Cover not available
Article published In:
Pragmatics
Vol. 12:3 (2002) ► pp.329–346

Behaviour regulation in the family context in Estonia and Sweden

The aim of the study is to compare the regulatory speech used by parents and children in three different groups: Swedes in Sweden, and Estonians in Estonia and Sweden. 54 families with children of 9-13 were videotaped during mealtime. All regulatory speech aimed at controlling behaviour was identified and coded according to sentence form used for regulation as well as outcome (response). Estonians in Estonia used behaviour directives most frequently, and favoured the direct imperative form of regulatory language over declaratives and questions used by Estonians and Swedes in Sweden. Although the outcomes of regulation were mainly compliance in all groups, Estonian children living in Sweden complied significantly less than Swedish children. The results also show that Estonian children in Sweden have been influenced by the Swedish preference for regulating by declaratives and questions, using more questions and fewer imperatives than their mothers.

Keywords: Cross-cultural comparison, Regulation, Behavioural directives, Family discourse, Pragmatic socialization
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) 4.0 license.
Published online: 1 September 2002
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/prag.12.3.03gee
References
Andersen, Elaine Slosberg
(1990) Speaking with style: The sociolinguistic skills of children. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Becker, Judith
(1982) Children’s strategic use of requests to mark and manipulate social status. In Stan Kuczaj II, (ed.), Language Development Vol 2: Language, Thought and Culture . Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Ass., pp. 1-35.Google Scholar
(1988) The success of parents’ indirect techniques for teaching their preschoolers pragmatic skills. First Language 81: 173-181. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(1990) Processes in the acquisition of pragmatic competence. In Gina Conti-Ramsden, & Catherine Snow (eds.), Children’s Language 7. Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum Ass., pp. 7-24.Google Scholar
Bellinger, D
(1979) Changes in the explicitness of mothers’ directives as children age. Journal of Child Language 181: 41-49. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
Blum-Kulka, Shoshana
(1997) Dinner talk. Cultural patterns of sociability and socialization in family discourse. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Ass.  BoPGoogle Scholar
Blum-Kulka, Shoshana, & Catherine E. Snow
(1992) Developing autonomy for tellers, tales, and telling in family narrative events. Journal of Narrative and Life History 2.3: 187-217. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Daun, Å
(1991) Individualism and collectivity among Swedes. Ethnos 56.3-4: 165-172. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
De Geer, Boel, Tiia Tulviste, Luule Mizera, & Marja-Terttu Tryggvason
in press) Socialization in communication: Pragmatic socialization during dinnertime in Estonian, Finnish and Swedish families. Journal of Pragmatics.
Goodwin, Marjorie Harness
(1990) He-Said-She-Said. Talk as social organization among black children. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.  BoPGoogle Scholar
Halle, T., & M. Shatz
(1994) Mothers’ social regulatory language to young children in family settings. First Language 141: 83-104. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Heath, S.B
(1983) Ways with words: Language, life and work in communities and classrooms. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.  BoP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Junefelt, Karin, & Tiia Tulviste
(1997) Regulation and praise in American, Estonian and Swedish mother-child interaction. Mind, Culture and Activity 4.1: 24-33. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(1998) American, Estonian and Swedish mothers’ regulation of their children’s discourse construction. In M. Lyra, & J. Valsiner (eds.), Construction of psychological processes in interpersonal communication. pp. 137-154.Google Scholar
Kivik, Piibi-Kai
(1998) What silence says: Communicative style and identity. Trames 2.52/47.1: 66-90.Google Scholar
Kulick, Don
(1990) Having head and showing knowledge. Department of Anthropology: Stockholm University.Google Scholar
Kagitçibasi, Ç
(1996) Family and human development across cultures. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
McDonald, Lynda, & Diana Pien
(1982) Mother conversational behaviour as a function of interactional intent. Journal of Child Language 91: 337-358. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Narusk, Anu, & Lea Pulkkinen
(1994) Parental relationship and adolescents’ conceptions of their interaction with significant others. European Journal of Psychology of Education 91: 203-213. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ochs, Elinor
(1988) Culture and language development: Language acquisition and language socialization in a Samoan village. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.  BoPGoogle Scholar
(1996) Linguistic resources for socializing humanity. In John Gumperz, & Stephen Levinson (eds.), Rethinking linguistic relativity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 407-437.Google Scholar
Pan, B.A., A. Imbens-Bailey, K Winner, & C. Snow
(1996) Communicative intents expressed by parents in interaction with young children. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly 421: 248-267.Google Scholar
Pontecorvo, C
(1998)  Discourse and socialization in families . Paper presented at the fourth Congress of the International Society for Cultural Research and Activity Theory, Århus, Denmark.
Schneiderman, M.H
(1983) Do what I mean, not what I say! Changes in mothers action-directives to young children. Journal of Child Language 101: 357-367. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Shieffelin, Bambi, & Elinor Ochs
(1986) Language socialization across cultures. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.  BoPGoogle Scholar
Tannen, Deborah
(1981) Indirectness in discourse: Ethnicity as conversational style. Discourse Processes 41: 221-238. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tulviste, Tiia, & Margit Raudsepp
(1997) The conversational style of Estonian mothers. First Language 171: 151-163. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tulviste, Tiia
(2000) Socialization at meals. A comparison of American and Estonian mother-adolescent interaction. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 13.5: 537-556. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Welles-Nyström, Barbara
(1996) Scenes from a marriage: Equality ideology in Swedish family policy, maternal ethnotheories, and practice. In Sarah Harkness, & Charles M. Super (eds.), Parents’ cultural belief systems: Their origins, expressions, and consequences. New York: Guilford, pp. 192-214.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 5 other publications

Brumark, Åsa
2022. Regulatory talk and politeness at the family dinner table. Pragmatics. Quarterly Publication of the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA) ► pp. 171 ff. DOI logo
De Geer, Boel
2004. “Don’t say it’s disgusting!” Comments on socio-moral behavior in Swedish families. Journal of Pragmatics 36:9 ► pp. 1705 ff. DOI logo
De Geer, Boel & Tiia Tulviste
2022. “You are not allowed to pull someone’s tail!” a cross-cultural comparison of socio-moral comments in Estonian and Swedish peer interaction. Pragmatics. Quarterly Publication of the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA) ► pp. 349 ff. DOI logo
De Geer, Boel, Tiia Tulviste & Luule Mizera
2022. Regulation of behavior and attention in Estonian, Finnish, and Swedish peer interaction. Pragmatics. Quarterly Publication of the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA) ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Tryggvason, Marja-Terttu, Tiia Tulviste & Boel De Geer
2008. How do preschool children engage each other in dialogue in Finland, Estonia and Sweden?. MULT 27:4 ► pp. 389 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 12 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.