‘I am put on quite a bit’: Recurrent complaining and the ambivalences of multigenerational near‐co‐residence

Abstract

AbstractMany studies of complaints‐in‐interaction have examined long sequences. This paper, by contrast, scrutinises a series of complaints produced within the same participation framework across four successive encounters. The data comprise audio‐recorded talk between an older woman (the complainant) and her stylist in a hair salon. Drawing on conversation analysis and membership categorisation analysis, I show how the complainant recurrently, but implicitly, implicates her near‐co‐resident adult daughter as a culpable figure in her complaints. I argue that it is the longitudinal nature of the data that enables this identification of the daughter as the recurrent underlying target. The paper thereby contributes to studies of complaining‐in‐interaction. It also shows how we might address some of the methodological issues associated with implicitly designed complaints. Furthermore, I argue that through the detail of the way she designs her articulation of her troubles—as complaints, but with the culpability of her daughter often very implicit—the complainant discursively constructs the complexity of her familial relations and living situation. This paper thereby also contributes to sociolinguistic studies of social ageing by offering insights into some of the lived ambivalence of co‐residence arrangements in later life.