Article published In:
Narrative InquiryVol. 26:1 (2016) ► pp.150–170
‘I sort of did stuff to him’
A case study of tellability and taboo in young people’s talk about sex
This article presents a conversation analytic examination of a telephone call in which a teenage girl updates her friend about developments in a relationship. The telling is in three phases, from initial reluctance, through first kiss to first sexual contact. Drawing on the notion of lower and upper bounded tellability, I analyse the talk for what is constructed as tellable and as taboo. Eminently tellable, the kiss is a directly named activity, details are sought, and it is assessed in a delighted way. In contrast, the sexual activity is not named and instead is referred to as ‘stuff’. The details of ‘stuff’ are not pursued, and the activity is assessed with (playful) disapproval. The telling speaks to normative gendered sexual expectations for teenage girls in the UK. In talking about personal experience of sexual conduct but without talking in any detail, these speakers position themselves as morally respectable.
Keywords: Conversation analysis, storytelling, teenage sexuality, tellability
References
Allen, L
(2003) Girls want sex, boys want love: Resisting dominant discourses of (hetero) sexuality. Sexualities, 6(2), 215–236. 
Angelides, S
(2012) The ‘Second Sexual Revolution’, moral panic, and the evasion of teenage sexual subjectivity. Women’s History Review, 21(5), 831–847.
Aral, S.O., & Manhart, L.E
(2009) “Someone naughty for tonight”: Sex partner recruitment venues and associated STI risk. Sexually Transmitted Infections, 85(4), 239–240.
Bamberg, M.G
(1997) Positioning between structure and performance. Journal of narrative and life history, 7(1–4), 335–342.
Billig, M
(2006) A psychoanalytic discursive psychology: From consciousness to unconsciousness. Discourse Studies, 8(1), 17–24.
Broad, K
(2011) Coming out for parents, families and friends of lesbians and gays: From support group grieving to love advocacy. Sexualities, 14(4), 399–415.
Clayman, S
(2010) Address terms in the service of other actions: The case of news interview talk. Discourse & Communication, 4(2), 161–183.
Crawford, M., & Popp, D
(2003) Sexual double standards: A review and methodological critique of two decades of research. Journal of Sex Research, 40(1), 13–26.
De Fina, A
(2008) Who tells which story and why? Micro and macro contexts in narrative. Text & Talk - An Interdisciplinary Journal of Language, Discourse Communication Studies, 28(3), 421–442.
(2009) Narratives in interview — The case of accounts: For an interactional approach to narrative genres. Narrative Inquiry, 19(2), 233–258.
De Fina, A., & Georgakopoulou, A
(2008) Analysing narratives as practices. Qualitative Research, 8(3), 379–387.
Drew, P
(1987) Po-faced receipts of teases. Linguistics, 25(1), 219–253.
(1992) Contested evidence in courtroom cross-examination: The case of a trial for rape. In P. Drew & J. Heritage (Eds.), Talk at work: Interaction in institutional settings (pp. 470–520). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Drew, P., & Walker, T
(2009) Going too far: Complaining, escalating and disaffiliation. Journal of Pragmatics, 41(12), 2400–2414.
Egan, R.D
(2013) Becoming sexual: A critical appraisal of the sexualization of girls. Cambridge: John Wiley & Sons.
Egan, R.D., & Hawkes, G.L
(2008) Endangered girls and incendiary objects: Unpacking the discourse on sexualization. Sexuality & Culture, 12(4), 291–311.
(2012) Sexuality, youth and the perils of endangered innocence: How history can help us get past the panic. Gender and Education, 24(3), 269–284.
Elliott, S
(2010) Parents’ constructions of teen sexuality: Sex panics, contradictory discourses, and social inequality. Symbolic Interaction, 33(2), 191–212.
Gilligan, C
(1982) In a different voice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Gilmore, S., Delamater, J., & Wagstaff, D
(1996) Sexual decision making by inner city black adolescent males: A focus group study. Journal of Sex Research, 33(4), 363–371.
Goffman, E
(1967) Interaction ritual: Essays in face-to-face behavior. London: Aldine
Goodwin, C
(1986) Audience diversity, participation and interpretation. Text, 6(3), 283–316.
Griffin, C
(2007) Being dead and being there research interviews, sharing hand cream and the preference for analysing naturally occurring data’. Discourse Studies, 9(2), 246–269.
Hammersley, M
(2003) Analytics are no substitute for methodology: A response to Speer and Hutchby. Sociology, 371, 339–352.
Heath, C., Hindmarsh, J., & Luff, P
(2010) Video in qualitative research: Analysing social interaction in everyday life. London: Sage.
Harris, M.B
(2013) School experiences of gay and lesbian youth: The invisible minority. London: Routledge.
Heritage, J
(2012) The epistemic engine: Sequence organization and territories of knowledge. Research on Language & Social Interaction, 45(1), 30–52.
(2013) Turn-initial position and some of its occupants. Journal of Pragmatics, 571, 331–337.
