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Inter-generational Argumentation: Children’s Account Work During Dinner Conversations in Italy and Sweden

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Interpersonal Argumentation in Educational and Professional Contexts

Abstract

This study illuminates argumentative strategies, adopted by Italian and Swedish preschool- and school-age children in family life conversations. Even the youngest children mobilized a wide range of verbal and nonverbal resources (such as prosody, speed, volume) to emphasize the urgency of their requests. Among these children, the urgency of a need was a good enough reason to support an argument, while school-age children in addition deployed other argumentative strategies that allowed them to successfully support their refusal to perform target actions or to make parents accountable for respecting implicit contracts or other prior agreements.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation funded “Everyday Lives of Working Families: Italy, Sweden, and the United States”. Clotilde Pontecorvo led the Italian and Karin Aronsson the Swedish part of this project, modeled on and inspired by a larger research enterprise, initiated by Elinor Ochs at University of California, Los Angeles (USA). An early version of this paper was presented at 14th International Pragmatics Conference, Antwerp, July 26–31, 2015. Also, we would like to thank the participating families for opening up their homes and lives.

  2. 2.

    All names have been anonymized. For all the extracts, the English translation follows the original in Italian or Swedish.

  3. 3.

    Based on Heritage and Atkinson (1984).

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden

    Franco Pauletto & Karin Aronsson

  2. University of Teacher Education (HEP-BEJUNE), Biel/Bienne, Switzerland

    Francesco Arcidiacono

Authors
  1. Franco Pauletto
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  2. Karin Aronsson
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  3. Francesco Arcidiacono
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Franco Pauletto .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. HEP-BEJUNE, University of Teacher Education, Biel, Switzerland

    Francesco Arcidiacono

  2. (USI), Università della Svizzera italiana, Lugano, Switzerland

    Antonio Bova

Appendix: Transcription Key

Appendix: Transcription Key

Symbol Function Footnote 3

[]:

Indicates onset and termination of overlapping utterances

=:

Latching of contiguous utterances, with no interval or overlap

(1.2):

Intervals occurring within or between utterances, in tenths of a second

(.):

Brief pause of less than 0.2 s

::

Prior sound, syllable, or word is prolonged or stretched. More colons indicate longer prolongations

.:

Falling vocal pitch or intonation. Punctuation marks do not reflect grammatical status (e.g., end of sentence or question)

?:

Rising vocal pitch or intonation

,:

A continuing intonation, with slight upward or downward contour

;:

Continuative terminal contour that indicates slight fall. Most common turn-internally during a multiunit turn at talk

↑ ↓:

Marked rising and falling shifts in intonation (after sign)

° °:

Enclose a passage of talk noticeably softer than surrounding utterances

!:

Animated speech tone

-:

Halting, abrupt cut off of sound, syllable, or word

__:

Vocalic stress or emphasis

NICE:

Extreme loudness compared with surrounding talk

> <:

Enclose talk at a quicker pace

< >:

Enclose talk at a slower pace

S(h)ì:

Laughter

.hhh:

In-breath

((noise)) :

Transcriber’s comments (e.g., gestures, sounds)

():

Transcriber is in doubt as to word, syllable, or sound

£ £:

Enclose talk in smiley voice

? ?:

Transcriber is in doubt as to the speaker

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Pauletto, F., Aronsson, K., Arcidiacono, F. (2017). Inter-generational Argumentation: Children’s Account Work During Dinner Conversations in Italy and Sweden. In: Arcidiacono, F., Bova, A. (eds) Interpersonal Argumentation in Educational and Professional Contexts. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-59084-4_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-59084-4_1

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-59084-4

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