Making Meanings, Creating Family

Cynthia Gordon uses tape-recorded conversations about everyday, mundane topics among three dual-income families to explore how family communication creates a special kind of meaning and a sense of distinctive group coherence within the family.

Cynthia Gordon is Assistant Professor of Communication and Rhetorical Studies, Syracuse University. She is the co-editor of Family Talk: Discourse and Identity in Four American Families.

1.: Introduction: Intertextuality and Framing in Family Discourse
2.: "All right my love?" "All right my dove": Extreme Intextuality and "Framing Family"
3.: "Tell Uncle Noodles what you did today": Intertextuality, Child-centered Frames, and "Extending Family"
4.: "You're the superior subject": Layering Meanings by Creating Overlapping and Embedded Frame
5.: "Kelly, I think that hole must mean Tigger": Blending Frames and Reframing in Interaction
6.: Conclusion: Intetextuality, Framing, and the Study of Family Discourse
Postscript: "Old habits never die, they just mutate"
Appendix: Transcription Conventions
Notes
References
Index