Expressing communicative intents in Estonian, Finnish, and Swedish mother–adolescent interactions

• Published in: Journal of child language 2004-11, Vol.31 (4), p.801-819
• Main Authors: TULVISTE, TIIA, MIZERA, LUULE, DE GEER, BOEL
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adolescents; Age; Baltic and East European studies; Bilingualism; Biological and medical sciences; Child; Child Behavior; Child development; Child Rearing; Children; Children & youth; Cognition & reasoning; Cognitive ability; Communication; Conversation; Couple and family; Cross-Cultural Comparison; Cultural differences; Cultural Influences; Directives; Early Adolescents; Estonia; Estonian language; Families & family life; Female; Finland; Finnish language; Foreign Countries; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; HUMANIORA och RELIGIONSVETENSKAP; HUMANITIES and RELIGION; Humans; Immigrants; Intention; Interpersonal Communication; Language; Language Acquisition; Languages and linguistics; Linguistic subjects; Lingvistikämnen; Male; Mother-Adolescent communication; Mothers; Parent Child Relationship; Parents & parenting; Preschool Children; Psychology; Psychology, Adolescent; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Snow; Social Control, Formal; Social psychology; Social Values; Socialization; Speech acts; Språkvetenskap; Studies; Sweden; Swedish language; Teenagers; Thinking Skills; University colleges; Verbal Behavior; Verbal communication; Young Children; Östersjö- och Östeuropaforskning
• ISSN: 0305-0009; 1469-7602; 1469-7602
• DOI: 10.1017/S0305000904006488

The present article focused on two types of communicative intent (directing behaviour vs. eliciting talk) expressed by mothers and teenagers during everyday family interactions in Estonian, Finnish, and Swedish mono- and bicultural families. Three monocultural groups consisted of 17 Estonian, 19 Swedish, and 18 Finnish families living in their country of origin; two bicultural and bilingual groups consisted of 18 Estonian and 18 Finnish families residing in Sweden. All the children were between 9;0 and 13;0. The results revealed that the Estonian monocultural mothers were highly directive and direct: issuing behavioural directives most frequently and using the highest proportion of imperatives among all samples. Contrary to our expectations, the mothers who tended to be more concerned with controlling their children's behaviour also elicited conversation more frequently from teenagers by using a larger number of information requests. These requests seemed to serve as another form of attempted control over adolescents' behaviour – their communicative behaviour. The Swedish monocultural children were more active in controlling their mothers' behaviour than their counterparts, possibly illustrating the Swedish value of generational equality.