Pariskuntapuhe ja kokemusten rajat

• Liisa Tainio

Avainsanat: keskusteluntutkimus, murteet

Abstrakti

Couples' talk and the boundaries of experience (englanti)

1/2000 (104)

Liisa Tainio (University of Helsinki; [e-mail])

COUPLES' TALK AND THE BOUNDARIES OF EXPERIENCE

The article examines couples' talk in which the relationship of the couple is evident. The study is based on ethnomethodological conversation analysis, and the material used consists of recordings of the dialectal speech of elderly couples from the Archives of Audio Recordings of Spoken Finnish. Consistent with the conversation-analytic approach, the writer assumes that in speech situations a couple establishes its partnership not from the topics of conversation or the way in which the speakers refer to their relationship, but in the way in which they make their speech compatible.

The analysis consists of three overlapping elements. Firstly, the writer analyses the manner in which the spouses function as a coherent team in the conversation, a team of partners who develop the conversation together, for example when answering questions. Secondly, the writer analyses how the spouses, as speakers, establish the morals of the conversation and also considers the nature of these morals and how the spouses draw the line between what is appropriate and inappropriate speech or behaviour. Thirdly, the writer examines the way in which the couple recognises the right of spouses, as accepted in the community at large, to intrude on the other's right to their own private experiences when talking about each other or on behalf of each other. The writer also examines how the couple negotiates these intrusions. Acting as an authority on the most personal, physical experiences of a spouse is considered to represent the extremity of team work in couples' talk.

The article concludes that spouses demonstrate their relationship as a couple through agreement, by treating their separate experiences as common, and also through disagreement, by arguing for instance about the appropriate course of the conversation. The analysis does not, however, lead to any conclusion about gender-specific roles in expressing the relationship, despite the fact that in the recordings the man was generally the first to speak following any disagreements.