|
Table 2.2: Parental frames and positions at dinnertime (Kendall, 2008: 547)
DINNER
FRAME
CAREGIVING
FRAME
SOCIALISATION
FRAME
MANAGERIAL
FRAME
CONVERSATIONAL
FRAME
Head Chef
Assistant
Etiquette Monitor
Planner
Journalist
Host
Teacher
Behaviour Monitor
Social Secretary
Moral Guardian
Director of
Cleanup
Caretaker
Language Monitor
Facilitator
Comedian
Kendall found that the mother takes up more positions at dinnertime than the father and
also that these positions are more powerful ones. These positions are strongly linked
with the creation of gendered parental identities within the family. For example, the
mother occupies, almost exclusively, a variety of positions, for example,
Head Chef
(responsible for preparing dinner),
Planner
(organising the child‟s social life),
Moral
Guardian
(judging the appropriateness of the child‟s behaviour in the past) and
Etiquette Monitor
(responsible for enforcing bedtimes). This results in an identity of
„nurturing disciplinarian‟ for the mother of the family. Indeed, Much and Shweder
(1978) refer to the notion of mothers as the „guardians of the social order‟. On the other
hand, the father, while occupying positions such as
Journalist
(showing interest in the
child‟s life by asking questions), primarily occupies the position of
Comedian
(making
humorous remarks throughout dinner). Through his use of humour, the father both
balances out the disciplinarian aspect of the mother‟s positions and also subverts the
authority the mother has. Therefore, the father creates a more symmetrical power
relationship between himself and the child. This results in a different identity of
„rebellious comedian‟ for the father.
Without doubt, the mother‟s role in family affairs is a very powerful one. However,
Boxer (2002) offers a cautionary tale to mothers regarding their use of this power. She
investigated the speech behaviour of nagging which, she claims, principally occurs
within the familial domain „and, indeed, is the source of a good deal of conflict within
this domestic domain‟ (p. 60). She maintains that nagging is scarce outside of intimate
discourse because of its face threatening nature. Therefore, it is typically associated with
interlocutors that are not engaged in the complex process of negotiating relationships.
44
As has been argued, familial relationships are fixed and pre-established. Many of the
themes/topics of nagging have their origins in the domestic arena, however, nagging
appears to originate in the struggle for status and power in the family. In Boxer‟s data,
only six of the seventy nagging sequence recorded featured men nagging women. In
contrast, in two thirds of the data, women were the naggers. Boxer argues that nagging
has its origins in the process of language socialisation. According to Tannen (1990: 31),
„many women are inclined to do what is asked of them and many men are inclined to
resist even the slightest hint that anyone, especially a woman, is telling them what to
do.‟ Therefore, the co-operative style of women clashes with the hierarchical style of
men and nagging is the result. Interestingly, as the studies of narrative have shown,
power resides in topics being successfully introduced, ratified and evaluated. Boxer
claims that nagging, a sequence which is often ignored, results in the nagger losing
conversational power.
As has been shown, from a gender viewpoint, the majority of studies in family discourse
have primarily orientated themselves with the mother at the centre. Although Kendall‟s
(2008) study on framing is a notable exception, fathers and children have been, in a
sense, relegated to the lower leagues of gender-based research. The present study aims
to contribute to a reinstatement of the father and children in the analysis of family
discourse. In terms of a wider social remit, Kendall claims that a gender-based analysis
of the parents has much to offer the researcher. According to Kendall (
ibid
: 565):
…language, gender and parental identities are intertwined in ways that both reflect and
reproduce gender as a social construct and encourage a traditional sex-based division of
labour despite (or because of) the mass movement of women with young children into the
workforce. Thus, gender at a societal level is (re-)created at the interactional level through
the positions the parents take up within the frames they create and maintain as they
interact with their daughter at dinnertime.
If as stated here, gender at a societal (macro) level is (re-)created at an interactional
(micro) level by the parents, then so too are other social factors such as ethnicity or
social class. The present study seeks to make manifest the linguistic representations of
these macro-social features in the pragmatic systems of the families studied. As will be
45
shown in the analysis chapters, many of the linguistic differences between the two
families will be shown to reflect the differing influences of these social variables.
Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: |
