Shoshana Blum-Kulka, Dinner talk: Cultural patterns of sociability and socialization in family discourse. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 1997. Pp. ix, 306.

Abstract

The work of Elinor Ochs and Catherine Snow has demonstrated the central importance of dinner talk within a broad picture of language socialization. A fertile site for the intergenerational transmission of cultural values and identities, it fosters culturally specific ways of talking and thinking which have significance for children's lives far beyond the intimacy of family meals. Blum-Kulka brings to this rich speech event her insights about cross-cultural pragmatics and her deep knowledge of patterns of communication in Jewish communities in the US and Israel. What emerges from her multi-year study is a thoroughly Hymesian depiction of cultural continuity and change, as enacted in everyday talk. She demonstrates that the subtle differences and similarities in patterns of dinnertime talk found in each of three middle-class, secular Jewish speech communities of Ashkenazi heritage – Jewish Americans (JA), American immigrants to Israel (AI), and native Israelis (NI) – reflect entangled processes of cultural maintenance, cultural assimilation, and intentional breaks from the traditional values and practices of the Diaspora.