Conflict Talk: Identity, Epistemics and Stance in "The Family"

The author`s teaching and parenting experience gave rise to the idea for the dissertation as certain discussions held as a parent were mirrored as a teacher. Parenting like teaching requires the setting of appropriate boundaries for behaviour and implementing them; this can lead to talk-in-interaction where ‘conflict talk’ is likely to occur. The focus of the research was to explore such talk within the field of conversation analysis. The aim was to examine ‘conflict talk’ between parent and adolescent in one specific interaction to consider how aspects of parental identity, epistemic rights to knowledge and stance are constructed and expressed in the talk. A secondary component arising during the actual research was to consider how physical gesture and gaze were used as a supporting mechanism. The analysis was conducted on interaction from the Channel 4 documentary “The Family” series 1. The visual footage revealed parents, Simon and Jane`s attempts to set behavioural boundaries with headstrong teenager Emily. Briefly, the findings of the dissertation were that epistemic rights to knowledge were used to mark conflict in talk.