Scenes of family life: Complaining in everyday conversation

Scenes of family life: Complaining in everyday conversation1

Marty Laforest

Département de françaisUniversité du Québec à Trois-Rivières

C.P. 500, Trois-Rivières (Qc)Canada G9A 5H7

AbstractThe purpose of this study is to characterize thecomplaint/complaint-response sequence in everydayconversations between people who are on intimateterms. More specifically, the intent is toexamine the form taken by the complaint and theform of the response elicited from the hearer,and to bring out the relation between the

1 This study, which is part of broader research into thenegotiation of meaning in talk-in-interaction, was madepossible through the financial support of the Québec'sFonds pour la formation des chercheurs et l'aide à larecherche (FCAR) and of the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières. It has been published in Journal of Pragmatics 34 (10-11) : 1595-1620. I would like to thank Karine Blanchettefor helping me gather the complaints analysed, DeniseDeshaies and Guylaine Martel for sharing their thoughts onsome of the issues raised here, Diane Vincent and MalcahYaeger-Dror for their stimulating comments on an earlierversion of the text, and also Mark Dobbie for translatingthe original French manuscript into English.

complaint as an act and the argument as a genreof conversation.The complaints analysed, taken from a corpus offamily conversations recorded in Montréal, havepreferential realization patterns that can belinked in part to the intimacy of therelationship between the interactants: In manyways, they are uttered without the specialprecautions generally associated with face-threatening acts. The complainees most oftenreject the blame levelled at them. But wellcharacterized arguments are virtually absent fromthe corpus. The entry into the argument isnegotiated in the speech turns that follow thecomplaint/response sequence, and the argumentonly breaks out if the complainer questions thevalue of the complainee's response. Bothinteractants use numerous strategies for avoidingan argument and, more often than not, theysucceed. The strategies they use can be seen asindicators of the status of verbal confrontationin the Québec community.

keywords: complaint, conflict, argument, culture,pragmatics, conversation

1. IntroductionComplaining is one way of reminding a person

that there are certain norms of behaviour whichmust not be transgressed. The interlocutors who

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give us the most frequent opportunities forevaluating their behaviour are the people closestto us, because close, ongoing relations are thosein which sorting out the norms of behaviour to beshared is a vital concern. In such a context,observing the interactional and discursive effectof complaining on the basis of how it is done canyield an assessment of where complaining fits inamong the strategies speakers of a givencommunity use to do the sorting out.

The purpose of this study is to characterizethe complaint/complaint-response sequence ineveryday conversations between people who are onintimate terms. More specifically, the intent is:1. to examine the more or less direct form takenby the complaint and the form of the responseelicited from the complainee;2. to evaluate the impact of the complaint on theconversation, i.e. the possible discursivecontinuations of the complaint/complaint-responsesequence, which will make it possible to bringout the relation between the complaint as an actand the scene or argument as a type ofconversation.

2. The act of complaining For the purposes of this study, the complaint isdefined as an expression of dissatisfactionaddressed by an individual A to an individual Bconcerning behaviour on the part of B that Afeels is unsatisfactory. The complaint is

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addressed to the person identified as the causeof the problem, i.e. the individual responsiblefor the behaviour that is deemed unsatisfactory.2

What I mean by unsatisfactory behaviour isbehaviour that violates social norms and fails tomeet the expectations the complainer hasregarding his or her relationship with thecomplainee (see Goffman, 1971). Hence, failure tomeet expectations is a precondition for theexecution of the act of complaining (eachinteractant may of course have differentexpectations). It is interesting to note that thePetit Robert dictionary definition of the wordreproche ("reproach") includes the function of thecomplaining, or, if one prefers, itsperlocutionary intent. The definition says – andI'm translating here – that reproach is "blamelevelled at someone [...] to make them feel shame orregret, or to make them change their ways" (my emphasis).

