Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T21:26:09.041Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A(p)parent play: Blending frames and reframing in family talk

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 May 2008

CYNTHIA GORDON
CYNTHIA GORDON
Affiliation:
Department of English, Wayne State University, 5057 Woodward Suite 9408, Detroit, MI 48202, [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This study extends Goffman's idea that frames are laminated in various ways in interaction by demonstrating how work and play frames are interrelated in two distinct ways in naturally occurring family conversations. An analysis of excerpts from everyday interactions between parents and young children in three families illustrates how frames of play and parenting are laminated (i) by using language to sequentially transform interaction from a literal frame to a play frame (reframing), and (ii) by creating two definitions of the social situation simultaneously through language and sometimes through physical actions as well (blending frames). It identifies linguistic and paralinguistic features by which these laminations are accomplished and shows how the parents in each family use the two different types. Finally, the analysis demonstrates in what ways play constitutes “work” for parents, contributing to our understanding of play as both ambiguous and “paradoxical.”

Keywords

discourse analysisframingplayparent-child discoursefamily interactionparenting
Type
Research Article
Information
Language in Society , Volume 37 , Issue 3 , July 2008 , pp. 319 - 349
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Bateson, Gregory (1972). Steps to an ecology of mind. New York: Ballantine.Google Scholar
Becker, A. L. (1995). Beyond translation: Essays towards a modern philology. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Becker, Judith A. (1994). Pragmatic socialization: Parental input to preschoolers. Discourse Processes 17:131–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blum-Kulka, Shoshana (1990). “You don't touch lettuce with your fingers”: Parental politeness in family discourse. Journal of Pragmatics 14:259–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blum-Kulka, Shoshana (1997). Dinner talk: Cultural patterns of sociability and socialization in family discourse. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Campbell, John Edward (2003). Always use a modem: Analyzing frames of erotic play, performance, and power in cyberspace. Electronic Journal of Communication/La Revue Electronique de Communication 13. Available: http://www.mediensprache.net/archiv/pubs/2991.htmGoogle Scholar
Danet, Brenda; Ruedenberg-Wright, Lucia; & Rosenbaum-Tamari, Yehudit (1997). “Hmm … Where's that smoke coming from?”: Writing, play, and performance on Internet Relay Chat. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 2. Available: http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol2/issue4/danet.htmlGoogle Scholar
Garvey, Catherine (1977). Play. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Gleason, Jean Berko (1987). Sex differences in parent-child interactions. In Phillips, Susan U., Steele, Susan, & Tanz, Christine (eds.), Language, gender and sex in comparative perspective, 189–99. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gleason, Jean Berko; Ely, Richard; Perlmann, Rivka Y.; & Narasimhan, Bhuvana (1996). Patterns of prohibition in parent–child discourse. In Slobin, Dan Isaac et al. (eds.), Social interaction, social context, and language: Essays in honor of Susan Ervin-Tripp, 205–17. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Goffman, Erving (1974). Frame analysis. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Goffman, Erving (1981). Footing. In his Forms of talk, 124–59. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Göncü, Artin; Tuermer, Ute; Jain, Jyoti; & Johnson, Danielle (1999). Children's play as cultural activity. In Göncü, Artin (ed.), Children's engagement with the world: Sociocultural Perspectives, 148–70. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Goodwin, Marjorie Harness (1996). Shifting frame. In Slobin, Dan Isaac et al. (eds.), Social interaction, social context, and language: Essays in honor of Susan Ervin-Tripp, 71–82. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Goodwin, Marjorie Harness (2006). Participation, affect, and trajectory in family directive/response sequences. Text & Talk 26:515–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goodwin, Marjorie Harness (2007). Occasioned knowledge exploration in family interaction. Discourse & Society 18:93–110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gordon, Cynthia (2002). “I'm Mommy and you're Natalie”: Role-reversal and embedded frames in mother–child discourse. Language in Society 31:679–720.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gordon, Cynthia (2003). Intertextuality in family discourse: Shared prior text as a resource for framing. Dissertation, Georgetown University.Google Scholar
Gordon, Cynthia (2006). Reshaping prior text, reshaping identities. Text & Talk 26:543–69.Google Scholar
Gumperz, John J. (1982). Discourse strategies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gumperz, John J. (1992). Contextualization revisited. In Auer, Peter & Di Luzio, Aldo (eds.), The contextualization of language, 39–53. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gumperz, John J. (2001). Interactional sociolinguistics: A personal perspective. In Schiffrin, Deborah, Tannen, Deborah, & Hamilton, Heidi (eds.), The handbook of discourse analysis, 215–28. Malden, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Haight, Wendy L. (1999). The pragmatics of caregiver–child pretending at home: Understanding culturally specific socialization practices. In Göncü, Artin (ed.), Children's engagement with the world: sociocultural perspectives, 128–47. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Haight, Wendy L.; Masiello, Tracy; Dickson, K. Laurie; Huckeby, Elizabeth; & Black, James (1994). The everyday contexts and social functions of spontaneous mother-child pretend play in the home. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly 40:509–22.Google Scholar
