The Co-Construction of Roles and Patterns of Interaction in Family Discourse

Abstract

This paper provides a comprehensive review of the literature on the discourse analysis of spoken interaction in the family context. Specific aspects of family discourse are discussed, including the co-construction of identity, the specific roles and identities of family members, and the patterns of interaction found in the discourse. Since gender is an important aspect of family roles, an overview of the research on gender and spoken interaction is included. The concepts of framing and power, as they relate to family interaction are also discussed given the salience researchers have attached to these concepts. This is followed by a review of the literature on language and identity, including the co-construction of identity in interaction, and discourse analysis studies on particular family member roles and family identity. Discourse patterns specific to family interaction are discussed in the last section. The review concludes that although discourse analysis research on family talk has shed light on family-specific patterns of interaction, it has nevertheless focused on a narrowlydefined concept of what constitutes a family and has largely been based on short-term data collection.