & Taylor 1995; Varenne 1992; Watts 1991). She considers the

role of “mother” to illustrate that both family relationships and gender

identities within families are negotiated along the dimensions of both

power and connection.

In her contribution to this volume (chapter 2), Tannen further dem-

onstrates that family interaction is an ideal site for exploring the complex

interrelationship between power and solidarity as relationships among

family members are “fundamentally hierarchical” and also “intensely con-

nected.” She argues that discourse analysts must consider an utterance’s

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6 | Family Talk

potential for being both a power maneuver and connection maneuver si-

multaneously. Marinova (chapter 5) uses Tannen’s framework to explain

the challenges parents (in this case, a father) face in balancing connection

and control as children get older. Although it is not the focus of her analy-

sis, Johnston (chapter 7) uses Tannen’s framework to reconcile a seeming

contradiction between what some parents say and what they do. She sug-

gests that parents may simultaneously serve as gatekeepers in domains such

as caregiving and financial management while explicitly expressing egali-

tarian views for professional and parental role sharing because retaining

control of these domains may fulfill family members’ co-existing needs

for connection and control.

Within interactional sociolinguistics, framing theory is equally crucial

for understanding conversational dynamics in family discourse. In the

first sociolinguistic volume on framing, Tannen (1993) demonstrates

that framing theory is fundamental to linguistic discourse analysis and,

conversely, that discourse analysis provides valuable insight into the lin-

guistic means by which frames are actively created. Drawing on Bateson

(1972), she explains that “no communication move, verbal or nonverbal,

can be understood without reference to a metacommunicative message,

or metamessage, about what is going on—that is, what frame of interpre-

tation applies to the move” (Tannen 1993:3). In 1974, Goffman elucidated

the levels and types of framing that constitute everyday interaction; and,

in his later work (1981), he focused more specifically on language in ex-

amining “footings,” which he used to capture the subtle shifts in framing

and the multiple layers of framing in everyday life. Several chapters in this

volume use a framing approach—drawing on the concepts of framing,

footing, positioning, and alignment—to show how family members use

particular linguistic resources to effect shifts in framing that, among other

functions, contribute to family members’ negotiations of shared family

identities (Tannen, chapter 3), and the individual family identities of

“mother” (Gordon, chapter 4) and “father” (Marinova, chapter 5).

Gender, Work, and Family

The second theme in family discourse addressed in this volume is the dis-

cursive creation of gendered identities in the family, especially in relation

to the links between work and family. Studies of gender in the family are

surprisingly rare, given the significance of gender in this domain and the

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Introduction: Family Talk | 7

substantial literature on gender and language in other domains. As Kendall

suggests elsewhere (2004a), the relative lack of research on gender in family

discourse may be a reflex of the women’s movement of the 1970s, when

the study of gender in linguistics emerged (Lakoff 1975). In a sense, women

were demanding choices besides marriage and motherhood, so the focus

was on getting women out of the home, not back into it. For this reason,

discourse analyses of gender have focused on women’s discourse in the

workplace (e.g., Ainsworth-Vaughn 1998; Kendall 2004b; Tannen 1994b,

c; Kotthoff 1997; McElhinny 1993; West 1990). In addition, although so-

ciologists, anthropologists, and feminists have long recognized the family

as a social institution, the study of gender in the family has been excluded

from research in this area. For example, Drew & Heritage (1992:59 fn. 1)

explicitly exclude family discourse from institutional language: “Notwith-

standing the standard sociological usage within which the family is also a

social institution, we will avoid using the term to describe activities that

would be glossed as family dinners, picnics, and the like.”

Gender infiltrates nearly all the chapters in this volume but is fore-

fronted in three chapters that focus on gender as an achieved identity in a

social constructivist paradigm. Scholars have found that women and men

create gendered identities by using discursive strategies that index socio-

cultural expectations associated with gender as these individuals use lan-

guage to accomplish other tasks (e.g., Ochs 1992; Tannen 1994b). Gordon

(chapter 4) builds on this research and other work on language and iden-

tity to identify the discursive strategies through which one woman cre-

ates a gendered parental identity in a common domestic encounter: the

babysitting report.