In the context of speech act theory, and forall discourse analysts in general, the act ofcomplaining is neither easy to define nor easy totalk about. The complaint is among the face-threatening acts (FTAs) defined by Brown and

2 Thus, I am not dealing with cases of complaining to aperson about the conduct of others. It is important topoint this out, because the meaning of the term "complaint"is broader than that of the French term "reproche", used inthe original version of this article, which refers only todissatisfaction addressed to the person held to beresponsible for deviant behaviour.

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Levinson (1987); accordingly, it comes at a highsocial price, which the complainer generallytries to evaluate. More specifically, thecomplaint figures among the FTAs that "threaten[…] positive-face want" (Brown and Levinson,1987: 66) by indicating, at least potentially,that the speaker's wishes do not correspond tothose of the hearer, just like disapproval,criticism, reprimands, accusations, insults, etc.

Like all FTAs, the complaint is generally(more or less) indirect in form. It is all themore difficult to capture theoretically giventhat there is no prototype for it, as there isfor the request or the excuse. In context, thecomplaint is very difficult to distinguish fromthe related acts mentioned above, which arelikely to appear at the same time and to elicitsimilar reactions. While Brown and Levinson seemto regard acts of disapproval, complaint,criticism, accusation, etc. as distinct from oneanother, such acts actually overlap, and it isnot easy (and may not necessarily be that useful)to distinguish very clearly between them, as canbe seen in various studies devoted to thephenomenon being addressed here: what I amcalling a complaint is referred to as a"disapproval exchange" by D'Amico-Reisner (1983),and the "complaining speech act" of Olshtain andWeinbach (1993) includes disapproval, accusation,warning and threatening.

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From an interactional standpoint, if we takethe complaint as the first part of an adjacencypair, there is no typical corresponding secondpart: the complaint can be followed by denial,rejection, justification, making excuses, etc..According to Edmondson (1981: 280), the reasonfor this is that "in Austinian terms, the'perlocutionary intent' of a complaint isnegotiable: a hearer cannot be said to recognizeby convention what behavior will satisfy thecomplaint."

Given that the complaint has all thesecharacteristics, discerning its presence inconversations is a delicate matter. That is why,in this study, like Olshtain and Weinbach (1993)and Olshtain and Cohen (1983), I have consideredas a group all FTAs used to expressdissatisfaction with what is deemed to beunsatisfactory behaviour by an interactant,without attempting to draw distinctions betweenthem.

According to Brown and Levinson (1987: 65), anact is recognizable as "what is intended to bedone by a verbal and a non-verbal communication".But the intention is beyond the grasp of thereceiver of the act and (even more so) that ofthe analyst. Many assertive utterancescorresponding to the intention to complain canalways be interpreted as simple comments.Conversely, many innocent observations –reflecting the intention to take note of

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something – can be taken to be complaints (as canbe seen in the examples analysed by Schegloff,1987). As we know, the lack of correspondencebetween the intention attributed to the speakerand the speaker's true intention (insofar as heor she is actually aware of it) is notnecessarily made manifest in a subsequentspeaking turn such as "don't pretend you don'tknow what I mean" or "I wasn't complaining".

Adopting, for the purposes of analysis, thepoint of view of the hearer of the message, Iconsidered as a complaint anything the speakersaid that the hearer took to be an expression ofdissatisfaction with his/her behaviour. Itherefore extracted everything that elicited anyof the reactions associated with the FTAs in thesame family as the complaint: the excuse,bravado, denial, justification, etc. (seedetailed list below). Since one of those possiblereactions is to ignore the FTA, and the reactionof ignoring does not always make it possible toknow whether the hearer perceived disapproval inthe speaker's words, I considered in such casesthat a complaint was present if the ignoredutterance contained strong prosodiccharacteristics associated with disapproval or ifthere was, at a later point in the discourse, anykind of indicator that the intention to complainwas inherent in the speaker's utterance.

