Abstract
This paper examines the use of self-repairs in ascribing old-age categorisations to self and others in casual interactions among friends. Membership categorisation analysis and conversation analysis are employed to analyse self-recorded, everyday conversations of a group of older Greek Cypriot women with a long interactional history. The interactional organisation of old-age labels, and specifically instances of self-repair of age categorisations, reveal that members orient to old-age categories as hierarchically positioned and inference-rich. Members make relevant a very intricate set of expectations of who can be categorised by whom, with what specific age category term and at which context, partly because other-categorisations can also implicate one’s self-categorisation as old. Sequential and categorisation analyses provide a powerful analytical toolkit for the investigation of participants’ local system of self- and other-ascription of explicit -but also implicit- age identities. It is shown that the combination of membership categorisation analysis and conversation analysis can be extended beyond the analysis of turn-generating categories and can be instrumental in analysing flexible, context-shaped and agentively managed category identifications that also have currency beyond the local interactional occasion.
- Funding: Robert Browning scholarship, Centre for Hellenic Studies, King’s College London. 
References
Al-Harahsheh, Ahmad Mohammad Ahmad. 2015. A Conversation Analysis of self-initiated repair structures in Jordanian Spoken Arabic. Discourse Studies 17(4). 397–414. doi: 10.1177/1461445615578898.Search in Google Scholar
Andrews, Paul. 2017. Is the “telling case” a methodological myth? International Journal of Social Research Methodology 20(5):455–467. doi: 10.1080/13645579.2016.1198165.Search in Google Scholar
Antaki, Charles & Sue Widdicombe (eds.). 1998. Identities in talk. London: Sage.Search in Google Scholar
Benwell, Bethan & Elizabeth Stokoe. 2006. Discourse and identity. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.10.1515/9780748626533Search in Google Scholar
Biggs, Simon. 1997. Choosing not to be old? Masks, bodies and identity management in later life. Ageing & Society 17. 553–570.10.1017/S0144686X97006600Search in Google Scholar
Carlin, Andrew. 2010. Reading “A tutorial on membership categorization” by Emmanuel Schegloff. Journal of Pragmatics 42. 257–261.10.1016/j.pragma.2009.06.007Search in Google Scholar
Charalambidou, Anna. 2011. Constructions of age identities in everyday conversations through painful self disclosures. In Konstantinos A. Dimadis (ed.), Identities in the Greek world (from 1204 to the present day), 85–100. Athens: European Society of Modern Greek Studies.Search in Google Scholar
Charalambidou, Anna. 2015. Language and age identities among older Greek Cypriot women. In Michael Tsianikas, Spyridon George Couvalis and Maria Palaktsoglou (eds.), Reading, interpreting, experiencing: An inter-cultural journey into Greek letters, 112–124. Adelaide: Modern Greek Studies Association of Australia and New Zealand.Search in Google Scholar
Degnen, Cathrine. 2007. Minding the gap: The construction of old age and oldness amongst peers. Journal of Aging Studies 21. 69–80.10.1016/j.jaging.2006.02.001Search in Google Scholar
Eglin, Peter & Stephen K. Hester. 2003. The Montreal massacre: A story of membership categorization analysis. Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Fitzgerald, Richard. 2012. Membership catgeorization analysis: Wild and promiscuous or simply the joy of Sacks? Discourse Studies 14 (3). 305–311.10.1177/1461445612440776Search in Google Scholar
Forrester, Michael A. 2008. The emergence of self-repair: A case study of one child during the early preschool years. Research on Language and Social Interaction 41(1). 99–128. doi: 10.1080/08351810701691206.Search in Google Scholar
Garfinkel, Harold (ed.). 1967. Studies in ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.Search in Google Scholar
Georgakopoulou, Alexandra & Anna Charalambidou. 2011. Doing age and ageing: Language, discourse and social interaction. In Karin Aijmer & Gisle Andersen (eds.), Pragmatics of society, 31–51. Berlin; Boston: Mouton de Gruyter.10.1515/9783110214420.31Search in Google Scholar
Goutsos, Dionysis & Marilena Karyolemou. 2004. Introduction. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 168. 1–17.10.1515/ijsl.2004.031Search in Google Scholar
Gubrium, Jaber F. 2011. Events and biographical construction in old age. In Gary M. Kenyon, Ernst Bohlmeijer & William Lowell Randall (eds.), Storying later life: Issues, investigations, and interventions in narrative gerontology, 39–50. New York: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Hester, Stephen & Peter Eglin (eds.). 1997a. Culture in action: Studies in membership categorization analysis, Studies in ethnomethodology and conversation analysis. Washington, D.C.: International Institute for Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis & University Press of America.Search in Google Scholar
Hester, Stephen & Peter Eglin. 1997b. Membership Categorisation Analysis: An Introduction. In Stephen Hester & Peter Eglin (eds.), Culture in action: studies in membership categorization analysis., 1–23. Washington, D.C.: International Institute for Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis & University Press of America.Search in Google Scholar