Haight, Wendy L., & Miller, Peggy J. (1993). Pretending at home: Early development in a sociocultural context. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Haight, Wendy L.; Parke, Ross D.; & Black, James E. 1997. Mothers' and fathers' beliefs about and spontaneous participation in their toddlers' pretend play. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly 43:271–90.Google Scholar
Haight, Wendy L.; Wang, Xiao-lei; Fung, Heidi Han-tih; Williams, Kimberley; & Mintz, Judith (1999). Universal, developmental, and variable aspects of children's play: A cross-cultural comparison of pretending at home. Child Development 70:1477–88.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hoyle, Susan (1993). Participation frameworks in sportscasting play: Imaginary and literal footings. In Tannen, Deborah (ed.), Framing in discourse, 114–45. New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kendall, Shari (1999). The interpenetration of (gendered) spheres: An interactional sociolinguistic analysis of a mother at work and at home. Dissertation, Georgetown University.Google Scholar
Kendall, Shari (2003). Creating gendered demeanors of authority at work and at home. In Holmes, Janet & Meyerhoff, Miriam (eds.), The handbook of language and gender, 600–23. Malden, MA: Blackwell.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kendall, Shari (2006). “Honey, I'm home!”: Framing in family dinnertime homecomings. Text & Talk 26:411–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ochs, Elinor, & Schieffelin, Bambi B. (1984). Language acquisition and socialization: Three developmental stories. In Shweder, Richard A. & LeVine, Robert A. (eds.), Culture theory: Mind, self and emotion, 276–320. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ochs, Elinor; Smith, Ruth; & Taylor, Carolyn (1996). Detective stories at dinnertime: Problem-solving through co-narration. In Brenneis, Donald & Macaulay, Ronald H. S. (eds.), The matrix of language: Contemporary linguistic anthropology, 39–55. Boulder, CO: Westview. (Originally printed in Cultural Dynamics 2 (1989):238–57).Google Scholar
Ochs, Elinor; Taylor, Carolyn; Rudolph, Dina; & Smith, Ruth (1992). Storytelling as a theory-building activity. Discourse Processes 15:37–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parke, Ross D. (1996). Fatherhood. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Pontecorvo, Clotilde, & Fasulo, Alessandra (1997). Learning to argue in family shared discourse: The reconstruction of past events. In Resnick, Lauren B. et al. (eds.), Discourse, tools, and reasoning: Essays on situated cognition, 406–42. Berlin: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shore, Bradd (1996). Culture in mind: Cognition, culture, and the problem of meaning. New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sirota, Karen Gainer (2002). Doing things with play: The play of everyday life. UCLA/Sloan CELF Working Paper Series, No. 16. University of California, Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Straehle, Carolyn A. (1993). “Samuel?” “Yes, dear?”: Teasing and conversational rapport. In Tannen, Deborah (ed.), Framing in discourse, 210–30. New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Tannen, Deborah (1994). The relativity of linguistic strategies: Rethinking power and solidarity in gender and dominance. In her Gender and discourse, 19–52. New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Tannen, Deborah (2001). I only say this because I love you: How the way we talk can make or break family relationships throughout our lives. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Tannen, Deborah (2003). Power maneuvers or connection maneuvers? Ventriloquizing in family interaction. In Tannen, Deborah & Alatis, James E. (eds.), Linguistics, language, and the real world: Discourse and beyond (Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics, 2001), 50–62. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Tannen, Deborah (2004). Talking the dog: Framing pets as interactional resources in family discourse. Research on Language and Social Interaction 37:399–420. Reprinted in Deborah Tannen, Shari Kendall, & Cynthia Gordon (eds.), Family talk: Discourse and identity in four American families, 49–69. New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tannen, Deborah (2006). Intertextuality in action: Reframing family arguments in public and private. Text & Talk 26:597–617.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tannen, Deborah (2007). Power maneuvers and connection maneuvers in family interaction. In Tannen, Deborah, Kendall, Shari, & Gordon, Cynthia (eds.), Family talk: Discourse and identity in four American families, 27–48. New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tannen, Deborah, & Wallat, Cynthia (1993). Interactive frames and knowledge schemas in interaction: Examples from a medical examination/interview. In Tannen, Deborah (ed.), Framing in discourse, 57–76. New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press. (Originally printed in Social Psychology Quarterly 50 (1987):205–16).Google Scholar
Taylor, Carolyn E. (1994). “You think it was a fight?”: Co-constructing (the struggle for) meaning, face, and family in everyday narrative activity. Research on Language and Social Interaction 28:283–317.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tovares, Alla V. (2005). Intertextuality in family interaction: Repetition of public texts in private settings. Dissertation, Georgetown University.Google Scholar
Tovares, Alla V. (2007). Family members interacting while watching TV. In Tannen, Deborah, Kendall, Shari, & Gordon, Cynthia (eds.), Family talk: Discourse and identity in four American families, 283–309. New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Tulviste, Tiia; Mizera, Luule; De Geer, Boel; & Tryggvason, Marja-Terttu (2002). Regulatory comments as tools of family socialization: A comparison of Estonian, Swedish and Finnish mealtime interaction. Language in Society 31:655–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar