Chapter 2
Making unquestionable worlds
Morality building practices in family dinner dialogues
Drawing on extant studies and research on language socialization and dinner talk, this chapter focuses on ordinary family interactions as socializing experiences and – at the same time – as culture-building activities. Adopting a conversation analytic approach, examples of video-recorded family dinner interactions are discussed to illustrate how cultural ideas and moral horizons are presupposed and (re)constructed in the micro-order of everyday family life. Specifically, the analysis shows how parents talk into being the cultural certainty that food is a “good that must be preserved” by treating it as an “ought to be shared” resource or as a valuable good per se. We contend that, by taking part in such ordinary dialogues, children are socialized to these cultural beliefs as if they were taken for granted, obvious and uncontestable facts of life. At the same time, it is through such unplanned dialogues that members enact the silent and almost invisible process through which individuals create – day by day – their cultural world as a quasi-natural one.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Mundane morality and everyday practices
- 2.1Morality in everyday family life: Children's socialization and culture construction
- 2.2Mealtime morality
- 3.Data corpus and procedures
- 4.The construction of food as a common good
- 5.Food and water as valuable goods per se
- 5.1Wasting water as a reprimandable activity: The use of elliptical directives as a resource
- 5.2Water as a morally laden object: The use of impersonal negative deontic declaratives
- 5.3“Do we throw everything away every time?”: Rhetorical questions as indirect statements of the rule
- 5.4Leftover food as a morally loaded object: Asking for an account and “disguised directives” as resources
- 6.Discussion
- 7.Building unquestionable worlds: Concluding remarks
-
Notes
-
References
References (94)
Aronsson, Karin
2006 “
Commentary 1. Doing family: An interactive accomplishment.”
Text & Talk 26(4–5): 619–626.
Aronsson, Karin and Lukas Gottzén
2011 “
Generational Positions at Family Dinner: Food Morality and Social Order.”
Language in Society 40: 405–426.
Aronsson, Karin and Karin Osvaldsson
2013 “
Trust and the Contestation of Blame Narratives: Veiled Stances in an Institutional Assessment Context.” In
Dialogical Approaches to Trust in Communication, ed. by
Per Linell and
Ivana Markova, 29–49. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.
Baxter, Leslie
2011 Voicing Relationships: a dialogic Approach. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Bergmann, Jorg R
1998 “
Introduction: Morality in Discourse.”
Research on Language and Social Interaction 31(3–4): 279–294.
Blum-Kulka, Shoshana
2007[1997] Dinner Talk. Cultural Patterns of Sociability and Socialization in Family Discourse. New York: Routledge.
Brumark, Asa
2006 “
Regulatory Talk and Politeness at the Family Dinner Table.”
Pragmatics 16: 171–211.
Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth, and Margret Selting
2017 Interactional Linguistics: Studying Language in Social Interaction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Craven, Alexandra and Jonathan Potter
2010 “
Directives: Entitlement and Contingency in Action.”
Discourse Studies 12(4): 419–442.
Cromdal, Jacob and Michael Tholander
2015 Morality in Practice: Exploring Childhood, Parenthood and Schooling in Everyday Family Life. London: Equinox.
Du Bois, John W.
2007 “
The Stance Triangle.” In
Stancetaking in Discourse, ed. by
Robert Englebretson, 139–182. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Duranti, Alessandro
1993 “
Intentions, Self, and Responsibility.” In
Responsibility and Evidence in Oral Discourse, ed. by
Jane H. Hill and
Judith T. Irvine, 24–47. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Duranti, Alessandro
1997 Linguistic Anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Duranti, Alessandro, Elinor Ochs, and Bambi B. Schieffelin
2012 The Handbook of Language Socialization. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell Publishing.
Eagleton, Terry
2009 Trouble with Strangers. A Study of Ethics. Chichester, UK: Wiley- Blackwell.
Fasulo, Alessandra and Clotilde Pontecorvo
1999 Come si Dice? Linguaggio e Apprendimento in Famiglia e a Scuola. Roma: Carocci Editore.
Fasulo, Alessandra, Heather Loyd, and Vincenzo Padiglione
2007 “
Children's Socialization into Cleaning Practices: A Cross-Cultural Perspective.”
Discourse and Society 18(1):11–33.
Galatolo, Renata, Erika Vassallo, and Letizia Caronia
2015. ""
Je m’en mets toute seule". Séquences d’tayage dans des Repas de Famille.”