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3. DataThe data for this study are from the Montréal

1995 corpus, which consists of about 50 hours offamily conversations recorded at home by fourFrench-speaking Montréal families. The recordingswere made outside the presence of the researchersand never without the knowledge of theindividuals concerned.3 At a preparatory meeting,the times of day when the informants talkedtogether the most were identified, and prioritywas given to recording at those times. Accordingto the informants, the recorded interactions arefairly representative of their daily life.

Only complaints addressed by a speaker to apeer (by a member of a couple to his/her partner,in the vast majority of cases, or by anindividual to his/her brother or sister) weretaken into consideration. The complaintsexchanged between people who are not peers(parents and children, notably) were eliminatedin order to neutralize the factor of variationintroduced by a difference in hierarchicalposition between interactants.4

3 From an ethical standpoint, I feel that recordings madewithout the speakers' knowledge are unacceptable. It ishard to assess to what extent informants are inhibited bythe presence of the tape recorder. However, we tried to usea data gathering procedure that would minimize this factoras much as possible (routine recordings, spread overseveral days, etc., – see Vincent, Laforest et Martel,1995).

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The number of occurrences gathered – 50 – isrelatively small for such a large quantity ofdata, and in comparison with other studies on thesubject, which most often have used differentdata-gathering methodologies. But the complaintsin this study appeared "naturally", so to speak,not being the result of an imposed situation,whether it be role playing (as in Newell andStutman, 1989/90) or responding to a discoursecompletion test (as in Hartley, 1996; Olshtainand Weinbach, 1993; and Beebe and Takahashi, 1989– among others). The other disadvantage ofworking with a corpus, apart from the smallnumber of occurrences gathered, is, of course,the heterogeneous nature of the acts for whichhearers are blamed: with naturally-occurringcomplaints, we have no control over the factorswhich can influence the form they take. Thedifficulty of gathering complaints and theirheterogeneous nature no doubt explain why naturalconversations have rarely been used for the typeof analysis proposed here (the interesting studyby D'Amico-Reisner – 1983 – is, to my knowledge,one of the few that have been done).

4 In the case of parent-child conversations, there isanother factor at work, which can change the possibleinterpretation of the complaint: since the parent's jobconsists precisely in inculcating norms of behaviour,complaints and interventions with "educational" intentionslargely overlap (on this topic, see Blum-Kulka, 1997,chapter 5).

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But a corpus of true conversations is notwithout its advantages. It allows us:1) to observe complaining in an interactionalcontext that is broader and often moresurprising, because the complaints gathered arenot dependent on a situation imagined by theanalyst in advance;2) to observe the true influence of theconstraints related to face management, becausethe complaints are uttered in a context wherethings are truly at stake (given that theinteractants have a continuing relationship).Such a corpus is very hard to come by, but thisdifficulty is counterbalanced by the fact that ithas a much better chance of reflecting whatpeople actually do in real life, and is thereforemuch more trustworthy than artificially elicitedpragmatic data.

The complaints gathered are from 15 distinctinteractions involving five dyads who are spousesand one brother/sister dyad (see table 1). Allsocial classes are represented. Four of the fivecouples of spouses have been living together forseveral years. The daughter of one of thosecouples and her boyfriend constitute the fifthcouple of spouses. They are both still livingwith their parents, but spend a lot of time withthe young woman's family. They have been togetherfor about a year.

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Dyad Approx. age*(him/her)

Socialclass

Years oflivingtogether(approx.)

Normand andMarie

mid-forties/47

lower middleclass

17

Paul andChristine

50/32 workingclass

12

Paul and hissister

50/? workingclass

—

Nicolas andLuce

mid-forties/48

lower middleclass

24

Steve andNathalie

21/21 lower middleclass

1

Charles andFrance

46/mid-forties

upper middleclass

20

Table 1: Dyads of speakers (* For reasons inherent in the way the "Montréal 1995"corpus was constituted, we generally know the specificage of only one member of each couple.)

4. Analysis4.1 Distribution and nature of the complaints inthe corpusAs can be seen in table 2, the complaintsgathered are unequally distributed among theconversations in which they appear and much moreconcentrated in those involving certain dyads. Aswe will see, however, a heavy concentration ofcomplaints does not necessarily indicate thepresence of a conflictual interaction.