Other chapters bearing on gender contribute to our understanding of

how language is used to negotiate, perpetuate, and mitigate challenges

faced by dual-career families with children, particularly those families who

have made a commitment to sharing childrearing responsibilities. The

families participating in the research project represent a growing trend in

the United States for both mothers and fathers to be employed outside the

home (Clark 2002; Coontz 2000; Waite & Nielsen 2001). This change in

the structuring of families raises the question of whether and how this shift

influences families’ daily lives and the gendered identities that mothers and

fathers create both at home and in the workplace. These sociocultural fac-

tors provide the backdrop for the chapters by Kendall (chapter 6), Johnston

(chapter 7), and Gordon, Tannen, and Sacknovitz (chapter 8). The chap-

ters by Kendall and Johnston examine the interactions between spouses

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8 | Family Talk

to consider how these women and men negotiate caregiving roles (John-

ston) and caregiving and breadwinning roles (Kendall). Gordon et al.

approach this question from the perspective of the workplace, examining

how one man talks about family at work and relating the patterns to past

findings on gender and social talk at work.

Family Values, Beliefs, and Shared Identities

The third theme of family discourse in this volume is the linguistic negotia-

tion of family values, beliefs, and identities. In linguistics and linguistic an-

thropology, the study of family discourse has appeared primarily in the work

of researchers in child language acquisition, such as Shoshana Blum-Kulka

(1997) and Elinor Ochs and her colleagues and students (e.g., Ochs & Tay-

lor 1995). These and other scholars have considered how parents socialize

children to embrace family values: points of view and beliefs that character-

ize a family (Liebes & Ribak 1991, 1992; Liebes et al. 1991; Ochs 1992, 1993;

Ochs, Smith & Taylor 1996; Pontecorvo & Fasulo 1997, 1999; Ribak 1997;

Tulviste et al. 2002). Research on family discourse has focused on the so-

cialization of interactional patterns that vary by culture, such as narrative

practices (e.g., Blum-Kulka 1997); and it has been based primarily on meal-

time interaction (e.g., Ochs, Smith & Taylor 1996; Pontecorvo & Fasulo 1999;

Paugh 2005). Three chapters in this volume contribute to the extensive work

addressing the socialization of family values and beliefs. However, these

chapters do not focus on the child’s language but instead widen the lens to

identify new ways in which family members jointly assert, negotiate, and

confirm their family’s beliefs and values when children are present: through

multiple, intertextual discourse strategies in the creation of a family’s shared

political identity (Gordon, chapter 9); by creating “common ground” in

discussions about physical space (LeVine, chapter 10); and through dialogic

interaction with the television (Tovares, chapter 11). Gordon demonstrates

that a family political identity can be a fundamental component of family

identity. She demonstrates how family members “work moment by moment

to produce, negotiate, and socialize one another into the political aspect” of

this identity. LeVine demonstrates that family values may be created, shared,

and confirmed through talk about place as one father and son discuss who

lives in the houses surrounding them. Tovares uses a Bakhtinian dialogic

approach to demonstrate how families socialize children in interactions

prompted by television programs.

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Introduction: Family Talk | 9

Description of the Study

All the chapters examine a single body of data based on a research project

supported by a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to Shari Kendall

and Deborah Tannen. Four dual-income families with children partici-

pated in this project. This section describes the events leading to this re-

search project, then introduces the families and how they became involved

in the study, and lastly explains how the data were collected.

