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Regulatory comments as tools of family socialization: A comparison of Estonian, Swedish and Finnish mealtime interaction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 November 2002

TIIA TULVISTE ,
LUULE MIZERA ,
BOEL DE GEER  and
MARJA-TERTTU TRYGGVASON
TIIA TULVISTE
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Tartu, 78 Tiigi Street, 50410 Tartu, Estonia, tiiat@psych.ut.ee Södertörn University College, Sweden
LUULE MIZERA
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Tartu, 78 Tiigi Street, 50410 Tartu, Estonia Södertörn University College, Sweden
BOEL DE GEER
Affiliation:
Södertörn University College, Sweden
MARJA-TERTTU TRYGGVASON
Affiliation:
Södertörn University College, Sweden
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Abstract

The present study's aim is to pinpoint the characteristics of verbal socialization in family interaction in five different sociocultural contexts. Families with early adolescent children (M = 11.5 years) were compared with regard to regulatory comments issued during family mealtimes. Three monocultural groups consisted of 20 Estonian, 20 Swedish, and 20 Finnish families living in their countries of origin; two bicultural and bilingual groups consisted of 20 Estonian and 20 Finnish families residing in Sweden. Regulatory comments were defined as utterances aimed at influencing the conversational partner to behave according to social and conversational rules. Contrary to expectations, cultural differences were not found in discussions dealing with table manners and conversational rules, but the number of comments on perceived violations of moral rules was much greater in the Swedish material. Swedish early adolescents commented significantly more than their Estonian and Finnish counterparts, indicating more asymmetrical communication in Estonian and Finnish families.

Keywords

Family socializationmealtime conversationmetapragmatic and metalinguistic commentsmoral talk; EstonianFinnish and Swedish cultural comparison
Type
Research Article
Information
Language in Society , Volume 31 , Issue 5 , November 2002 , pp. 655 - 678
Copyright
2002 Cambridge University Press

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