Cover not available
Article published In:
Categorization in multilingual storytelling
Edited by Matthew T. Prior and Steven Talmy
[Pragmatics and Society 10:3] 2019
► pp. 423–451
Special issue section

“I am an adult now”

Re-storying an ‘abuse’ narrative through categorization

| Arizona State University

This narrative-based study employs membership categorization analysis to address the following question: How does a victim of abuse formulate and manage various categories and related descriptive details to story past trauma in ways that bring about new endings or insights in the present? Drawing on data taken from a larger research project on immigrant identity, the analysis centers on a Cambodian-Vietnamese man’s narrative of childhood abuse and adulthood confrontation. It shows how the teller, by recalibrating person (e.g., ‘father-son’, ‘victim-abuser’), age (e.g., ‘young-old’), place (e.g., ‘North America-Vietnam’), and other categorial resources, re-stories people and events and their psycho-social and moral inferences and outcomes. By tracing how this narrative teller reconstitutes himself from ‘victim’ to ‘hero’, this study offers insight into how a local interactional event (e.g., a research interview) may be transformed into a therapeutic exchange. Insights for therapeutic (re)storying, narrative research, and second language (L2) research are discussed.

Keywords: categorization, discourse, narrative, interviews, abuse, re-storying, immigrants
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Selective review of the literature
    • 2.1Narratives
    • 2.2Research interviewing and ‘therapy’
    • 2.3Troubles talk, trauma, and immigrant narratives
    • 2.4Membership categorization analysis
    • 2.5Doing Being “ordinary” and “extraordinary”
    • 2.6Categorization and therapy
  • 3.The study
    • 3.1The research context
    • 3.2The participants
    • 3.3The focal narrative
  • 4.Analysis
    • 4.1Categorization as part of framing and launching the narrative
      • 4.1.1Framing the narrative
      • 4.1.2Launching the narrative
    • 4.2Categorization as part of formulating and confronting abuse and transgressive actions
      • 4.2.1‘Abuse’
      • 4.2.2‘Stage of life’
      • 4.2.3Categorizing place
    • 4.3Categorization as part of closing the narrative and managing its therapeutic upshot
  • 5.Concluding comments
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 22 October 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.17032.pri
References
Adler, Jonathan M., Joshua W. Wagner, and Dan P. McAdams
2007 “Personality and the Coherence of Psychotherapy Narratives.” Journal of Research in Personality 411: 1179–1198. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Atkinson, Paul, and David Silverman
1997 “Kundera’s Immortality: The Interview Society and the Invention of the Self.” Qualitative Inquiry 31: 304–325. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Baker, Carolyn D.
2004 “Membership Categorization and Interview Accounts.” In Qualitative Research: Theory, Method and Practice (2nd edition), ed. by David Silverman, 162–176. London: SAGE.Google Scholar
Bamberg, Michael, Anna De Fina, & Deborah Schiffrin
2011 “Discourse and Identity Construction.” In Handbook of Identity Theory and Research, ed. by Seth J. Schwartz, Koen Luyckx, and Vivian Vignoles, 177–199. Berlin: Springer-Verlag. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Boden, Deirdre, and Don H. Zimmerman
(eds) 1991 Talk and Social Structure: Studies in Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis, Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Brinkmann, Svend, and Steinar Kvale
2008 “Ethics in Qualitative Psychological Research.” In The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research in Psychology, ed. by Carla Willig and Wendy Stainton-Rogers, 263–279. London: SAGE. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Buttny, Richard
1993 Social Accountability in Communication. London: SAGE.Google Scholar
Chase, Liana, and Ram P. Sapkota
2017 “ ‘In Our Community, a Friend is a Psychologist’: An Ethnographic Study of Informal Care in Two Bhutanese Refugee Communities.” Transcultural Psychiatry 54 (3): 400–422. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth
2007 “Assessing and Accounting.” In Reporting Talk: Reported Speech in Interaction, ed. by Rebecca Clift and Elizabeth Holt, 81–119. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
2009 “A Sequential Approach to Affect: The Case of ‘Disappointment’.” In Talk in Interaction: Comparative Dimensions, ed. by Markku Haakana, Minna Laakso, and Jan Lindstrom, 94–123. Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society.Google Scholar
Coupland, Nikolas, Jon F. Nussbaum, and Alan Grossman
1993 “Introduction: Discourse, Selfhood, and the Lifespan.” In Discourse and Lifespan Identity, ed. by Nikolas Coupland and Jon F. Nussbaum, x–xxviii. London: SAGE.Google Scholar
Cuff, Edward C.