Bulletin suisse de linguistique appliquée 101: 117–135.
Galatolo, Renata and Letizia Caronia
2018 “
Morality at Dinnertime: The sense of the Other as a Practical Accomplishment in Family Interaction.”
Discourse and Society, Vol. 29(1): 43–62.
Galeano, Giorgia and Alessandra Fasulo
2009 “
Sequenze Direttive tra Genitori e Figli.” In
Culture Familiari tra Pratiche Quotidiane e Rappresentazioni, ed. by
Sabina Giorgi, and
Clotilde Pontecorvo, 261–278.
Etnografia e Ricerca Qualitativa 2: 261–278.
Garfinkel, Harold
1967 Studies in Ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Garfinkel, Harold
2002 Ethnomethodology's Program: Working Out Durkheim's Aphorism. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlfield.
Garfinkel, Harold and Lawrence Wieder
1992 “
Two Incommensurable, Asymmetrically Alternate Technologies of Social Analysis.” In
Text in Context: Studies in Ethnomethodology, ed. by
Graham Watson, and
Robert M. Seiler, 175–206. Newbury Park: Sage Publications.
Gil, David
1995 “
Universal Quantifiers and Distributivity.” In
Quantification in Natural Languages, ed. by
Emmon Bach,
Eloise Jelinek,
Angelika Kratzer, and
Barbara H. Partee, 321–362. Norwell, MA: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Goffman, Erving
1955 “
On face-work: An Analysis of Ritual Elements in Social Interaction.”
Psychiatry: Interpersonal and Biological Processes 18: 213–231.
Goffman, Erving
1981 Forms of Talk. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Goffman, Erving
1983 “
The Interaction Order.”
American Sociological Review 48: 1–17.
Goodwin, Charles
2000 “
Action and Embodiment within Situated Human Interaction.”
Journal of Pragmatics 32: 1489–1522.
Goodwin, Charles and Asta Cekaite
2013 “
Calibration in Directive-response Sequences in Family Interaction.”
Journal of Pragmatics 46: 122–138.
Goodwin Marjorie, Harness
2006 “
Participation, Affect, and Trajectory in Family Directive/Response Sequences.”
Text & Talk 26(4–5): 513–541.
Goodwin, Marjorie Harness and Asta Cekaite
2018 Embodied Family Choreography. Practices of Control, Care and Mundane Creativity. New York: Routledge.
Grosse, Gerlind and Michael Tomasello
2012 “
Two-year-old children differentiate test questions from genuine questions.”
Journal of Child Language 39(1):192–204.
Gumperz, John J.
1992 “
Contextualization and Understanding.”
In Rethinking Context: Language as an interactive Phenomenon, ed. by
Alessandro Duranti and
Charles Goodwin, 229–252. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hepburn, Alexa, and Jonathan Potter
2011 “
Threats: Power, Family Mealtimes, and Social Influence.”
British Journal of Social Psychology, 50, 99–120.
Heritage, John
1984 Garfinkel and Ethnomethodology. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Heritage, John
1997 “
Conversation Analysis and Institutional Talk: Analyzing Data.” In
Qualitative Research: Theory, Method and Practice, ed. by
David Silverman, 222–245. London: Sage Publications.
Heritage, John
2012a “
Epistemics in Action: Action Formation and Territories of Knowledge.”
Research on Language and Social Interaction 45(1): 1–29.
Heritage, John
2012b “
The Epistemic Engine: Sequence Organization and Territories of Knowledge.”
Research on Language and Social Interaction 45(1): 30–52.
Heritage, John and Anna Lindström
1998 “
Motherhood, Medicine, and Morality: Scenes from a Medical Encounter.”
Research on Language and Social Interaction 31: 397–438.
Holliday, Adrian
1999 “
Small Cultures.”
Applied Linguistics 20(2): 237–264.
Jedlowski, Paolo
2018 “
Il Mondo Dato per Scontato. Conversazioni Quotidiane e Costruzione Sociale della Realtà.” In
Il senso della realtà: L'orizzonte della fenomenologia nello studio del mondo sociale, ed. by
Stefano Besoli and
Letizia Caronia, 119–129. Macerata: Quodlibet Studio.
Kathard, Hasha, Daisy Pillay, and Mershen Pillay
2015 “
A Study of Teacher-Learner Interactions: A Continuum Between Monologic and Dialogic Interactions.”