Genesis of the Project

Although this volume is about family discourse, it first emerged for me as

an interest in gender and language in the workplace, an interest further

enhanced by a seminar Deborah Tannen was teaching on language in the

workplace at Georgetown University in 1992, and by Tannen’s (1994c)

publication reporting her sociolinguistic study of talk in several large cor-

porations. A central focus of Tannen’s book, and of my own work, was ex-

ploring the linguistic means through which women and men express and

constitute authority in the workplace (see Kendall & Tannen 1997; Kendall

2004b). However, one suggestion made by Tannen (1994c) continued to

intrigue me: the possibility that women in positions of authority draw on

images of mothers, or ways of speaking used by or associated with mothers,

to constitute their institutional authority. To address this question, I em-

ployed the methodology used by Tannen (1994c) in her analysis of talk at

work but extended the research design to include the workplace and the

home as well. I arranged for one woman to tape-record herself both at work

and at home to consider how she constituted her authority when speaking

as a mother with her daughter and as a manager with her subordinates. This

study was the basis for my dissertation, The Interpenetration of Gendered

Spheres (Kendall 1999), which served as a pilot study for the project on which

the present volume is based (see also Kendall 2003).

Meanwhile, Tannen shifted her focus to the relatively unstudied dis-

course in the family domain (see Tannen 2001, 2003a, b), which contin-

ues her focus on the language of everyday conversation in general and of

interpersonal relationships in particular (Tannen 1984, 1986, 2007 [1989]).

In 2000, Tannen and Kendall received funding for the research project

on which this volume is based, from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Tannen’s contributions to this volume (chapters 2 and 3) reflect her focus

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10 | Family Talk

on family discourse, while my contribution (chapter 6) reflects my focus

on the intersection of work and family. Our co-editor, Cynthia Gordon,

was a research team member on the original grant and coprincipal inves-

tigator on a follow-up grant.

Locating Families

The first task that Deborah Tannen and Shari Kendall faced when the re-

search project began was to locate four families willing to tape themselves

at work and at home. Tannen accepted several invitations to give lectures

in the D.C. area and mentioned the project and our interest in finding

participants at the end of her lectures. After each lecture, several attend-

ees expressed an interest in volunteering. She also contacted the director

of a women’s center in Virginia, who offered to post flyers and include

notices in their organizational newsletter. Kendall prepared notices and

flyers to be posted at this and other locations, and she and several helpers

posted flyers in key locations, such as video stores, cafes, and dry cleaners,

within their respective residential areas. Finally, Tannen was a guest on

The Diane Rehm Show (a radio talk show on NPR), discussing the topic

of balancing work and family. During the broadcast, she mentioned the

project and our interest in finding participants. Our requirements were

that both parents work outside the home. Numerous potential volunteers

contacted either Tannen or Kendall. Interestingly, many couples were

willing to tape at home, but taping at work turned out to be an obstacle in

many cases. In the end, we recruited the first four families who were will-

ing, and got permission, to tape at work as well as home. Two families had

one child between two and three, one had a four-year-old child, and the

fourth had grown children, the youngest being in high school.

Taping

Once a couple had committed to participating, Tannen and Kendall met

with them in their homes to describe the project and their terms of par-

ticipation. Each parent tape-recorded themselves using Sony DATs (digi-

tal audio tape-recorders) and lavaliere microphones, which they carried

with them. The DATs record continuously for four hours on one side of

the tape without needing to be turned over, so they require only minimal

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Introduction: Family Talk | 11

attention; they are relatively small (about 3 by 5 inches); and they pro-

duce CD quality sound. Kendall met with each couple a few days before

they began taping to provide them with the equipment and teach them

how to use it. They were given a step-by-step instruction sheet prepared

by Kendall for easy reference and were asked to tape-record for seven days

from morning until night. After taping was completed, adult participants

were shadowed by a research team member, who spent one or more days

with them to become familiar with the family, the work situation, and their

coworkers. Tannen and Kendall also arranged gatherings for each family

so that all the research team members could meet the families. The tapes

were then logged for content by, in most cases, the research team mem-

ber who had shadowed that participant; and, finally, the tape recordings

were transcribed by team members and other students at Georgetown

University under the direction of Kendall.

