Planning a Typical Italian Meal: A Family Reflection on Culture

Abstract

The paper addresses the issue of cultural descriptions as they are perceived and used within mundane conversation. We analyze a discussion of an Italian family about a future formal occasion (a party) in a foreign country (Austria), with foreign participants, in which they shall produce a typically Italian meal. The analysis shows how cultural descriptions are both a resource and a constraint when they must orient a practical activity which must be publicly acknowledged for its cultural typicality. Discrepancies are highlighted between cultural descriptions and ordinary practices, but it is also shown how culture (or ‘cultural preferences’) gets produced, at a less explicit level, within discursive practices, through turn-taking filtering, sequential architecture and selection of differentiated addressees. The socializing import of the discursive situation for the younger participants is also discussed, with reference to the relevant conversational devices.

Keywords

conversation analysis cultural differences gender reflexivity socialization typicality

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Clifford, J. (1986). Partial truths. In J. Clifford & G.E. Marcus (Eds.), Writing cultures(pp. 1–26). Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press.

Drew, P. , & Heritage, J. (Eds.). (1992). Talk at work. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Duranti, A. , & Ochs, E. (1997). Syncretic literacy in a Samoan American family. In L. Resnick , C. Pontecorvo , R. S‰lj^ , & B. Burge (Eds.), Discourse, tools and reasoning: Essays on situated cognition(NATO Series) (pp. 169–202). Berlin: Springer.

Edwards D. (1995). A commentary on discursive and cultural psychology. Culture & Psychology, 1, 55–65.

Edwards, D. , & Mercer, N. (1987). Common knowledge. London and New York: Methuen.

Engestr^m,Y. , & Middleton, D. (Eds.). (1996). Cognition and communication at work. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press

Erickson, F. (1981). Money tree, lasagna bush, salt and pepper: Social construction of topical cohesion in a conversation among Italian-Americans. In D. Tannen (Ed.), Analyzing discourse: Text and talk(pp. 43–70). Georgetown University Roundtable on Languages and Linguistics. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.

Geertz, C. (1973). The interpretation of cultures. New York: Basic Books.

Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. New York: Doubleday.

10.

Goffman, E. (1974). Frame analysis. New York: Harper & Row.

11.

Goodwin, C. (1987). Forgetfulness as an interactive resource. Social Psychology Quarterly, 50(2), 115–131

12.

Goodwin, C. (1994). Professional vision. American Anthropologist, 96, 606–633.

13.

Jefferson, G. (1979). Notes on some orderliness in overlap onset. In Two explorations of the organization of overlapping talk in conversation.Tilburg papers in language and literature. Tilburg University.

14.

Jefferson, G. (1984) On stepwise transition from talk about a trouble to inappropriately next-positioned matters. In J.M. Atkinson & J. Heritage (Eds.), Structures of social actions, Studies in conversational analysis(pp. 191–222). New York: Cambridge University Press.

15.

Jefferson, G. (1995). On the poetics of ordinary talk. Unpublished manuscript.

16.

Ochs, E. (1988). Culture and language development: Language acquisition and language socialization in a Samoan village. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

17.

Ochs, E. (1992) Indexing gender. In A.Duranti & C.Goodwin (Eds.), Rethinking context(pp. 335–358). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

18.

Ochs, E. , Gonzales, P. , & Jacoby, S. (1994). Interpretive journeys: How scientists talk and travel through graphic space. Configurations, 2, 151–171.

19.

Ochs, E. , Pontecorvo, C. , & Fasulo, A. (1996). Socializing taste. Ethnos, 61(1/2), 7–46.

20.

Ochs, E. , & Taylor, C. (1992). Family narrative as political activity. Discourse & Society, 3(3), 301–340.

21.

Pontecorvo, C., & Duranti, A. (1996). Bambini e genitori in famiglia: Conversazione e socializzazione. Special Isssue of Et‡ Evolutiva, 55.

22.

Pontecorvo, C. , Fasulo, A. , & Sterponi, L. (1998, 7–11 June). Mutual apprentices. How children and parents learn their roles in family conversation. Paper presented to the Fourth Congress of the International Society for Cultural Research and Activity Theory, Aarhus, Denmark.

23.

Pontecorvo, C. , & Sterponi, L. (1997) Discourse in family dinner talk. How Italian parents practice to speak as parents. Paper presented to the SRCD Biennial Meeting, Washington, DC.

24.

Sacks, H. (1992) Lectures on conversation( G. Jefferson , Ed.). Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.

25.

Sacks, H. , Schegloff, E.A. , & Jefferson, G. (1974). A simplest systematics for the organization of turn taking for conversation. Language, 50(4), 696–735.