1993 Problems of Versions in Everyday Situations. Washington, D.C.: University Press of America.Google Scholar
Drew, Paul
1998 “Complaints about Transgressions and Misconduct.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 31 (3–4): 295–325. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Edwards, Derek
1997 Discourse and Cognition. London: SAGE.Google Scholar
2005 “Moaning, Whinging, and Laughing: The Subjective Side of Complaints.” Discourse Studies 7 (1): 5–29. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Edwards, Derek, and Jonathan Potter
2005 “Discursive Psychology, Mental States and Descriptions.” In Conversation and Cognition, ed. by Hedwig te Molder and Jonathan Potter, 241–259. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Edwards, Derek, and Elizabeth Stokoe
2006 “Story Formulations in Talk-in-Interaction.” Narrative Inquiry 16(1): 56–65. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Englebretson, Robert
2007 Stancetaking in Discourse: Subjectivity, Evaluation, Interaction. Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fancher, Tonya L., Hendrey Ton, Oanh Le Meyer, Thuan Ho, and Debora A. Paterniti
2010 “Discussing Depression with Vietnamese American Patients.” Journal of Immigrant Minority Health 121: 263–266. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ferrara, Kathleen W.
1994 Therapeutic Ways with Words. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Fitzgerald, Richard, and William Housley
2015 Advances in Membership Categorization Analysis. London: SAGE. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Frankel, Richard M.
1995 “Some Answers about Questions in Clinical Interviews.” In The Talk of the Clinic: Explorations in the Analysis of Medical and Therapeutic Discourse, ed. by George H. Morris and Ronald J. Chenail, 49–70. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Gafaranga, Joseph
2005 “Demythologising Language Alternation Studies: Conversational Structure vs. Social Structure in Bilingual Interaction.” Journal of Pragmatics 371: 281–300. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Giddens, Anthony
1991 Modernity and Self-Identity. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Goffman, Erving
1981 Forms of Talk. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Gordon, Daryl
2011 Trauma and second language learning among Laotian refugees. Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement 61: 1–14.Google Scholar
Günthner, Susanne
1997 “Complaint Stories: Constructing Emotional Reciprocity Among Women.” In Communicating Gender in Context, ed. by Helga Kotthoff and Ruth Wodak, 179–218. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Halonen, Mia
2008 “Person Reference as a Device for Constructing Experiences as Typical in Group Therapy.” In Conversation Analysis and Psychotherapy, ed. by Anssi Peräkylä, Charles Antaki, Sanna Vehviläinen, and Ivan Leudar, 139–151. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hepburn, Alexa, and Sally Wiggins
(eds) 2007 Discursive Research in Practice: New Approaches to Psychology and Interaction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Heritage, John
2011 “Territories of Knowledge, Territories of Experience: Empathic Moments in Interaction.” In The Morality of Knowledge in Conversation, ed. by Tanya Stivers, Lorenza Mondada, and Jakob Steensig, 159–183. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2013 “Epistemics in Conversation.” In The Handbook of Conversation Analysis, ed. by Jack Sidnell and Tanya Stivers, 370–394. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Hester, Stephen, and Peter Eglin
(eds) 1997 Culture in Action: Studies in Membership Categorization Analysis. Washington, D.C.: International Institute for Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis and University Press of America.Google Scholar
Holstein, James A., and Jaber F. Gubrium
2012 Varieties of Narrative Analysis. London: SAGE. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Housley, William, and Richard Fitzgerald
2009 Membership Categorization, Culture and Norms of Action. Discourse & Society 20 (3): 345–362. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hutchby, Ian, and Robin Wooffitt
