Cover not available
Part of
Language and Social Interaction at Home and School
Edited by Letizia Caronia
[Dialogue Studies 32] 2021
► pp. 45–86

Chapter 1
Children’s socialization to multi-party interactive practices

Who talks to whom about what in family dinners

| Sorbonne Nouvelle University
| University of Lille
| Paris-Nanterre University
| Sorbonne University
| Sorbonne Nouvelle University – Paris 3

Multiparty interactions are crucial situations to study how children can participate in collaborative talk and broaden their experience of various interactional practices. Family dinners are particularly relevant to analyze how children and adults play different participatory roles and how parents implicitly socialize their children to complex interactional competences. We present a study of dinner talk in upper-middle-class Parisian families. We conducted quantitative analyses of the interactions using systematic coding according to three features: who participates as speaker, addressee or non-addressed identifiable listener for each utterance; who children and adults refer to in their conversational contributions; whether talk is about the here and now of the dinner or not. Results from our coding are complemented with detailed analyses of chosen extracts so as to provide a fuller picture of the identified features of dinner talk.

Keywords: language socialization, language development, multiparty interactions, family talk, French family dinners, dinner talk, participatory roles, home language practices, person reference
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.State of the art
    • 2.1A situated approach to language development
    • 2.2Family dinner as multi-party discourse
  • 3.Data and method
  • 4.Participant involvement in multiparty interactions
    • 4.1Speakers
    • 4.2Addressees
    • 4.3Involved participants
  • 5.The topics of family dinner interactions
    • 5.1Reference to self and others
    • 5.2Reference to dinner versus other activities
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 13 October 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ds.32.01mor
References
Aronsson, Karin and Lucas Gottzén
2011 “Generational Positions at Family Dinner: Food Morality and Social Order. Language in Society 40: 1–22. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Aronsson, Karin
2012 “Socialization through Verbal Play.” In The Handbook of Language Socialization, ed. by Alessandro Duranti, Elinor Ochs and Bambi Schieffelin, 464–483. Malden: Wiley–Blackwell.Google Scholar
Beaupoil–Hourdel, Pauline and Camille Debras
2017 “Developing Communicative Postures: The Emergence of Shrugging in Child Communication.” Language, Interaction, Acquisition 8: 89–116. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Blum–Kulka, Shoshanna, and Catherine E. Snow (eds.)
2002 Talking to adults: The Contribution of Multiparty Discourse to Language Acquisition. Mahwah, NJ, US: Lawrence Associates Publishers. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Blum–Kulka, Shoshanna
1997 Dinner Talk: Cultural Patterns of Sociability and Socialization. Malden: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Boas, Franz (ed.)
1911 Handbook of American Indian Languages, Vol. BAE–B 40, Part I. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution and Bureau of American Ethnology.Google Scholar
Boas, Franz
1965 [1911] The Mind of Primitive Man. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Budwig, Nancy
2003 “Context and the Dynamic Construal of Meaning in Early Childhood.” In Social and Cognitive Development in the Context of Individual, Social, and Cultural Processes, ed. by Catherine Raeff and Janette B. Benson, 103–130. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Caët, Stéphanie
2013 Référence à Soi et à l’Interlocuteur chez des Enfants Francophones et Anglophones et leurs Parents. PhD Dissertation, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris 3.Google Scholar
Caronia, Letizia
2015 “Totem and Taboo: The Embarrassing Epistemic Work of Things in the Research Setting”. Qualitative Research 15(2): 141–165. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cienki, Alan
2012 “Usage Events of Spoken Language and the Symbolic Units We (May) Abstract from Them.” In Cognitive Processes in Language, ed. by Janusz Badio and Krzysztof Kosecki, 149–158. Bern: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Cohen, Marcel
1924 “Sur les Langages Successifs de l’Enfant.”In Mélanges Linguistiques Offerts à M. J. Vendryès par Ses Amis et Ses Elèves, 109–127. Paris, Champion, collection published by the Société de Linguistique, XVII.Google Scholar
Debras, Camille
2017 “The Shrug: Forms and Meanings of a Compound Enactment.” Gesture 16: 1–34. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Duranti, Alessandro, Elinor Ochs, and Bambi Schieffelin
2012 The Handbook of Language Socialization. Malden: Wiley Blackwell.Google Scholar
Duranti, Alessandro
2015 The Anthropology of Intentions: Language in a World of Others. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ekman, Paul
1984 “Expression and the Nature of Emotion.” In Approaches to Emotion, ed. by Klaus R. Scherer and Paul Ekman, 319–344. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Fischler, Claude, and Emmanuelle Masson
2008 Manger. Français, Européens et Américains Face à l’Alimentation. Paris: Odile Jacob.Google Scholar
Galatolo Renata, Erika Vassallo, and Letizia Caronia
2015 “"Je m’en Mets Toute Seule". Séquences d’Etayage dans des Repas de Famille. Bulletin Suisse de Linguistique Appliquée 101: 117–135.Google Scholar