Language, Speech, and Hearing Services 46: 222–224.
Kent, Alesandra
2011 Directing dinnertime: practices and resources used by parents and children to deliver and respond to directive actions. Doctoral Thesis Loughborough University.
Laidlaw, James
2014 The Subject of Virtue: An Anthropology of Ethics and Freedom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lambek, Michael
2010 Ordinary Ethics: Anthropology, Language, and Action. New York: Fordham University Press.
Lambek, Michael
2013 “
On the Immanence of Ethics." University of Toronto, October 10, 2013.
CURA – Luce Short Papers on Key Issues in Religion and World Affairs.
Lee, Yo-An
2007 “
Third Turn Position in Teacher Talk: Contingency and the Work of Teaching.”
Journal of Pragmatics 39:1204–1230.
Linell, Per and Ragnar Rommetveit
1998 “
The Many Forms and Facets of Morality in Dialogue: Epilogue for the Special Issue.”
Research on Language and Social Interaction 3(3–4): 465–473.
Margutti, Piera
2011 “
Teacher's Reproaches and Managing Discipline in the Classroom: When Teachers Tell Students What They Do 'Wrong'.”
Linguistics and Education 22:310–329.
Mead, George Herbert
1967 [1934]
Mind, Self, and Society. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
Mehan, Hugh
1979a Learning Lessons: Social Organization in the Classroom. Cambridge, Mass., and London: Harvard University Press.
Mehan, Hugh
1979b ""
What Time Is It, Denise?": Asking Known Information Questions in Classroom Discourse.”
Theory into Practice 28(4): 285–294.
Morgenstern, Aliyah, Camille Debras, et al.
2015 “
L'Art de l’Artichaut et Autres Rituels: Transmission de Pratiques Sociales et Alimentaires dans les Diners Familiaux Parisiens.”
Anthropology of Food 9.
Ochs, Elinor
1988 Culture and Language Development: Language Acquisition and Language Socialization in a Samoan Village. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ochs, Elinor, Ruth Smith, and Carolyn Taylor
1989 “
Detective Stories at Dinnertime: Problem-solving through Co-narration.”
Cultural Dynamics 2(2): 238–257.
Ochs, Elinor, Carolyn Taylor, et al.
1992 “
Storytelling as a theory-Building activity.”
Discourse Processes 15(1): 37–72.
Ochs, Elinor and Carolyn Taylor
1993 “
Mothers’ Role in the Everyday Reconstruction of 'Father Knows Best'.” In
Locating Power: Women and Language, ed. by
Kira Hall, 447–463. Proceedings of the Berkeley Linguistics Society. Berkeley, CA: University of California.
Ochs, Elinor, Clotilde Pontecorvo, and Alessandra Fasulo
1996 “
Socializing Taste.”
Ethnos, 61: 7–46.
Ochs, Elinor and Merav Shohet
2006 “
The Cultural Structuring of Mealtime Socialization.”
New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development 11:35–50.
Ochs, Elinor and Tamar Kremer-Sadlik
2007 “
Introduction: Morality as a Family Practice.”
Discourse and Society 18(1): 5–10.
Ochs, Elinor and Carolina Izquierdo
2009 “
Responsibility in Childhood: Three Developmental Trajectories.”
ETHOS 37(4): 391–413.
Ochs, Elinor and Tamar Kremer-Sadlik
2013 “
Introduction.” In
Fast Forward Family. Home, Work, and Relationships in Middle-class America, ed. by
Elinor Ochs and
Tamar Kremer-Sadlik, 1–12. Berkeley/ Los Angeles/ London: University of California Press.
Paugh, Amy and Carolina Izquierdo
2009 “
Why is this a Battle every Night?: Negotiating Food and Eating in American Dinnertime Interaction.”
Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 19(2): 185–204.
Pomerantz, Anita
1986 “
Extreme Case formulations: A Way of Legitimizing Claim.”
Human Studies 9: 219–229.
Pontecorvo, Clotilde
1993 La Condivisione della Conoscenza. Firenze: La Nuova Italia.
Pontecorvo, Clotilde, Anna Maria Ajello, Cristina Zucchermaglio
1991 Discutendo Si Impara. Roma: La Nuova Italia Scientifica.
Pontecorvo, Clotilde, Anna Maria Ajello, Cristina Zucchermaglio
1995 I Contesti Sociali dell'Apprendimento. Milano: LED.
Pontecorvo, Clotilde and Alessandro Duranti
1996 “
Bambini e Genitori in Famiglia. Conversazione e Socializzazione.”