Family Profiles

The four families who participated in the research project live in the greater

Washington, D.C., area. All families are dual-income and middle-class (in

accordance with the mandate of the Sloan Foundation); all families are

also white. Parents in the participating families are highly educated, all but

one having at least a bachelor’s degree (and that one did attend college).

All names are pseudonyms but reflect the parents’ use of the same, differ-

ent, or hyphenated surnames.

Janet & Steve Neeley-Mason

Janet and Steve Neeley-Mason and their daughter Natalie (2 years 11 months)

lived in a quiet suburban housing development on the outskirts of the D.C.

metro area in Virginia. The couple’s last name, Neeley-Mason, is a hyphen-

ated version of Janet and Steve’s given last names (Neeley and Mason,

respectively). The couple volunteered after Janet saw a flyer posted at one

of her places of employment. At the time of recording, they were 33 years

old and had been married for 6 years. Janet was about 7 months pregnant.

Both grew up in Northern Virginia. Janet worked approximately 8 to 10

hours a week as a therapist in three locations to acquire internship hours

toward her master’s degree in psychotherapy. She had a bachelor’s degree

in theater. Steve worked full-time as a video producer and part-time as a

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12 | Family Talk

waiter at two different restaurants. He also had a bachelor’s degree in the-

ater. Their daughter, Natalie, did not attend a daycare center because Janet

and Steve arranged for one parent to be home while the other was at work

when possible, and Janet’s mother regularly assisted with childcare. Natalie

did, however, attend preschool three days a week (from 8:30–12). Janet

and Steve appear in the chapters by Tannen (chapter 2), Gordon (chapter

4), Kendall (chapter 6), and Tovares (chapter 11).

Kathy Peterson & Sam Foley

Kathy Peterson, Sam Foley, and their daughter Kira (2 years 1 month) lived

on a busy street in the Virginia suburbs just outside the border of the Dis-

trict of Columbia. Kathy heard about the study when a professor in a course

she was taking told her about Tannen’s call for volunteers on the radio.

Kathy and Sam were both 37 years old and had been married for 5½ years.

Kathy was about 8 months pregnant at the time of recording. She grew up

in Baltimore, Maryland. Sam grew up in the city in which they currently

lived. Kathy worked as an advertising sales agent in a professional organi-

zation. Before Kira was born, she worked full-time (40 hours per week),

and then reduced her hours to 30 hours per week, which was the situation

at the time of recording. She supervised one (female) assistant. There were

five people in her section at work, all women. She was taking courses one

day a week in Baltimore toward a master’s degree in psychology. Sam

worked full-time as a physicist in a government organization. His section

consisted of eight people, all men. He was taking courses toward a doc-

torate in astrophysics. Both Kathy and Sam worked 4 days a week so they

could spend one weekday at home with Kira. The federal government

makes the full-time, four-day schedule an option for most of its employ-

ees, so Sam was able to remain full-time. For the three weekdays neither

parent was home, Kira was in daycare at Kathy’s workplace. Kathy and Sam

appear in the chapters by Tannen (chapters 2 and 3), Kendall (chapter 6),

Johnston (chapter 7), and Tovares (chapter 11).

Clara Shepherd & Neil Sylvan

Clara Shepherd, Neil Sylvan, son Jason (4 years 10 months), and their two

dogs, Tater and Rickie, lived on a quiet suburban street in Virginia at the

outer edge of the D.C. metro area. The couple volunteered to participate

in the project following a lecture Tannen gave at the organization where

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Introduction: Family Talk | 13

Clara worked. Clara and Neil were 43 years old and had been together as

a couple for 16 years. Clara, who was raised in Pennsylvania, was Assis-

tant Director in a government organization. She had a master’s degree in

Public Administration and was taking courses to earn a master’s degree

in marriage and family therapy. Neil, whose father was in the military, had

lived in Massachusetts, Virginia, Florida, and abroad. He was Vice Presi-

dent for Finance and Administration at a non-profit agency. He had a

master’s degree in business administration and was a Certified Public Ac-

countant. Their son Jason attended preschool full-time. Clara and/or Neil

appear in the chapters by Tannen (chapter 3), Gordon et al. (chapter 8),

Gordon (chapter 9), LeVine (chapter 10), and Tovares (chapter 11).