Hester, Stephen & Peter Eglin. 1997c. The reflexive constitution of category, predicate and context in two settings. In Stephen Hester & Peter Eglin (eds.), Culture in action: Studies in membership categorization analysis, 25–48. Washington, D.C.: International Institute for Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis & University Press of America.Search in Google Scholar
Housley, William & Richard Fitzgerald. 2009. Membership categorization, culture and norms in action. Discourse & Society 20(3). 345–362.10.1177/0957926509102405Search in Google Scholar
Hurd, Laura. 1999. “We’re not old!”: Older women’s negotiation of aging and oldness. Journal of Aging Studies 13(4). 419–439.10.1016/S0890-4065(99)00019-5Search in Google Scholar
Hutchby, Ian & Robin Wooffitt. 1998. Conversation analysis: Principles, practices and applications. Cambridge: Polity.Search in Google Scholar
Jayyusi, Lena. 1984. Categorization and the moral order, International library of phenomenology and moral sciences. Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Search in Google Scholar
Jefferson, Gail. 2004a. “At first I thought”: A normalizing device for extraordinary events. In Gene H. Lerner (ed.), Conversation analysis: Studies from the first generation, 131–167. Philadelphia: J. Benjamins.10.1075/pbns.125.09jefSearch in Google Scholar
Jefferson, Gail. 2004b. Glossary of transcript symbols with an introduction. In Gene H. Lerner (ed.), Conversation analysis: Studies from the first generation, 13–23. Philadelphia: J. Benjamins.10.1075/pbns.125.02jefSearch in Google Scholar
Jefferson, Gail. 2007. Preliminary notes on abdicated other-correction. Journal of Pragmatics 39. 445–461.10.1016/j.pragma.2006.07.006Search in Google Scholar
Johnson, Greer C. 2006. The discursive construction of teacher identities in a research interview. In Anna De Fina, Deborah Schiffrin & Michael Bamberg (eds.), Discourse and identity, 213–232. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511584459.011Search in Google Scholar
Jolanki, Outi Hannele. 2009. Agency in talk about old age and health. Journal of Aging Studies 23. 215–226.10.1016/j.jaging.2007.12.020Search in Google Scholar
Katz, Stephen. 2001. Growing older without aging? Positive aging, anti-ageism and anti-aging. Generations 25 (4). 27–32.Search in Google Scholar
Labov, William. 1997. Some further steps in narrative analysis. Journal of Narrative and Life History 7: 395–415.10.1075/jnlh.7.49somSearch in Google Scholar
Levelt, Willem J. M. 1983. Monitoring and self-repair in speech. Cognition 14. 41–104.10.1016/0010-0277(83)90026-4Search in Google Scholar
Marquez-Reiter, Rosina, Ganchenko, Kristina & Charalambidou, Anna. 2018 Requests and counters in Russian traffic police officer-citizen encounters. In Maj-Britt Mosegaard Hansen & Rosina Marquez-Reiter (eds.), The pragmatics of sensitive activities in institutional discourse (Benjamins Current Topics; Vol. 96), 7–33. Amsterdam: Benjamins.10.1075/bct.96.01marSearch in Google Scholar
Mitchell, J. 1984. Typicality and the case study. In R. Ellen (ed.), Ethnographic Research: A guide to general conduct, 237–241. London: Academic Press.Search in Google Scholar
Nikander, Pirjo. 2000. “Old” vs. “Little Girl”: A discursive approach to age categorization and morality. Journal of Aging Studies 14 (4). 335–358.10.1016/S0890-4065(00)80001-8Search in Google Scholar
Paoletti, Isabella. 1998. Being an older woman: A study in the social production of identity. Mahwah, N.J.; London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Search in Google Scholar
Paulsen, Justin. 2018. Membership categorization analysis as an important qualitative method in evaluation. Evaluation and Program Planning 67. 138–145.10.1016/j.evalprogplan.2018.01.003Search in Google Scholar
Pavlou, Pavlos. 2004. Greek dialect use in the mass media in Cyprus. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 168. 101–118.10.1515/ijsl.2004.026Search in Google Scholar
Plug, Leendert. 2011. Phonetic reduction and informational redundancy in self-initiated self-repair in Dutch. Journal of Phonetics 39(3). 289–297. doi: 10.1016/j.wocn.2010.08.001.Search in Google Scholar
Pomerantz, Anita 1984. Agreeing and disagreeing with assessment: Some features of preferred/dispreferred turn shapes. In J. Maxwell Atkinson & John Heritage (eds.), Structure of social action: Studies in Conversation Analysis, 57–101. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511665868.008Search in Google Scholar
Psathas, George. 1999. Studying the orgnaization in action: Membership categorization and interaction analysis. Human Studies 22. 139–162.10.1023/A:1005422932589Search in Google Scholar
Rosow, Irving. 1974. Socialization to old age. Berkeley; London: University of California Press.10.1525/9780520378520Search in Google Scholar
Sacks, Harvey & Gail Jefferson. 1995. Lectures on conversation. Oxford: Blackwell.10.1002/9781444328301Search in Google Scholar
Sacks, Harvey, Emanuel A. Schegloff & Gail Jefferson. 1974. A simplest systematics for the organization of turn-taking for conversation. Language 50(4). 696–735.10.1353/lan.1974.0010Search in Google Scholar