Età Evolutiva 55: 53–119.
Pontecorvo, Clotilde, Alessandra Fasulo, Laura Sterponi
2001 “
Mutual Apprentices: The Making of Parenthood and Childhood in Family Dinner Conversations.”
Human Development 44: 342–363.
Pontecorvo, Clotilde and Francesco Arcidiacono
2007 Famiglie all'Italiana: Parlare a Tavola. Milano: Raffaello Cortina.
Robles, Jessica S.
2015 “
Morality in Discourse.” In
International Encyclopedia of Language and Social Interaction, ed. by
Karen Tracy,
Cornelia Ilie, and
Todd Sandel, 132–137. Boston, MA: John Wiley & Sons.
Rossi, Giovanni and Jorg Zinken
2016 “
Grammar and Social Agency: The Pragmatics of Impersonal Deontic Statements.”
Language 92(4): e296–e325.
Sacks, Harvey
1984 “
Notes on Methodology.” In
Structures of Social Action: Studies in Conversation Analysis, ed. by
J. Maxwell Atkinson and
John Heritage. Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press.
Sadock, Jerrold
1971 “
Queclaratives.”
Papers from the Seventh Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, ed. by
Douglas Adams,
Ann Campbell, Mary,
Cohen, Victor,
Lovins, Julie,
Maxwell, Edward,
Nygren, Carolyn,
Reighard, John, 223–232. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society.
Sadock, Jerrold
1974 Towards a Linguistic theory of Speech Acts. New York: Academic Press.
Searle, John R
1979 Expression and Meaning: Studies in the Theory of Speech Acts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Schegloff, Emanuel, Gail Jefferson, and Harvey Sacks
1977 “
The Preference for Self-Correction in the Organization of Repair in Conversation.”
Language 53: 361–382.
Scheler, Max
2013 [1926]
Il Formalismo Nell'etica e L'etica Materiale Dei Valori. Milano: Bompiani.
Schieffelin, Bambi B. and Elinor Ochs
1986 Language Socialization across Cultures. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Schiffrin, Deborah
1987 Discourse Markers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sterponi, Laura
2003 “
Account Episodes in Family Discourse: The making of morality in everyday interaction.”
Discourse Studies 5(1): 79–100.
Sterponi, Laura
2009 “
Accountability in Family Discourse: Socialization into Norms and Standards and Negotiation of Responsibility in Italian Dinner Conversation.”
Childhood 16(4): 441–459.
Sterponi, Laura
2014 “
Caught red-handed: How Italian Parents Engage Children in Moral Discourse and Action.” In
Talking about Right and Wrong: Parent-Child Conversations as Contexts for Moral Development, ed. by
Cecilia Wainryb and
Holly E. Recchia, 122–143. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Stets, Jan E. and Michael J. Carter
2012 “
A Theory of the Self for the Sociology of Morality.”
American Sociological Review 77(1): 120–140.
Stivers, Tanya, Lorenza Mondada, and Jakob Steensig
2011 The Morality of Knowledge in Conversation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Stokoe, Elizabeth and Derek Edwards
2015 “
Mundane Morality: Gender, Categories and Complaints in Familial Neighbour Disputes.”
Journal of Applied Linguistics and Professional Practice 9(2): 165–192.
Tracy, Karen
2008 “
'Reasonable Hostility': Situation-appropriate Face-attack.”
Journal of Politeness Research 4: 169–191.
Tramma, Sergio
2009 Che cos'è l’educazione informale? Roma: Carocci Editore.
Vassallo, Erika
2016 Culture Familiari e Pratiche di Vita quotidiana: Modelli Educativi e Culturali nelle Conversazioni a Tavola tra Genitori e Figli. PhD Dissertation.
Vygotskij, Lev S.
1962 [1934] Thought and Language. Cambridge, MASS: MIT Press.
Wainryb, Cecilia and Holly E. Recchia
2014 Talking about Right and Wrong: Parent-Child Conversations as Contexts for Moral Development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cited by (2)
Cited by 2 other publications
Colla, Vittoria
2023.
‘Teacher Martina wants you to write in cursive’.
Research on Children and Social Interaction 7:1
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 4 july 2024. 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.