Another characteristic of the conversationsobserved is that one member of the couple utters

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nearly all of the complaints (as we will seelater, counterattacks are rare). The results donot show, however, that either sex has recourseto complaints more than the other: when behaviouris sharply asymmetrical, the person who doespractically all the complaining is in somecouples the man, in others the woman. Theasymmetry could just as well be explained by apower dynamics typical of each couple.5

Dyad Interactions

containing

complaints

Totalduration of

interactions(min.)

hiscomplai

nts

hercomplai

nts

Totalnumberof

complaints

Normand andMarie

1 25 1 1 2

Paul andChristine

6 187 15 2 17

Paul and hissister

1 9 2 -- 2

Nicolas andLuce

1 12 -- 1 1

Steve andNathalie

2 34 1 16 17

Charles andFrance

4 141 3 8 11

TOTAL 15 408 22 28 50Table 2: Distribution of complaints in the corpus

5 Also, the data are too fragmentary for a link to beestablished between the quantity or the nature of thecomplaints uttered and how long the members of each couplehave been in their relationship or which social class theybelong to.

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The everyday conversations recorded with thespeakers' consent turned up few complaints withserious reasons behind them, and, in any case,serious reasons for complaining are necessarilymore rare than others. Thus, in the corpus understudy, the reasons for complaining that are givenare, as could be expected, extremely mundane,completely typical of shared daily life. Thepartner is blamed for endlessly repeating adesire to be taken out somewhere the complainerdoesn't want to go, for sneezing inelegantly, forforgetting something on the table that shouldhave gone into the fridge, or for occupying thebathroom for too long in the morning. It isplausible that the seriousness of the offenceinfluences the response by the complainee, butthe data analysed provide no means of evaluatingthis influence.

4.2. Classification of complaintsClassifications of complaint realization

patterns vary depending on the breadth of theconceptual framework used to capture thecomplaint phenomenon (including or excluding FTAsin the same family), on the formality of thesituations giving rise to the complaint and onthe variety of the relations (in terms of powerand familiarity) between the complainer and thecomplainee.

Like Olshtain and Weinbach (1987, 1993), andHartley (1996) as well, I feel there is a speech

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act set of complaining composed of distinctrealization patterns (which may be combined6) thatcan be drawn upon in order to formulate acomplaint. These realization patterns, of whichthere are six,7 are defined and/or illustratedbelow with examples from the corpus. Table 3presents the full spectrum of patterns, seekingto clarify them by using imaginary prototypicalexamples based on a single situation.

6 They are rarely combined in the corpus I used, however. Ifound only two complaint interventions consisting of twocombined patterns. Each of them was counted as a singlecomplaint and placed in the dominant category ofrealization pattern (see definitions of categories), i.e.the most explicit one (which, in both instances, was thecategory of mentioning the offensive act or behaviour).7 The classifications of Hartley (1996) and of Olshtain andWeinbach (1987 and 1993) have only five categories. But,apart from that difference, the classification used here isvery close to Hartley's.

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Situation: It's 11 p.m. X and Y are in the kitchen. X has just noticed that the bread bag is empty.Complaint realizationpattern

Example

1. Allusion to an offensive act

X: There's no bread left.

2. Justification of discontent

X: I'm gonna have to get upearlier again tomorrow morningto go to the bakery!

3. Request that the complainee justify his/her offensive act

X: How come you ate all thebread?

4. Mentioning the offensive act

X: You ate all the bread!

5. Requesting a changein behaviour

X: Hey, do you think you couldmanage to leave some bread forbreakfast?

6. Adverse criticism of the hearer

X: You never think aboutothers!

Table 3: Complaint realization patterns

So we have:

1. ALLUSION TO THE OFFENSIVE ACT/BEHAVIOUR (withoutexplicit mention of that act/behaviour andwithout calling into question the complainee)Typical form: an assertive utterance with noevaluation or second person markers.

