Hostname: page-component-7dd5485656-kp629 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-10-31T22:58:13.912Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

How children start arguments*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2008

Douglas W. Maynard
Douglas W. Maynard
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, University of Wisconsin
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Previous research on children's arguments has neglected their initial phases, particularly how they arise out of children's ongoing practical activities. This paper examines how any utterance or activity can be opposed, the concept of opposition being at the center of any definition of argument. However, once opposition has occurred, it can be treated in a variety of ways, and a full-blown argument or dispute is only one possible and contingent outcome. Children analyze others's moves not only verbally, but nonverbally as well. Thus, bodily actions and presupposition are necessary components in the analysis of how arguments are started. Nonverbal oppositional moves may be at the base of semantically constructed disputes. When opposition occurs, it is to be taken to imply the violation of some rule or value. The meaning of that rule or value relative to children's culture is taken to have to do not with its content, but its usage in promoting a local social organization. (Conversational analysis, child language, social organization, presupposition, dispute genres, American English [middle class, Caucasian])

Information

Type
Articles
Information
Language in Society , Volume 14 , Issue 1 , March 1985 , pp. 1 - 29
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1985

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Boggs, S. T. (1978). The development of verbal disputing in part-Hawaiian children. Language in Society 7:325–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brenneis, D., & Lein, L.. (1977). You fruithead: A sociolinguistic approach to dispute settlement. In S. Ervin-Tripp & C. Mitchell-Kernan (1977). 49–65.Google Scholar
Button, G., & Casey, N. (1981). Topic nomination. Unpublished ms. Devon. England: Plymouth Polytechnic.Google Scholar
Churchill, L. (1978). Questioning strategies in sociolinguistics. Rowley. Mass.: Newbury House.Google Scholar
Cook-Gumperz, J. (1981). Persuasive talk — The social organization of children's talk. In Green, S. L. & Wallat, C. (eds.). Ethnography and language in educational settings. Norwood, N.J.: Ablex. 25–50.Google Scholar
Corsaro, W. A. (1979). Young children's conception of status and role. Sociology of Education 53:46–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coulter, J. (1979). Beliefs and practical understanding. In Psathas, G. (ed), Everyday language: Studies in ethnomethodology. New York: Irvington. 163–86.Google Scholar
Eisenberg, A., & Garvey, C. (1981). Children's use of verbal strategies in resolving conflicts. Discourse Processes 4: 149–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ervin-Tripp, S. (1976). Is Sybil there? The structure of some American English directives. Language in Society 5:25–66.Google Scholar
Ervin-Tripp, S. (1977). Wait for me, roller skate! In S. Ervin-Tripp & C. Mitchell-Kernan (1977). 165–88.Google Scholar
Ervin-Tripp, S. (1982). Structures of control. In Wilkinson, L. C. (ed.), Communicating in the classroom. New York: Academic. 27–47.Google Scholar
Ervin-Tripp, S., & Mitchell-Kernan, C. (eds.) (1977). Child discourse. New York: Academic.Google Scholar
Felstiner, W. L. F., Abel, R. L., & Sarat, A. (1981). The emergence and transformation of disputes: Naming, blaming, claiming … Law and Society Review 15(3/4):631–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fillmore, C. J. (1972). Subjects, speakers and roles. In Davidson, D. & Harman, G. (ed.), Semantics of natural language. Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel. 1–24.Google Scholar
Fine, G. A. (1979). Small groups and culture creation. American Sociological Review 44(5):733–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fitzgerald, J., & Dickins, R. (1981). Disputing in legal and nonlegal contexts: Some questions for sociologists of law. Law and Society Review. 15(3/4):681–706.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garfinkel, H. (1967). Studies in ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Genishi, C., & DiPaolo, M. (1982). Learning through argument in a preschool. In Wilkinson, L. C. (ed.). Communicating in the classroom. New York: Academic. 49–68.Google Scholar
Goffman, E. (1963). Stigma: Notes on the management of spoiled identity. Englewood Cliffs. N.J.: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Goffman, E. (1967). Interaction ritual. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday.Google Scholar
Goffman, E. (1974). Frame analysis. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Goffman, E. (1976). Replies and responses. Language in Society, 5:257–313.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goffman, E. (1981). Forms of talk. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Goffman, E. (1983). Felicity's condition. American Journal of Sociology 89(1): 1–53.Google Scholar
Goodwin, C. (1981). Conversational organization: Interaction between speakers and hearers. New York: Academic.Google Scholar
Goodwin, M. H. (1980). He-said-she-said: Formal cultural procedures for the construction of a gossip dispute activity. American Ethnologist 7(4):674–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goodwin, M. H. (1982a). Processes of dispute management among urban Black children. American Ethnologist 9(1 ):76–96.Google Scholar