Galatolo, Renata, and Letizia Caronia
2018 “Morality at Dinnertime: the Sense of the Other as a Practical Accomplishment in Family Interaction.” Discourse & Society 29(1): 43–62. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gleason, Jean Berko
1975 “Fathers and Other Strangers: Men's Speech to Young Children”. In Developmental Psycholinguistics: Theory and Applications, ed. by Daniel P. Dato, 289–297. Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Goffman, Erving
1974 Frame analysis: An essay on the Organization of Experience. London: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Goodwin, Charles and Marjorie H. Goodwin
1992 “Context, Activity and Participation.” In The Contextualization of Language, ed. by Aldo Di Luzio and Peter Auer, 77–99. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goodwin, Charles
2018 “Why Multimodality? Why Co–Operative Action?” In Social Interaction. Video–Based Studies of Human Sociality 1(2): 85–98. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goodwin, Marjorie
1996 “Shifting Frame.” In Social Interaction, Social Context, and Language: Essays in Honor of Susan Ervin–Tripp, ed. by Dan I. Slobin, Julie Gerhardt, Amy Kyratzis, and Jiansheng Guo, 71–83. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Gopnik, Alison, Andrew N. Meltzoff, and Patricia K. Kuhl
1999 The Scientist in the Crib: Minds, Brains, and How Children Learn. New York, NY, US: William Morrow & Co.Google Scholar
Gumperz John, J. and Steven C. Levinson
1991 “Rethinking Linguistic Relativity.” Current Anthropology 32: 613–623. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gumperz, John J. and Stephen C. Levinson (ed.)
1996 Rethinking Linguistic Relativity. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Halliday, Michael
1967 “Notes on transitivity and Theme in English.” Journal of Linguistics 3: 199–244. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Husserl, Edmund
1931/2001 Méditations Cartésiennes (French translation by Emmanuel Levinas and Gabrielle Peiffer). Paris: Vrin.Google Scholar
Ingram, David
1989 First Language Acquisition. Method, Description and Explanation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kendon, Adam
1988 “How Gestures Can Become like Words.” In Poyatos. Cross–cultural Perspectives in Non Verbal Communication, 131–141. Toronto: Hogrefe.Google Scholar
1990 . Studies in Interactional Sociolinguistics, 7. Conducting Interaction: Patterns of Behavior in Focused Encounters. New York, NY, US: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Klinnert, Mary, Robert Emde, Perry Butterfield, and Joseph, J. Campos
1983 “Emotions as Behavior Regulators: Social Referencing in Infancy.” In Emotion: Theory, Research and Experience, ed. by Robert Plutchik and Henry Kellerman, 257–285, New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Kremer–Sadlik, Tamar, Aliyah, Morgenstern, Chloé Peters, Pauline Beaupoil, Stéphanie Caët, Camille Debras, and Marine Le Mené
2015 “Eating Fruits and Vegetables: An Ethnographic Study of American and French Family Dinners.” Appetite 89: 84–92. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Labov, William
1972 Sociolinguistic Patterns. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Lucy, John A
1997 “Linguistic relativity.” Annual Review of Anthropology 26: 291–312. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
MacWhinney, Brian
2000 The CHILDES Project: Tools for Analyzing Talk. 3rd Edition. Vol. 2: The Database. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Mondada, Lorenza
2007 “Multimodal Resources for Turn–taking: Pointing and the Emergence of Possible Next Speakers.” Discourse Studies 9(2): 194–225. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2009 “The Methodical Organization of Talking and Eating: Assessments in Dinner Conversations.” Food Quality and Preference. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2019 “Contemporary Issues in Conversation Analysis: Embodiment and Materiality, Multimodality and Multisensoriality in Social Interaction.” Journal of Pragmatics 145: 47–62. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Morgan, David H. J
2013 Rethinking Family Practices. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Morgenstern, Aliyah and Christophe Parisse
2007 “Codage et Interprétation du Langage Spontané d’enfants de 1 à 3 Ans.” Corpus n°6 Interprétation, Contextes, Codage 55–78. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Morgenstern, Aliyah, Camille Debras, Marine Le Mené, Stéphanie Caët, Pauline Beaupoil, and Tamar Kremer–Sadlik
2015 “L’art de l’Artichaut et Autres Rituels: Transmission de Pratiques Sociales et Alimentaires dans les Diners Familiaux Parisiens.” Anthropology of Food 9. [URL]. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Morgenstern, Aliyah
2009 L’enfant dans la langue. Paris: Presses de la Sorbonne Nouvelle.Google Scholar
2012 “The self as Other: Selfwords and Pronominal Reversals in Language Acquisition.” In Spaces of Polyphony, ed. by Clara–Ubaldina Lorda and Patrick Zabalbeascoa, 57–72. Amsterdam/London: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2014 “Children’s Multimodal Language Development.” In Manual of Language Acquisition, ed. by Christiane Fäcke, 123–142. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2016 “Pratiques Langagières et Comportements du Patient en Milieu Familial: Apport des Méthodes Ethnographiques Multimodales pour la Recherche en Médecine.” Ethics, Medicine and Public Health 2: 641–649. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Müller, Cornelia