Nora Marsh & Greg Bradley

The fourth family is Nora Marsh, Greg Bradley, and their three children:

John (22), Susan (20), and Jeremy (17). The parents and youngest child

lived on a quiet residential street in Maryland, just outside the D.C. metro

area. They have a cat and a dog, a golden retriever. At the time of taping,

the youngest child was in high school, the middle child was in college, and

the oldest was a professional musician who was living with his parents

temporarily before moving to San Francisco. This family first heard about

the project when Nora attended a talk by Tannen about work-family is-

sues. The parents were both 46 years old. Nora, originally from Boston,

was the Assistant Head of a private school in Virginia. She was taking

classes part-time to earn her master’s degree in educational administra-

tion. Greg, who was originally from Connecticut, was an educational

entertainer who performed a one-man show for children in public schools

and theatrical venues. At the time of recording, Susan was visiting from

college, so all three children were home. Nora and/or Greg appear in the

chapters by Tannen (chapter 3), Marinova (chapter 5), and Tovares

(chapter 11).

The Data

A total of 460 hours were recorded and transcribed. Janet and Steve tape-

recorded 165 hours over the course of seven consecutive days beginning

February 23, 2000. They were shadowed by Cynthia Gordon and Shari

Kendall, respectively. Kathy and Sam tape-recorded 134 hours over the

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14 | Family Talk

course of 14 consecutive days beginning February 18, 2000. One reason

they tape-recorded longer than 7 days was due to technical difficulties with

one of their tape-recorders. They were shadowed by Sigrid Norris and

Alexandra Johnston. Clara and Neil recorded 89 hours over 7 days begin-

ning November 6, 2000 (although for one day they taped only 2 hours).

They were shadowed by Cynthia Gordon and Philip LeVine. Nora and Greg

recorded 75 hours over 9 days beginning June 19, 2000. Nora recorded for

6 days and Greg recorded for 7 days. They were shadowed by Shari Kendall

and Alexandra Johnston.

Chapter Overview

All chapters address in some way how identities are constructed, nego-

tiated, and enacted moment by moment in the discourse of these fami-

lies. The volume is divided into three parts reflecting the themes that

emerged from the analyses, as described above. Chapters are placed with

those other chapters that most share a single focus, although there are simi-

larities that cross-cut these categories. I identify some of these similarities

following the chapter summaries.

Part I, comprising chapters 2 through 5, focuses on the dynamics un-

derlying family discourse, particularly framing and the dimensions of

power and solidarity. The chapters show how analyses of these dynamics

contribute to our understanding of how women and men discursively

negotiate identities for themselves as mothers and fathers, and as mem-

bers of a family. The volume begins with the two chapters by Deborah

Tannen, which lay the foundation for subsequent chapters. In chapter 2,

“Power Maneuvers and Connection Maneuvers in Family Interaction,”

Tannen outlines her framework of the ambiguity and polysemy of the

dimensions of power and solidarity in conversational interaction as well

as the importance of these dimensions in family discourse. She examines

excerpts from two of the families (Janet & Steve, Kathy & Sam) to dem-

onstrate that it is not possible to gain a full understanding of the dynam-

ics of family interaction by focusing exclusively on the power dimension,

as has been the tendency in studies of family discourse. Rather, speakers’

utterances are complex interplays of both “power maneuvers” and “con-

nection maneuvers”: speakers struggle for the power to determine their

own actions and influence the actions of others, and simultaneously seek

connection, the desire to “reinforce and not undermine the intimate con-

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Introduction: Family Talk | 15

nections that constitute their involvement with each other as members of

a family.” Tannen concludes that discourse analysts must consider both

dimensions when attempting to explain interactional patterns in family

discourse.