2008 Conversation Analysis. Oxford: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Jacquemet, Marco
2005 “The Registration Interview: Restricting Refugees’ Narrative Performances.” In Dislocations/Relocations: Narratives of Displacement, ed. by Mike Baynham and Anna De Fina, 197–220. Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing.Google Scholar
Jakobson, Roman
1957/1971 “Shifters, Verbal Categories and the Russian Verb.” In Roman Jakobson, Selected Writings, vol. 21, 130–147. The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar
Jayyusi, Lena
1984 Categorization and the Moral Order. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
1991 “Values and Moral Judgement.” In Ethnomethodology and the Human Sciences, ed. by Graham Button, 227–251. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jefferson, Gail
1988 “On the Sequential Organization of Troubles-Talk in Ordinary Conversation.” Social Problems 35 (4): 418–441. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2004 “Glossary of transcript symbols with an introduction.” In Conversation Analysis: Studies from the First Generation, ed. by Gene H. Lerner, 13–31. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jefferson, Gail, Harvey Sacks, and Emanuel A. Schegloff
1987 “Notes on Laughter in the Pursuit of Intimacy.” In Talk and Social Organisation, ed. by Graham Button and John R. E. Lee, 152–205. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Labov, William
1972 Socioloinguistic Patterns. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Lambrou, Marina
2014 “Narrative, Text and Time: Telling the Same Story Twice in the Oral Narrative Reporting of 7/7.” Language and Literature 23 (1): 32–48. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Liddicoat, Anthony J.
2011 An Introduction to Conversation Analysis (2nd edition). New York: Continuum.Google Scholar
Longmire, B. Jean
1995 “Cambodian Narratives of Personal Experience.” In Papers from the Third Annual Meeting of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society, ed. by Mark Alves, 129–144. Tempe, Ariz.: Program for Southeast Asian Studies, Arizona State University.Google Scholar
Marshall, Grant N., Terry Schell, Marc N. Elliott, S. Megan Berthold, and Chi-Ah Chuh
2005 “Mental Health of Cambodian Refugees Two Decades After Resettlement in the United States.” Journal of American Medical Association 294 (5): 571–579. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Maynard, Douglas
1991 “Interaction and Asymmetry in Clinical Discourse.” American Journal of Sociology 97 (2), 448–495. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mazeland, Harrie
2007 “Parenthetical Sequences.” Journal of Pragmatics 391: 1816–1869. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
McGuire, Kathleen N.
1991 “Affect in Focusing and Experiential Psychotherapy.” In Emotion, Psychotherapy, and Change, ed. by Jeremy D. Safran and Leslie S. Greenberg, 227–251. New York: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Menard-Warwick, Julia
2009 Gendered Identities and Immigrant Language Learning. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mishler, Elliot G.
2006 “Narrative and Identity: The Double Arrow of Time.” In Discourse and Identity, ed. by Anna De Fina, Debra Schiffrin, and Michael Bamberg, 30–47. New York: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Peräkylä, Anssi, Charles Antaki, Sanna Vehviläinen, and Ivan Leudar
(eds) 2008 Conversation Analysis and Psychotherapy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Peräkylä, Anssi, and Marja-Leena Sorjonen
2012 Emotion in Interaction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pomerantz, Anita
1986 “Extreme-Case Formulations: A Way of Legitimizing Claims.” Human Studies 9 (2/3): 219–229. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Potter, Jonathan, and Alexa Hepburn
2012 “Eight Challenges for Interview Researchers.” In The SAGE Handbook of Interview Research: The Complexity of the Craft (2nd edition), ed. by Jaber F. Gubrium, James A. Holstein, Amir B. Marvasti, and Karyn D. McKinney, 555–570. London: SAGE.Google Scholar
Prior, Matthew T.