Hirst, J
(2004) Researching young people’s sexuality and learning about sex: Experience, need, and sex and relationship education. Culture, Health & Sexuality, 6(2), 115–129.
(2013) ‘It’s got to be about enjoying yourself’: Young people, sexual pleasure, and sex and relationships education. Sex Education, 13(4), 423–436.
Hutchby, I
(2002) Resisting the incitement to talk in child counselling: Aspects of the utterance ‘I don’t know’. Discourse studies, 4(2), 147–168.
Jackson, S
(1982) Childhood and sexuality. Oxford: Blackwell
Jefferson, G
(1984) Stepwise transition from talk about a trouble to inappropriately next-positioned matters. In J.M. Atkinson & J. Heritage (Eds.), Structures of social action: Studies in conversation analysis (pp. 191–222). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Jefferson, G., Sacks, H., & Schegloff, E.A
(1987) Notes on laughter in the pursuit of intimacy. In G. Button & J.R.E. Lee (Eds.), Talk and social organisation (pp. 152–205). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Karatsu, M
(2012) Conversational storytelling among Japanese women : Conversational circumstances, social circumstances and tellability of stories. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Kitzinger, C
(2000) Doing feminist conversation analysis. Feminism & Psychology, 10(2), 163–193.
(2005a) Heteronormativity in action: Reproducing the heterosexual nuclear family in after-hours medical calls. Social Problems, 52(4), 477–498.
(2005b) “ Speaking as a Heterosexual:” (How) does sexuality matter for talk-in-interaction? Research on Language and Social Interaction, 38(3), 221–265.
(2006) Talking sex and gender. In P. Drew, G. Raymond, & D. Weinberg (Eds.), Talk and interaction in social research methods. London: Sage.
Kitzinger, C., & Frith, H
(1999) Just say no? The use of conversation analysis in developing a feminist perspective on sexual refusal. Discourse & Society, 10(3), 293–316.
Labov, W
(1972) Some principles of linguistic methodology. Language in Society, 1(1), 97–120.
Labov, W., & Fanshel, D
(1977) Therapeutic discourse. New York: Academic Press.
Labov, W., & Waletsky, J
(1967) Narrative analysis: Oral versions of personal experience. Journal of Narrative and Life History, 71, 3–38.
Land, V., & Kitzinger, C
(2005) Speaking as a lesbian: Correcting the heterosexist presumption. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 38(4), 371–416.
Lees, S
(1986) Losing out: Sexuality and adolescent girls. London: Hutchinson.
Lerner, G.H
(1996) On the” semi-permeable” character of grammatical units in conversation: Conditional entry into the turn space of another speaker. Studies in interactional sociolinguistics, 131, 238–276.
(2003) Selecting next speaker: The context-sensitive operation of a context-free organization. Language in Society, 32(02), 177–201.
Lynch, M
(2002) From naturally occurring data to naturally organized ordinary activities: Comment on Speer. Discourse Studies, 4(4), 531–537.
Mandelbaum, J
(2013) Storytelling in conversation. In J. Sidnell & T. Stivers (Eds.), The handbook of conversation analysis (pp. 492–507). Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Martin, K.A
(1996) Puberty, sexuality, and the self: Boys and girls at adolescence. London: Psychology Press.
McAdams, D.P
(2006) The problem of narrative coherence. Journal of Constructivist Psychology, 19(2), 109–125.
Mishler, E.G
(1986) The analysis of interview-narratives. In T.R. Sarbin (Ed.), Narrative psychology: The storied nature of human conduct (pp. 233–255). New York: Praeger
Morrison, D.M., Masters, N.T., Wells, E.A., Casey, E., Beadnell, B., & Hoppe, M.J
(2015) “He enjoys giving her pleasure”: Diversity and complexity in young men’s sexual scripts. Archives of Sexual Behaviour, 44(3), 655–68.
Norrick, N
(2000) Conversational narrative: Storytelling in everyday talk. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing.
Ochs, E., & Capps, L
(2001) Living narrative: Creating lives in everyday storytelling. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Ogden, R
(2013) Clicks and percussives in English conversation. Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 43(3), 299–320.
Phillips, L.M
(2000) Flirting with danger: Young women’s reflections on sexuality and domination. New York: NYU Press.
Potter, J
(2002) ‘Two Kinds of Natural’. Discourse Studies, 41, 539–42.
Potter, J., & Hepburn, A
(2005) Qualitative interviews in psychology: Problems and possibilities. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 2(4), 281–307.
(2007) Life is out there. A comment on Griffin. Discourse Studies, 9(2), 276–282.
Raymond, G
(2003) Grammar and social organization: Yes/no interrogatives and the structure of responding. American Sociological Review, 68(6), 939–967.
Reber, E
Rendle-Short, J
(2005) ‘I’ve got a paper-shuffler for a husband’: Indexing sexuality on talk-back radio. Discourse & Society, 16(4), 561–578.
