Family Talk

Discourse and Identity in Four American Families
ISBN13: 9780195313895ISBN10: 0195313895 Paperback, 344 pages
Mar 2007,  In Stock

Price:

$25.00 (01)

Description

Through everyday talk, individuals forge the ties that can make a family. Family members use language to manage a household, create and maintain relationships, and negotiate and reinforce values and beliefs. The studies gathered in Family Talk are based on a unique research project in which four dual-income American families recorded everything they said for a week. Family Talk extends our understanding of family discourse and of how family members construct, negotiate, and enact their identities as individuals and as families. The volume also contributes to the discourse analysis of naturally-occurring interaction and makes significant contributions to theories of framing in interaction.

Family Talk addresses issues central to the academic discipline of discourse analysis as well as to families themselves, including decision-making and conflict-talk, the development of gendered family roles, sociability with and socialization of children, the development of social and political beliefs, and the interconnectedness of professional and family life. It provides illuminating insights into the subtleties of family conversation, and will be of interest to scholars and students in sociolinguistics, discourse studies, communications, anthropological linguistics, cultural studies, psychology, and other fields concerned with the language of everyday interaction or family interaction.

Features

  • A close examination of talk and its role in the day-to-day life of the American family
  • Contributors analyze an unusually extensive body of data to identify new ways in which family members create and enact their identities within the family
  • Deborah Tannen is the best-selling author of You're Wearing That? and You Just Don't Understand . Her last book for OUP, Conversational Style: Analyzing Talk Among Friends (2005), has sold over 2,200 in paperback.

Reviews

"Family Talk produces fascinating insights into family discourse and is unique in its inclusion of the understudied language of fathers and its use of uncensored, extended recordings. This book is a captivating study on discourse in today's modern-day families." --Journal of Marriage and Family

"This is a must read for linguists, and its multidisciplinary approach and accessibility recommend it to anyone studying or interested in family relationships. Highly recommended. All readers, all levels." --Choice

Product Details

344 pages; 6-1/8 x 9-1/4; ISBN13: 978-0-19-531389-5ISBN10: 0-19-531389-5

About the Author(s)

Deborah Tannen is University Professor and Professor of Linguistics at Georgetown University. Her twenty books include Talking Voices , Gender and Discourse , Conversational Style , You're Wearing THAT? , Talking from 9 to 5 , That's Not What I Meant! , You Just Don't Understand , and The Argument Culture .

Cynthia Gordon is a postdoctoral fellow at the Emory Center for Myth and Ritual in American Life (MARIAL) in Atlanta, Georgia. Her publications have appeared in Language in Society , Discourse & Society , Research on Language and Social Interaction , Narrative Inquiry , The Journal of Genetic Counseling , and Text & Talk .

Shari Kendall is Assistant Professor of Linguistics in the Department of English at Texas A & M University. Her publications include articles and chapters in Discourse & Society , Text & Talk , The Handbook of Language and Gender , and Speaking Out: The Female Voice in Public Contexts .

Add to Cart button

Consider these titles...

Browse the Higher Education Web site

Let Oxford Experts assist you in finding the right title for your upcoming courses, visit the OUP Higher Education Website for information on Examination Copies, to find out what meetings we'll be attending, locate your helpful adoption representative, join our mailing lists, and give us your feedback.

Gender and Discourse

$45.00 Hardback Jun 1994
Five essays on men and women in conversation by the bestselling author of You Just Don't Understand

Language and National Identity in Asia

$199.00 Hardback Sep 2007
Leading scholars with highly specialized knowledge of the language and society in the countries under consideration have contributed to the book