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(1)Paul's sister phones him on March 31. Afterexchanging hellos, Paul says:C'est le 30 ma fête, moi.

My birthday's on the 30th.

2. JUSTIFICATION OF DISCONTENT(i.e. any utterance intended to show that thespeaker is justified in protesting about theact/behaviour being criticized. The utterancemost often expresses the result or consequencesof the offensive act for the complainant; hence,the realization of the complaint is centred onthe speaker – the "victim" of the offence –rather than on the offensive act itself.)Typical form: none.

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(2)Paul has just criticized Christine fortalking constantly about going to see herfriend Sophie, a prospect that doesn'tinterest him (see example 19 for a longerexcerpt). He continues:À chaque fois là c'est pareil comme si: Mettons c'est pareilcomme si tu voudrais me dire "Ben réveille-toi baquet[fainéant] là on va voir Sophie" "Réveille-toi baquet on va voirSophie"!

Every time it's just like: Let's say it'sjust like you wanted to say "Well get up lazybones let's go see Sophie" "Get up lazy boneslet's go see Sophie"!

In this example, the offensive act consists inrepeating the same request too often. Instead ofmentioning the act itself, Paul evokes the effectthe repetition has on him: it gives him theimpression he is being treated as lazy.

3. REQUEST THAT THE COMPLAINEE JUSTIFY HIS OR HER OFFENSIVEACT/BEHAVIOUR Typical form: Why are you doing/did you X; What are youdoing X for?

(3)Lui: Qu'est-ce que t'as à me regarder Nathalie tu me stresses.

Him: What are you staring at me for Nathalieyou're making me nervous.

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4. MENTIONING THE OFFENSIVE ACT/BEHAVIOUR(statement of the offending act/behaviouraddressed to the complainee)Typical forms (in order of decreasing occurrencein the corpus): you're doing/you did X; you're not doing/youdidn't do X; X is [negative evaluative adjective/too much/notenough]; X again.

(4)Elle: Tu PARLES, tu me craches DESSUS, tu t'en mets partout[de la nourriture] dans la FACE!

Her: You TALK, you spit on ME, you get it[food] all over your FACE!

5. REQUEST THAT THE COMPLAINEE CHANGE A BEHAVIOUR OR MAKEUP FOR THE OFFENSIVE ACT/BEHAVIOUR (the request may goto the extreme of becoming an order) Typical forms (in order of decreasing occurrencein the corpus): You're not going to X any more; I don't want[you to] X; are you through Xing?

(5)Christine has set out a place-mat Paul hates.Lui: Ça je veux plus JAMAIS, que ça REVIENNE. [Paul cogne latable] Je te le mets PAS moi le napperon rouge!

Him: I don't EVER want, to see it AGAIN. [thespeaker hits the table] I'm NOT putting thatred place-mat out for you!

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6. ADVERSE CRITICISM OF THE HEARER (without mentioningthe offensive act/behaviour or anything else thatcould be associated with the precedingcategories)Typical forms (in order of decreasing occurrencein the corpus): insults; you are [negative evaluation];you [disappointed me/made me mad, etc].

(6)Paul has just compared a raisin with snot.Christine responds:Aaaah! NIAISEUX!

Aaaah! You stupid IDIOT!

The realization patterns observed correspondto general categories mentioned in severalstudies covering complaints, but, to a certainextent, also reflect the special character of thedata in this study. As a result, the occurrencesof complaining belonging to the frequentlymentioned category (Hartley, 1996; 12) of"expressions of annoyance" are, withoutexception, in this study, expressions ofdiscontent with the hearer (hence the name of thesixth category), which is far from the case whenthe interactants do not know one another verywell. The request that the complainee change hisor her behaviour or make up for it is anotherfrequently mentioned category, but, when peopleon intimate terms are involved, it can be saidthat the complaint is often more akin to an order

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than to a request, as can be seen in example 5.The fact that an insult alone can constitute acomplaint without the identification of theoffensive act/behaviour seeming to cause theslightest problem for the complainee is alsorelated to certain characteristics of theconversations studied: for one thing, the degreeof intimacy between the interactants, but alsothe fact that, in the data studied, nearly all ofthe occurrences of complaining follow the actscomplained about very closely in time.