Goodwin, M. H. ( 1982b). “Instigating” Storytelling as social process. American Ethnologist 9(4):799–89.Google Scholar
Goodwin, M. H. (1983). Aggravated correction and disagreement in children's conversation. Journal of Pragniatics VII(6).Google Scholar
Grimshaw, A. (1980). Mishearings, misunderstandings, and other non-successes in talk: A plea for redress of speaker oriented bias. Sociological Inquiry 50 (3/4):31–74.Google Scholar
Hilbert, R. A. (1981). Toward an improved understanding of “role” Theory and Society 10 (2):207–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hopper, R. (1981). The taken-for-granted. Human Communication Research 7(3):195–211.Google Scholar
Hymes, D. 1974 Foundations in sociolinguistics: An ethnographic approach. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Jefferson, G. (1974). Error correction as an interactional resource. Language in Society 3:181–99.Google Scholar
Jefferson, G. (1979). A technique for inviting laughter and its subsequent acceptance inclination. In Psathas, G. (ed.) Everyday language: Studies in ethnomethodology. New York: lrvington. 79–96.Google Scholar
Karttunen, L. & Peters, S. (1979). Conventional implicature. In Oh, C. & Dinneen, D. A. (eds.), Syntax and semantics: Presupposition. New York: Academic. 1–56.Google Scholar
Kochman, T. (1983). The boundary between play and nonplay in black verbal dueling. Language in Society 12:329–37.Google Scholar
Labov, W. (1972). Rules for ritual insults. In Sudnow, D. (ed.), Studies in social interaction. New York: Free Press. 120–69.Google Scholar
Labov, W., & Fanshel, D. (1977). Therapeutic discourse. New York: Academic.Google Scholar
Mather, L., & Yngvesson, B. (1981). Language, audience, and the transformation of disputes. Language and Society 15(314):775–822.Google Scholar
Maynard, D. W. (1980). Placement of topic changes in conversation. Semiotica 49(3/4):263–90.Google Scholar
Maynard, D. W. (1982). Person-descriptions in plea bargaining. Semiotica 42(2/4):, 95–213.Google Scholar
Maynard, D. W. (1984). The development of argumentative skills among children. Paper presented at the annual meetings of the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction,San Antonio.August.Google Scholar
Mehan, H. (1979). Learning lessons: Social organization in the classroom. Cambridge. Mass.: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mitchell-Kernan, C., & Kernan, K. T. (1975). Children's insults: American and Samoan. In Sanches, M. & Blount, B. G. (eds.). Sociocultural dimensions of language use. New York: Academic. 307–15.Google Scholar
Mitchell-Kernan, C. & Kernan, K. T.. (1977) Pragmatics of directive choice among children. In S. Ervin-Tripp & C. Mitchell Kernan (1977). 189–208.Google Scholar
Nader, L., & Todd, H. F. (eds.) (1978). The disputing process: Law in ten societies. New York: Columbia University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pomerantz, A. (1975). Second assessments. A study of some features of agreement/disagreement. Ph.D. dissertation. University of California, Irvine.Google Scholar
Pomerantz, A. (1980). Telling my side: ‘Limited access’ as a ‘fishing’ device. Sociological Inquiry 50(314): 186–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sacks, H. (1972). An initial investigation of the usability of conversational data fordoing sociology. In Sudnow, D. (ed.), Studies in social interaction. New York: Free Press. 31–74.Google Scholar
Sacks, H. (1973). On some puns with some intimations. In Shuy, R. W. (ed.), Report of the Twenty-Third Annual Round Table Meetings in Linguistics and Language Studies. Washington. D.C.: Georgetown University Press. 135–44.Google Scholar
Sacks, H., Schegloff, E. A., & Jefferson, G. (1974) A simplest systematics for the organization of turn-taking for conversation. Language 50:696–735.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schegloff, E. A. (1968). Sequencing in conversational openings. American Anthropologist 70(4): 1075–95.Google Scholar
Schegloff, E. A., Jefferson, G., & Sacks, H. (1977). The preference for self-correction in the organization of repair in conversation. Language 53 (2):361–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schegloff, E. A. & Sacks, H. (1973). Opening up closings. Semiotica 8:289–327.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schenkein, J. (1978). Studies in the organization of conversation. New York: Academic.Google Scholar
Sherzer, J. (1973). On linguistic semantics and linguistic subdisciplines: A review article. Language in Society 2:269–89.Google Scholar
Stalnaker, R. (1973). Presuppositions. Journal of Philosophical Logic 2:447–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stalnaker, R. (1974). Pragmatic presuppositions. In Munitz, M. K. & Unger, P. K. (eds.), Semantics and philosophy. New York: New York University Press. 197–213.Google Scholar
Volterra, V., & Antinucci, F. (1979). Negation in child language: A pragmatic study In Ochs, E. & Schieffelin, B. B. (eds.). Developmental pragmnatics. New York: Academic. 281–303.Google Scholar
Willard, C. A. (1978). A reformulation of the concept of argument: The construclivist/interactionist foundations of a sociology of argument. Journal of the American Forensic Association 14 (Winter): 121–40.Google Scholar
Wilkinson, L. C., & Dollaghan, C. (1979). Peer communications in first-grade reading groups. Theory into practice XVIII(4):267–74.Google Scholar
Wilkinson, L. C. & Calculator, S. (1982). Requests and responses n peer-directed reading groups. American Educational Research Journal 19(1): 107–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zimmerman, D. H. (1970). The practicalities of rule use. In Douglas, J. D. (ed.). Understanding everyday life. Chicago: Aldine. 221–38Google Scholar