Teenage resistance: how teenagers claim autonomy and accomplish resistance in family interactions

Abstract

This thesis explores how resistance is accomplished in family interactions with teenage children. This study uses Conversation Analysis and Membership Categorisation Analysis to explore resistance as an interactional accomplishment. Resistance is a multi-dimensional accomplishment, so in order to see the full picture of resistance, this thesis employs a multi-layered analysis to layer the analytic findings from turn design, sequence organisation, membership categorisation analysis, epistemics and deontics. The ways in which teenagers resist parental authority and claim autonomy are examined in order deepen our understanding of what it is to accomplish resistance.

The data comprises a corpus of family interactions involving parents and their teenage children. The data were gathered, transcribed, and analysed using Conversation Analysis (CA) and Membership Categorisation Analysis (MCA) to explore the multi-dimensional nature of resistance at the project level. This is achieved by examining individual features in close detail, and layering these analyses to understand how resistance is accomplished in family interactions. The analysis is presented in two parts, the first focusing on the conversation analytic observations, the second, focusing on the extra-sequential observations, namely epistemics, deontics and MCA. The first two analytic chapters use CA to investigate interception as a form of resistance, and then to more broadly understand what it is to derail a sequence. They draw on the core structures of CA, namely turn design, sequence organisation, and repair. The latter two analytic chapters focus on the extra-sequential aspects of doing resistance in the context of family interactions. This is achieved by exploring how categories are invoked and oriented to, and how authority is claimed and resisted through orientation to epistemics and deontics.

This thesis presents an examination of mundane family interactions which contributes to our understanding of the structural organisation of family life. Throughout the thesis, the theoretical implications for the use of Conversation Analysis and Membership Categorisation Analysis are explored.

Date of Award	Jan 2025
Original language	English
Sponsors	Department of Education
Supervisor	Karyn Stapleton (Supervisor) & Catrin Rhys (Supervisor)