In chapter 3, “Talking the Dog: Framing Pets as Interactional Resources

in Family Discourse,“ Deborah Tannen introduces the discursive strategy

of “ventriloquizing” to explain how family members use their pet dogs as

a resource for managing interpersonal interactions and thus engage in

“exhibiting, reinforcing, and creating their identity as a family.” By exam-

ining the interaction in the two families that had pet dogs (Clara & Neil,

Nora & Greg), she demonstrates that when a family member speaks as the

dog or speaks to the dog in the presence of another family member, the

speaker introduces a note of humor into the interaction, which shifts

the framing and footing of the participants. The chapter further advances

an understanding of framing in interaction, including the relevance of

Bakhtin’s notion of polyvocality for conversational discourse, in the sense

that talking through pets allows speakers to distance themselves figura-

tively from their own utterances. It also introduces an enlightening dis-

cursive resource through which family members create and maintain a

shared family identity.

In chapter 4, “I just feel horribly embarrassed when she does that”:

Constituting a Mother’s Identity,” Cynthia Gordon explores how one

woman (Janet) linguistically creates a gendered parental identity while

talking with her husband and her brother, who babysat their daughter. As

her brother describes their daughter’s misbehavior, the mother uses sev-

eral interactional strategies in her responses that simultaneously work in

concert toward constructing a coherent identity. Gordon demonstrates

that when these verbal practices are interpreted within the sociocultural

context, some of them are “sex-class linked” (Goffman 1977; Tannen

1994b) and others are linked to what it means to be a parent; together,

they produce the identity “mother.” Gordon’s study contributes to re-

search on the linguistic creation of identity in everyday interaction in gen-

eral, and more specifically in family interaction, by demonstrating how

gendered and parental identities are intertwined within family discourse.

In chapter 5, “Finding the Right Balance between Connection and Con-

trol: A Father’s Identity Construction in Conversations with His College-

Age Daughter,” Diana Marinova draws on the frameworks of framing

and power and solidarity to explore how one father (Greg) constructs

his identity as a father in conversations with his twenty-year-old daughter.

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16 | Family Talk

She demonstrates, drawing on Tannen (2001), that the father engages in

a complex balancing of a caretaking frame (forefronting hierarchy) and a

sociable frame (forefronting connection) as he attempts to motivate his

daughter to prepare for her upcoming study-abroad semester. She also

demonstrates that he creates a parental identity with others (his wife, a

travel agent, secretary, and neighbor) with whom he discusses the diffi-

culties he is having in encouraging his daughter to take more responsibil-

ity. Marinova’s analysis contributes to the linguistic creation of identity

by considering how parental identities emerge through the language a par-

ent uses to simultaneously reprimand his daughter and maintain an egali-

tarian father-daughter relationship. Accomplishing these disparate goals

requires the father to engage in a complex negotiation of identities. The

chapter also provides a rare glimpse into the discourse of fathers, and

particularly into the conversational dynamics of a father and his grown

daughter.

Chapters 6 through 8 in Part II consider the creation of family identi-

ties in relation to issues faced by dual-income couples. In chapter 6, “Fa-

ther as Breadwinner, Mother as Worker: Gendered Positions in Feminist

and Traditional Discourses of Work and Family,” Shari Kendall demon-

strates that when the women in two families (Janet, Kathy) talk about

conflicts between work and family in a range of contexts, they are not

merely concerned with who does what in the household but are engaged

in a personal struggle between their parental and professional identities

as they attempt to reconcile competing discourses of gender relations.

When these women talk about work and family, they negotiate the forms

and meanings of their parental and work-related identities through the

positions they take up themselves and make available to their husbands

in relation to traditional and feminist discourses about work and family.