2009 “Gesture and Language.” In Routledge’s Linguistics Encyclopedia, ed. by Kirsten Malmkjaer, 214–217. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Ochs, Elinor, and Bambi Schieffelin
1984 “Language Acquisition and Socialization: Three Developmental Stories.” In Culture Theory: Mind, Self, and Emotion, ed. by Richard Shweder and Robert LeVine. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ochs, Elinor and Bambi Schieffelin
1989 “Language Has a Heart. The Pragmatics of Affect. Text 9(1): 7–25. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ochs, Elinor and Carolyn Taylor
1992 “Family Narrative as Political Activity.” Discourse & Society 3(3): 301–340. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ochs, Elinor and Merav Shohet
2006 “The Cultural Structuring of Mealtime Socialization.” In New Directions in Child and Adolescent Development Series Number 1: Family mealtime as a Context of Development and Socialization, ed. by Read Larson, Angela R. Wiley and Kathryn Branscomb, 35–50. San Francisco: Jossey–Bass. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ochs, Elinor and Tamar Kremer–Sadlik (eds.)
2013 Fast–Forward Family. Home, Work, and Relationships in Middle–Class America. Los Angeles: University of California Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ochs, Elinor, Clothilde Pontecorvo, and Alessandra Fasulo
1996 “Socializing Taste.” Ethnos 61: 7–46. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ochs, Elinor
1990 “Acquisition of Competence”. Oxford Encyclopedia of Linguistics 358–361.Google Scholar
1993 “Constructing Social Identity: A Language Socialization Perspective.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 26: 287–306. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2012 “Experiencing Language.” Anthropological Theory 12(2): 142–160. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Parisse, Christophe and Aliyah Morgenstern
2010 “A Multi–software Integration Platform and Support for Multimedia Transcripts of Language.” Proceedings of the Workshop on Multimodal Corpora: Advances in Capturing, Coding and Analyzing Multimodality, 106–110.Google Scholar
Parisse, Christophe and Marie–Thérèse Le Normand
2006 “Une Méthode pour Evaluer la Production du Langage Spontané chez l’Enfant de 2 à 4 Ans.” Glossa 97: 20–41.Google Scholar
Parisse, Christophe, Sophie de Pontonx, and Aliyah Morgenstern
2018 “L’imparfait dans le Langage de l’enfant: Une Forme pour Sortir de l’Ici et Maintenant.” Langage – Interaction – Acquisition 183–225. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sacks, Harvey, Emmanuel Schegloff, and Gail Jefferson
1974 “A Simplest Systematics for the organization of Turn–taking in Conversation.” Language 50: 696–735. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sacks, Harvey
1984 “Notes on Methodology.” In Structures of Social Action, ed. by J. Maxwell Atkinson and John Heritage, 21–37. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
1992 Lectures on Conversation (1964-1972) (2 volumes). Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Sapir, Edward
1921 Language. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World.Google Scholar
1927 “The Unconscious Patterning of Behavior in Society.” In The Unconscious: A Symposium, ed. by Ethel Sturges Dummer, 114–142. New York: Knopf. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schegloff, Emmanuel
2009 “One Perspective on Conversation Analysis: Comparative Perspectives.” In Conversation Analysis: Comparative Perspectives (Studies in Interactional Sociolinguistics), ed. by Jack Sidnell, 357–406. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schieffelin, Bambi and Elinor Ochs
1986 “Language Socialization.” Annual Review of Anthropology 15: 163–191. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Smith, Carlota S
1980 “The Acquisition of Time Talk: Relations between Child and Adult Grammars.” Journal of Child Language 7(2): 263–278. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tomasello, Michael
1988 “The Role of Joint Attentional Process in Early Language Development.” Language Sciences 10: 69–88. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2003 Constructing a Language: A Usage–Based Theory of Language Acquisition. Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Veneziano, Edy and Ermina Sinclair
1995 “Functional changes in Early Child Language: The Appearance of references to the Past and of Explanations.” Journal of Child Language 22: 557–581. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Vygotsky, Lev. S
1934[1985] Thought and Language. Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press.Google Scholar
Weigand, Edda
2010 Dialogue: The Mixed Game. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Whorf, Benjamin
1956 Language, Thought, and Reality: Selected Writings. Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press.Google Scholar
Wood, David, Jerome Bruner, and Gail Ross
1976 “The Role of Tutoring in Problem Solving”. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 17/2: 89–100. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zlatev, Jordan
1997 Situated Embodiment, Studies in the Emergence of Spatial Meaning. Stockholm: Gotab Press.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 1 other publications

Morgenstern, Aliyah
2022. Children's multimodal language development from an interactional, usage‐based, and cognitive perspective. WIREs Cognitive Science DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 5 march 2023. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.