Renold, E., & Ringrose, J
(2008) Regulation and rupture. Mapping tween and teenage girls’ resistance to the heterosexual matrix. Feminist Theory, 9(3), 313–338.
(2011) Schizoid subjectivities? Re-theorizing teen girls’ sexual cultures in an era of ‘sexualization’. Journal of Sociology, 47(4), 389–409.
Ringrose, J., & Renold, E
(2012) Slut-shaming, girl power and ‘sexualisation’: Thinking through the politics of the international SlutWalks with teen girls. Gender and Education, 24(3), 333–343.
Sacks, H
(1974) An analysis of the course of a joke’s telling in conversation. In R. Bauman & J.F. Sherzer (Eds.), Explorations in the ethnography of speaking (pp. 337–353). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
(1984) Notes on methodology. In J.M. Atkinson & J. Heritage (Eds.), Structures of social action: Studies in conversation analysis (pp. 21–27). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
(1992) Lectures on conversation (Vols 1 & 21). Oxford: Blackwell.
Sacks, H., Schegloff, E.A., & Jefferson, G
(1974) A simplest systematics for the organization of turn-taking for conversation. Language, 50(4), 696–735.
Schalet, A.T
(2011) Not under my roof: Parents, teens, and the culture of sex. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Scharff, C
(2010) Silencing differences: The ‘unspoken’ dimensions of ‘speaking for others’. In Secrecy and silence in the research process. Feminist Reflections (pp. 83–95). London and New York: Routledge.
Schegloff, E.A
(1968) Sequencing in conversational openings. American Anthropologist, 70(6), 1075–1095.
(2007) Sequence organization in interaction: A primer in conversation analysis (Vol. 11). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
(2009) One perspective on conversation analysis: Comparative perspectives. Conversation analysis: Comparative perspectives, 27, 357.
Speer, S.A
(2012) Feminist conversation analysis: Who needs it? Qualitative Research in Psychology, 9(4), 292–297.
Speer, S.A., & Hutchby, I
(2003) ‘From ethics to analytics: Aspects of participants’ orientations to the presence and relevance of recording devices.’ Sociology, 371, 315–37.
Schegloff, E.A., & Lerner, G.H
(2009) Beginning to respond: Well-prefaced responses to wh-questions. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 42(2), 91–115.
Speer, S.A., & Stokoe, E
(2011) Conversation and gender. Cambridge University Press.
Stivers, T
(2008) Stance, alignment, and affiliation during storytelling: When nodding is a token of affiliation. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 41(1), 31–57.
Stokoe, E.H., & Edwards, D
Tolman, D.L
(1994) Doing desire: Adolescent girls’ struggles for/with sexuality. Gender & Society, 8(3), 324–342.
(2002) Dilemmas of desire: Teenage girls talk about sexuality. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Tolman, D.L., Hirschman, C., & Impett, E.A
(2005) There is more to the story: The place of qualitative research on female adolescent sexuality in policy making. Sexuality Research & Social Policy, 2(4), 4–17.
Tolman, D.L., Spencer, R., Rosen‐Reynoso, M., & Porche, M.V
(2003) Sowing the seeds of violence in heterosexual relationships: Early adolescents narrate compulsory heterosexuality. Journal of Social Issues, 59(1), 159–178.
Tsui, A
(1991) The pragmatic functions of I don’t know. Text-Interdisciplinary Journal for the Study of Discourse, 11(4), 607–622.
Weatherall, A
(2011) I don’t know as a prepositioned epistemic hedge. Research on Language & Social Interaction, 44(4), 317–337.
Whelan, P
(2012) Oxymoronic and sociologically monstrous? Feminist Conversation Analysis. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 9(4), 279–291.
Wilkinson, S., & Kitzinger, C
(2003) Constructing identities: A feminist conversation analytic approach to positioning in action. In R. Harré & F. Moghaddam (Eds.), The self and others: Positioning individuals and groups in personal, political, and cultural contexts (pp. 157–180). Westport, CT: Praeger.
(2014) Conversation analysis in language and gender studies. In S. Erlich, M. Meyerhoff, & J. Holmes (Eds.), The handbook of language, gender and sexuality (2nd ed., pp. 41–160). Oxford, UK: Wiley Blackwell.
Woods, C., & Wooffitt, R
Wowk, M.T
(2007) Kitzinger’s feminist conversation analysis: Critical observations. Human Studies, 30(2), 131–155.
Wright, M
(2011) On clicks in English talk-in-interaction. Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 41(2), 207–229.
Cited by
Cited by 3 other publications
Kelder, Irene, Annette Klarenbeek & Petra Sneijder
2024. “Normally I Always Ask Briefly…”: How Patients and Healthcare Professionals in Oncology Construct Sexuality as a Delicate Topic. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 43:2 ► pp. 224 ff. 
Thomas, M’Balia
Wang, Longlong
2021. Using tellability to analyze entrepreneurial narratives in the classroom. Narrative Inquiry 31:2 ► pp. 381 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 6 april 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.