2016 Emotion and Discourse in L2 Narrative Research. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Pumariega, Andres J., Eugenio Rothe, and JoAnne B. Pumariega
2005 “Mental Health of Immigrants and Refugees.” Community Mental Health Journal 41 (5): 581–597. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Roulston, Kathryn
2010 Reflective Interviewing: A Guide to Theory and Practice. London: SAGE. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2019 Interactional Studies of Qualitative Research Interview. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sacks, Harvey
1992 Lectures on Conversation. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.Google Scholar
Sarangi, Srikant
2003 “Institutional, Professional, and Lifeworld Frames in Interview Talk.” In Analyzing Race Talk: Multidisciplinary Approaches to the Interview, ed. by Harry van den Berg, Margaret Wetherell, and Hanneke Houtkoop-Steenstra, 64–84. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Schegloff, Emanuel A.
2007 “A Tutorial on Membership Categorization.” Journal of Pragmatics 391: 462–482. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schiffrin, Deborah
2002 “Mother and Friends in a Holocaust Life Story.” Language in Society 311: 309–353. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Seidman, Irving
2013 Interviewing as Qualitative Research: A Guide for Researchers in Education and the Social Sciences. New York: Teachers College Press.Google Scholar
Shuman, Amy
2005 Other People’s Stories Entitlement Claims and the Critique of Empathy. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Sidnell, Jack, and Tanya Stivers
(eds) 2013 The Handbook of Conversation Analysis. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Silverman, David
2001 “The Construction of ‘Delicate’ Objects in Counselling.” In Discourse Theory and Practice: A Reader, ed. by Margaret Wetherell, Stephanie Taylor, and Simon J. Yates, 119–137. London: SAGE.Google Scholar
Stivers, Tanya, Lorenza Mondada, and Jakob Steensig
(eds) 2011 The Morality of Knowledge in Conversation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Stokoe, Elizabeth
2012 “Moving Forward with Membership Categorization Analysis: Methods for Systematic Analysis.” Discourse Studies 14 (3): 277–303. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Talmy, Steven, and Keith Richards
(eds) 2011 “Qualitative Interviews in Applied Linguistics: Discursive Perspectives” Applied Linguistics 32 (1): 1–128 [Special Issue]. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
van den Berg, Harry, Margaret Wetherell, and Hanneke Houtkoop-Steenstra
(eds) 2003 Analyzing Race Talk: Multidisciplinary Approaches to the Interview. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
White, Michael, and David Epston
1990 Narrative Means to Therapeutic Ends. London: W.W. Norton & Company.Google Scholar
Wiggins, Sally
2017 Discursive Psychology: Theory, Method and Applications. London: SAGE. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wooffitt, Robin
1992 Telling Tales of the Unexpected: The Organization of Factual Discourse. Hertfordshire: Harvester Wheatsheaf.Google Scholar
Wooffitt, Robin, and Sue Widdicombe
2006 “Interaction in Interviews.” In Talk and Interaction in Social Research Methods, ed. by Paul Drew, Geoffrey Raymond, and Darin Weinberg, 28–49. London: SAGE. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zimmerman, Don H.
1998 “Identity, Context and Interaction.” In Identities in Talk, ed. by Charles Antaki and Sue Widdicombe, 87–106. London: SAGE.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 2 other publications

Diebold, Josal, Mickey Sperlich, Elyse Heagle, Whitney Marris & Susan Green
2021. Trauma Talks: Exploring Personal Narratives of Trauma-Informed Care through Podcasting. Journal of Technology in Human Services 39:1 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Lee, Yo-An & John Hellermann
2020. Managing language issue in second language storytelling. System 93 ► pp. 102311 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 28 may 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.