The realization patterns have been listed, inprinciple, according to the growing degree to whichthey are face-threatening for the complainee:allusion is the least threatening, and could beinterpreted as not being a complaint; Pattern 2,which consists in showing that one has goodreason to consider the hearer's behaviour asunsatisfactory, is still relativelyunthreatening; patterns 3 and 4 are moderatelythreatening, but less so than patterns 5 and 6,given the frequent occurrence of the latter inthe form of admonitions or insults, respectively.Nevertheless, the order is theoretical: onceagain, because of the shared intimacy of theinteractants, the potential degree of threat isnot evaluated as it would be if they did not knowone another as well. In the situations studied,the relatively abrupt realization of the acts ofcomplaining does not seem to bother theinteractants to any great extent.

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It is also true, as a number of authors haveremarked (Brown and Levinson, 1987; Blum-Kulka,1997; Olshtain and Weinbach, 1993, among others),that the threat conveyed in an FTA can bemodified by mitigators or intensifiers. Some ofthe means used to intensify a complaint involveprosodic elements (tone and loudness of voice)– probably the most important element for theinterpretation of complaints; repetitions ofwords or entire segments of utterances (in amocking way, as in example 19, turn 6); swearing;vocative elements ("hey", calling by name, etc.);and even gestures (in one case, we can hear acomplainer hit the table while speaking, seeexample 5). Mitigators are well known and includesuch things as the conditional mood (in French)and modalization, in addition to prosodicelements.

As can be seen in table 4, the most frequentrealization pattern8 by far in the corpus is themere mention of the offensive act/behaviour(32/50 occurrences, or 64%). The second mostoften used pattern (but far less used – only 14%of occurrences) is adverse criticism of thehearer (pattern 6). It is important to mentionthat the number of complaints by allusion to anoffensive act/behaviour (pattern 1) is perhapsactually higher. This type of complaint does notusually stand out prosodically, and it bears8 Overall, and for each speaker individually, with oneexception.

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repeating that the only occurrences of complaintstaken into account in the corpus were thoseaccompanied by clear indications that theintention to complain was attributed to thespeaker. The same remark applies (to a lesserextent) to complaining by means of justificationof discontent (pattern 2) or demanding ajustification for the offensive act/behaviour(pattern 3).

Complaint realization pattern

Occurrences %


3 6

2. Justification of discontent

1 2

3. Request that the complainee justify his/her offensive act

3 6


32 64

5. Requesting a change in behaviour

4 8


7 14

TOTAL 50 100Table 4: Distribution of complaint realizationpatterns in the corpus

The most explicit and direct complaint wouldcombine patterns 4 and 6, that is to say, itwould be addressed to the person deemed

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responsible for the problem and would adverselycriticize an explicitly mentioned act/behaviour.But none of the complaints gathered presentsitself in this way: either there is adversecriticism of the hearer with no mention of theact (for example: "you're a pig!") or the act ismentioned without levelling any blame (forexample: "you're spitting on me!"); it seemsclear that, for people in close relationships,norms are shared to the extent that the meremention of an act/behaviour can be immediatelycategorized as a complaint. Thus, the complaintalways has a more or less implicit character. Inthis regard, it is particularly revealing of thenorms of behaviour interiorized by the members ofa community; hence, the interest of research inthis area.9

Patterns 4, 5 and 6 which, while they are notactually the most threatening (because they arenot received as such), most clearly expressdisapproval of the hearer, account for 86%(43/50) of all the complaints uttered, yet,barring exceptions, there is no significantdeterioration in the mood of the conversationsconcerned. It goes to show that, betweenintimates, getting fairly straight to the point,

9 Especially compared with complaining to a third partyabout offensive acts or behaviours, which is much moreexplicit, both mentioning the offensive act and expressingindignation (see Drew, 1998).