Using framing and positioning theory, Kendall demonstrates that these

women articulate an ideology of egalitarian role sharing but linguistically

position their husbands, though not themselves, as breadwinners. Kendall’s

chapter provides insights into how modern dual-income couples with

children negotiate work-family issues by identifying complex relationships

among language, sociocultural ideologies, discourses, and everyday prac-

tices. In addition, the analysis contributes to the discourse of face-to-face

verbal interaction by considering strategies previously used to analyze

representations of mothers and fathers in written texts and the media

(Lazar 2000; Sunderland 2000).

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Introduction: Family Talk | 17

In chapter 7, “Gatekeeping in the Family: How Family Members Posi-

tion One Another as Decision Makers,” Alexandra Johnston explores gate-

keeping in the family context, where “gatekeeping” refers to “any situation

in which an institutional member is empowered to make decisions affect-

ing others” (Scollon 1981:4). Although the couple in one family (Kathy &

Sam) espouses the discourse of “egalitarian coparenting,” both spouses

collaboratively position the mother as gatekeeper in the care of their child,

and the father as gatekeeper in managing their finances. She suggests that

the apparent discrepancy between this couple’s ideology and behavior may

result from their need to fulfill the co-existing but contradictory needs for

connection and control (Tannen 2001; this volume, chapter 2). By using

sociolinguistic methods, Johnston contributes to the study of maternal

gatekeeping in social psychology, which tends to rely on self-report sur-

veys and statistical correlations. She also contributes to the substantial lit-

erature on gatekeeping in sociolinguistics by identifying the linguistic

means by which the identity of “gatekeeper” is (co-)constructed. Finally,

Johnston’s chapter is a groundbreaking application of gatekeeping to the

family realm.

In chapter 8, “A Working Father: One Man’s Talk about Parenting at

Work,” Cynthia Gordon, Deborah Tannen, and Aliza Sacknovitz exam-

ine how one father (Neil) talks about family at work. Specifically, the au-

thors consider how this father interactionally creates and draws upon his

identity as a father at work in conversations with his coworkers, and how

being a parent interpenetrates the work sphere. The extent to which the

father talks about his family in personal terms and the kinds of interac-

tional rituals he engages in with his coworkers (e.g., troubles talk) con-

trast with prior observations about how men and fathers talk at work. The

authors find that the father’s identity as a parent serves as a resource for

sociability with his coworkers and for providing support for colleagues who

are also parents; that his parental responsibilities at times interfere with

his work-related responsibilities; and that, through his talk about family

at work, he positions himself as one half of a parenting team and also as a

parenting expert. These findings provide insight into what it means to be

a working father, while also providing a rare glimpse into the workplace

discourse of a working father who does a significant amount of caregiving.

Chapters 9 through 11 in Part III focus on the discursive means through

which family members negotiate and confirm their family’s beliefs and

values when children are present; and how, through this negotiation,

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18 | Family Talk

family members create shared family identities. In chapter 9, “ ‘Al Gore’s

our guy’: Linguistically Constructing a Family Political Identity,” Cynthia

Gordon considers how members of one family, Clara, Neil, and their son

Jason, who tape-recorded during the week of the 2000 U.S. Presidential

Election, construct a family identity based on their support of Democratic

Party candidate Al Gore. The chapter illustrates how family members use

linguistic strategies to create a group, rather than individual, identity and

how political socialization is multidirectional in the family context, where

all family members play a role in constructing the family identity. It also

contributes to research in political socialization, wherein researchers have

previously claimed that the family is of great importance in this process

but have relied on interviews and surveys.

In chapter 10, “Sharing Common Ground: The Role of Place Reference

in Parent-Child Conversation,” Philip LeVine considers the relationship

between place and language in interactions in which a father (Neil) and

his four-year-old son talk about their neighborhood surroundings. LeVine

focuses on those instances in which awareness of surroundings surfaces as a

topic of talk and explores how place reference contributes to the creation of

a family identity. The father orients his son to a new physical condition in

his environment (an unknown person working in the neighborhood) and

helps him gain a better understanding of the social landscape of the neigh-

borhood by talking about who lives where, with whom, and how these

people and places differ from their own family and home. LeVine dem-

onstrates that place serves as a resource for talk, that place and talk stand

in a mutually constitutive relationship, and that family members may use

such talk to strengthen interpersonal bonds and confirm matching per-

ceptions and meanings connected to place, including shared family be-

liefs. By using sociolinguistic methods, LeVine contributes to the research

area of cultural or humanistic geography, meeting a call for explorations

of the ways in which language transforms “space” into a sense of “place.”

