Ochs and Taylor 1992

Ochs and Taylor 1992:

Examines how the family is constituted as a political institution through conversational interaction. Families are political bodies in that certain members review, judge, formulate codes of conduct, make decisions and impose sanctions that evaluate and impact the actions, thoughts and feelings of other members.

Dinner-time narratives:

-Usually the first time the whole family can interact with each other

-We give stories and reports from the day

-These stories can draw in the participation of other members

Participant Roles:

Protagonist – hero/report

Introducer –someone who starts the conversation

Primary recipient –who is the story aimed at?

Problematizer –someone who creates a problem or challenge –being unfair, rude etc#

Problematizee –the recipient of the problem –they have to respond

According to Ochs and Taylor:

During family dinnertime stories, the most empowering roles are

1) Introducer

2) Problem identifier

3) Ratified recipient –which shows they are valued

Distribution of Roles:

-Children usually only introduce one third of all the reports/stories. Mothers introduce the most.

-Mothers are introducers for  children, mother selects father as primary recipient

-Fathers were often the problematizers and rarely problematizees.

-Mothers would often try to solve the problems set by the fathers.

For my primary research I recorded a conversation at the dinner and transcribed it. From this transcript I found out that my mum was the most dominant in the conversation as she was the introducer of the conversation. This proves Ochs and Taylors theory because they said that mother introduces the most and this happened. However, my research disproves their theory as they said that dinner time is where the whole family sit down and see each other and tell their stories. However, my primary research disproves this as my parents asked how my day was as soon as I got in from school so at dinner there wasn't really much to talk about. There was no problematizer in this conversation.  From my research, I can disprove Ochs and Taylor’s theory that usually the first time the whole family can interact with each other. We give stories and reports from the day because from my research this isnt the first time we interact with eachother as my parents asked how my day was as soon as I got home from school. We didn’t really have a long conversation at the table as they were only short conversation. My mum introduced all of the conversations, showing that she is the dominant one of the conversation; this subverts gender as it is usually the males who are more dominant in conversation.