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without needlessly beating around the bush, isnot significantly disruptive.

In certain cases, the degree of disapprovalexpressed by adverse criticism in the form of aninsult is mitigated by a light-hearted delivery,which certainly helps prevent a deterioration inmood. Still, only 10% (5/50 occurrences) of allcomplaints are mitigated; intensified complaintsare three times more common (32% – 16occurrences).

Although it is not always easy to drawcomparisons between studies, it can be said thatthese results do not contradict those of Olshtainand Weinbach (1987). Their study of thedistribution of complaining strategies amongIsraeli Hebrew speakers shows that, when theinteractants are peers, verbalization of theoffending behaviour and adverse criticism of thehearer (grouped together by Olshtain and Weinbachin a single category labelled "explicitcomplaint") are the most commonly usedstrategies.

4.3. Classification of responses to complainingWhile the act of complaining, like several otherFTAs, has been dealt with in a few studies, theresponse to complaining has been considered farless often (Newell and Stutman's work on verbalconfrontation is a notable exception). There areseveral ways of responding to a complaint, andthose ways can be said to fall into two broad

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categories: (1) acceptance of the fact that asupposedly shared rule has been broken and (2)rejection of that fact. But this dichotomy failsto capture a certain number of responses that canbe paraphrased "it's true, but", which consist inconceding (frequently implicitly) that thecomplaint is well founded, but only in part. Suchconcessive responses (of which examples will begiven later on) were regarded by Newell andStutman as pure rejections of the complaint (itis true that, from an argumentative standpoint,what follows a "but" has more weight than whatprecedes it); the concessive component, in whichthe complainee accepts responsibility for the acthe/she is being blamed for, at least in part, isdefinitely there, however, and lends suchresponses a partially ambiguous character which,it must be said, brings them into the domaine ofacceptance.

There is another category of ambiguousresponses: that of disregarding the complaint.The complainee purely and simply ignores thecomplaint, either by remaining silent or byuttering something that has nothing to do withthe subject. What is the meaning of such failureto acknowledge receipt of the complaint? It couldbe interpreted as an admission of "guilt", butalso as a complete rejection of the complaint,which can extend to refusal to entertain it as asubject of discussion, and this makes it somewhat

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different in kind from the other types ofresponse.

This explains why the various complaint-response realization patterns (whose nomenclaturewas derived from Newell and Stutman, 1989-90;151-152) have been classed into not two, but fourlarge categories: acceptance of the complaint,partial acceptance, rejection of the complaintand disregarding it.

1. ACCEPTANCE OF THE COMPLAINT To belong to this category, responses tocomplaints must be equivalent to the remark "it'strue, I broke the rule" ("I did what you'reblaming me for"). There are two realizationpatterns, equally represented in the corpus.

a) Admitting responsibility for the act/behaviourcomplained about

(7)Paul is pointing to food left on the table instead of put back in the refrigeratorLui: AH ma maudite gaspilleuse!

-->

Elle: Ah je voulais le serrer. [ton penaud]

Him: DAMN, you're wasteful!-->

Her: Ah I was going to put it away. [apologetically]

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b) Excusing oneself(8)Lui: Qu'est-ce que t'as à me regarder Nathalie tu me

stresses.-->

Elle: Je suis dans la lune excuse-moi.

Him: What are you staring at me for Nathalie you're making me nervous!

-->

Her: I'm sorry I was daydreaming.

2. PARTIAL ACCEPTANCE OF THE COMPLAINTTo belong to this category, complaint responsesmust be equivalent to the remark "it's true, Ibroke the rule (I did what you're blaming mefor), but X". The realization patterns for thiscategory are listed below from most to leastfrequent in the corpus.

a) Justifying oneself ("I did/I'm doing what you're blaming me for, buthere's why". The complainee's strategy, in such cases, consists in arguing that she/he had good reasons for behaving as she/he did.)