The chapter also contributes to the research area of language and identity

by providing descriptions of means whereby individuals may create iden-

tities through oppositions and similarities to others.

In chapter 11, “Family Members Interacting While Watching TV,” Alla

V. Tovares investigates the relationship between the public and the pri-

vate in family discourse by examining how family members in all four

families linguistically engage with each other as they watch television. She

demonstrates that family members negotiate and maintain their family’s

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Introduction: Family Talk | 19

values, beliefs, and identities by repeating words and phrases from tele-

vision programs. By uniting Tannen’s (2007 [1989]) work on repetition

as a discourse feature with Bakhtin’s “dialogicality” and Kristeva’s “inter-

textuality,” Tovares argues that the public and private interpenetrate

within interactions in which family members repeat television texts. She

demonstrates that family members do not passively repeat words and

phrases from television texts but create a “dialogic unity”: a complex

combination of public and private that is saturated with previous and

new meanings. This talk both reflects and transforms the lives of the

viewers and “links family members with the world that lies outside their

circle of family and friends.” Tovares contributes to our understanding

of Bakhtin’s relevance to the analysis of verbal interaction, and she pro-

vides a glimpse into a prevalent type of talk in which all the participants

in this research project participated: watching and talking about televi-

sion programs.

In addition to the themes represented in the three parts of the volume,

the chapters share other theoretical, methodological, and topical aspects

as well, including analyses of fathers’ discourse in father-child interaction

(LeVine, chapter 10; Marinova, chapter 5) and a father talking about family

at work (Gordon et al., chapter 8); a focus on the linguistic creation of

identities (Kendall, chapter 6; Gordon, chapter 4; Marinova, chapter 5);

the extension of Bakhtin’s notions of polyvocality (Tannen, chapter 3) and

dialogicality and answerability (Tovares, chapter 11); intertextuality in

language use across interactions involving some or all of the same inter-

locutors (Gordon, chapter 9; LeVine, chapter 10; Tovares, chapter 11); and

the distinction between “us” and “them” in the creation of a shared fam-

ily identity (Gordon, chapter 9; LeVine, chapter 10). In addition, the chap-

ters are roughly divided between those focusing on how individuals use

language to construct their identities within the family (chapters 3 through

8) and those that consider families as groups of individuals who together

negotiate shared family identities (chapter 2, chapters 9 through 11). Fi-

nally, the chapters focus on different combinations of participants: par-

ent-child interaction with a young child (LeVine, chapter 10); parent-child

interaction with a grown child (Marinova, chapter 5); adult interaction

(Gordon, chapter 4; Kendall, chapter 6; Gordon et al., chapter 8); family

interaction involving children and both parents (Gordon, chapter 9); or

a combination of these types (Tannen, chapters 2, 3; Johnston, chapter 7;

Tovares, chapter 11).

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20 | Family Talk

Conclusion

The chapters of this volume together explore the themes of identity con-

struction and how families accomplish “familyness” in their own unique

ways. It contributes to work exploring how identities are constructed in

discourse, the interactional dynamics underlying family discourse and

how families create their sense of family in interaction. At the same time,

it contributes to a frames-theoretic approach to the analysis of discourse

in general and to the literature on family discourse in particular. It adds

to work that has examined family discourse on the micro-level, focus-

ing on specific linguistic features for analysis. The research design—

providing relatively uncensored recordings of everything each family said

for a week at home and at work—makes this a unique study that explores

how families communicate across a range of contexts. In this, it provides

a groundbreaking view of how dual-career, white, middle-class Ameri-

can families conduct their daily lives.

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