Salonen, Tuuli & Minna Laakso. 2009. Self-Repair of speech by four-year-old Finnish children. Journal of Child Language 36(4). 855–882. doi: org/10.1017/S0305000908009240.10.1017/S0305000908009240Search in Google Scholar
Schegloff, Emanuel A. 1992. On talk and its institutional occasions. In Paul Drew & John Heritage (eds.), Talk at work: Interaction in institutional settings, 101–134. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Schegloff, Emanuel A. 2000. Overlapping talk and the organisation of turn-taking for conversation. Language in Society 29. 1–63.10.1017/S0047404500001019Search in Google Scholar
Schegloff, Emanuel A. 2007a. Categories in action: Person-reference and membership categorisation. Discourse Studies 9(4). 433–461.10.1177/1461445607079162Search in Google Scholar
Schegloff, Emanuel A. 2007b. A tutorial on membership categorisation. Journal of Pragmatics 39. 462–482.10.1016/j.pragma.2006.07.007Search in Google Scholar
Schegloff, Emanuel A., Gail Jefferson & Harvey Sacks. 1977. The preference for self-correction in the organization of repair in conversation. Language 53(2). 361–382. doi: 10.2307/413107.Search in Google Scholar
Silverman, David. 1998. Harvey Sacks: Social science and conversation analysis, Key contemporary thinkers. Cambridge: Polity press.Search in Google Scholar
Stokoe, Elizabeth. 2012. Moving forward with membership categorization analysis: Methods for systematic analysis. Discourse Studies 14(3). 277–303. doi: 10.1177/1461445612441534.Search in Google Scholar
Stokoe, Elizabeth & Derek Edwards. 2007. “Black this, black that”: Racial insults and reported speech in neighbour complaints and police interrogations. Discourse & Society 18(3). 337–372.10.1177/0957926507075477Search in Google Scholar
Tainio, Liisa. 2002. Negotiating gender identities and sexual agency in elderly couples’ talk. In Paul McIlvenny (ed.), Talking gender and sexuality, 181–206. Amsterdam; Philadelphia: J. Benjamins.10.1075/pbns.94.08taiSearch in Google Scholar
Watson, Rod. 1978. Categorization, authorization and blame-negotiation in conversation. Sociology 12. 1105–1123.10.1177/003803857801200106Search in Google Scholar
Watson, Rod. 1997. Some general reflections on “categorisation” and sequence in the analysis of conversation. In Stephen Hester & Peter Eglin (eds.), Culture in action: Studies in membership categorization analysis. 49–75. Washington, D.C.: International Institute for Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis & University Press of America.Search in Google Scholar
Supplementary Material
The online version of this article offers supplementary material (DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/lingvan-2018-0025).
©2019 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Research articles
- Language and aging research: new insights and perspectives
- Grammaticalization and the linguistic individual: new avenues in lifespan research
- Individual variation in the development of the Western Vowel System of Utah
- [In]stability in the use of a stable variable
- Implicit Causality in younger and older adults
- Processing gender stereotypes in dementia patients and older healthy adults: a self-paced reading study
- Perplexity – a new predictor of cognitive changes in spoken language? – results of the Interdisciplinary Longitudinal Study on Adult Development and Aging (ILSE)
- Repairs and old-age categorisations: interactional and categorisation analysis
- Ageism and interactional (mis)alignment: Using micro-discourse analysis in the interpretation of everyday talk in a hair-salon
- Taking the stance of quotidian in talking about pains: resilience and defiance
- No time to care? Interactional hurriedness in a Japanese nursing home
- Agency and epistemic authority in question-answer sequences between art museum guides and visitors diagnosed with dementia
- Accounting for forgetfulness in dementia interaction
- Embodied care: affective touch as a facilitating resource for interaction between caregivers and residents in a care home for older adults
Articles in the same Issue
- Research articles
- Language and aging research: new insights and perspectives
- Grammaticalization and the linguistic individual: new avenues in lifespan research
- Individual variation in the development of the Western Vowel System of Utah
- [In]stability in the use of a stable variable
- Implicit Causality in younger and older adults
- Processing gender stereotypes in dementia patients and older healthy adults: a self-paced reading study
- Perplexity – a new predictor of cognitive changes in spoken language? – results of the Interdisciplinary Longitudinal Study on Adult Development and Aging (ILSE)
- Repairs and old-age categorisations: interactional and categorisation analysis
- Ageism and interactional (mis)alignment: Using micro-discourse analysis in the interpretation of everyday talk in a hair-salon
- Taking the stance of quotidian in talking about pains: resilience and defiance
- No time to care? Interactional hurriedness in a Japanese nursing home
- Agency and epistemic authority in question-answer sequences between art museum guides and visitors diagnosed with dementia
- Accounting for forgetfulness in dementia interaction
- Embodied care: affective touch as a facilitating resource for interaction between caregivers and residents in a care home for older adults