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(9)Lui: TOI tu fermes la PORTE puis tu restes enfermée là

toute SEULE là! [dans la salle de bains]-->

Elle: [ton de protestation] J'ai PISSÉ!

Him: YOU go and close the DOOR and you stay shut up in there [in the bathroom] all by YOURSELF!

-->

Her: [tone of protest] I took a PEE!

b) Not taking the complaint seriously(Reacting by laughing or joking: "I did what you're blaming me for, but is it so serious?/it'ssilly to blame me for it, etc.")

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(10)The discussion is about Nathalie's boyfriend's bad table mannersElle: Là t'as de L'OEUF JAUNE dans les CHEVEUX! [ton

clairement désapprobateur]-->

Lui: (rire) Tu me promets de pas le dire à ta soeur? [Nathalie est fille unique]

Her: Now you've got EGG YOLK in your HAIR! [clearly disapprovingly]

-->

Him: (laughs) Do you promise me not to tell your sister about it? [Nathalieis an only child]

In this example, the response to the complaintdoes not testify to a refusal of responsibilityfor the act, but humour is used to make fun of itto a certain extent, so that there is not toomuch loss of face by the speaker.

3. REJECTION OF THE COMPLAINT (To belong to this category, responses to complaints must be equivalent to the remark "no, I didn't break the rule" ("I didn't do what you're blaming me for"). The realization patternsare listed below from most to least frequent in the corpus.)

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a) Denying the complaint("I didn't do/I don't do what you criticized/criticize me for doing")

(11)Lui: Tu les as TOUS mangés! [les yaourts]

-->

Elle: Mais non! J'ai mangé le gros [pot]. Il en reste un peu.

Him: You ate ALL of them! [containers of yoghurt]

-->

Her: No! I ate the big one. There's stillsome left.

b) Counterattacking(complaining or accusing back10)

(12)Elle: T'as coupé la parole à Marie-Ève [leur fille].

-->

Lui: VOUS m'avez coupé la parole!

Her: You interrupted Marie-Ève [their daughter].

-->

Him: YOU'RE THE ONES who interrupted me!

10 Some cases of counterattack were placed into the categoryof partial acceptance of the complaint. They were cases inwhich the subject of the counterattack was different fromthat of the initial complaint, corresponding to theparaphrase "it's true, I broke a rule, but (what you did isjust as bad/even worse)."

30

Of course, denial is implied in cases of this type.

c) Not acknowledging the act/behaviour complainedabout as a problem/challenging the speaker's assertion

(13)Lui: Ton crisse de pomponnage le matin là!

-->

Elle: [ton de protestation] Comment ça?

Him: You and your God damn prettying yourself up in the morning!

-->

Her: [tone of protest] What's wrong with it?

In cases of this type, there is total refusal toacknowledge the complaint, insofar as thecomplainee does not even agree to consider thatthe act or behaviour in question is blameworthy.

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4. DISREGARDING THE COMPLAINT (To belong to this category, the complaint must be manifestly ignored: the complainee remains silent, continues with an intervention unrelated to the complaint or, if the complaint is very indirect, takes it literally and thus ignores theillocutionary function of complaining.)

(14)Steve are Nathalie are having lunch. The discussion is about Steve's bad table manners.Elle: Hey t'as tu fini de me cracher dessus?

-->

Lui: (pause, 3 sec.)

Her: Hey are you through spitting on me?-->

Him: (3-second pause)

See also example 19, turn 11 (Christine'sintervention concerning the kitchen rather thanthe reason for the complaint ).

In theory, certain combinations of realizationpatterns of complaints and responses are morelikely than others – a complaint demanding ajustification and a response of justification ordenial, for instance; conversely, certaincombinations of complaints and responses aretheoretically less likely – say, an allusion anda counter-attack. But no combinations can be saidto be impossible: no matter how it is manifested,

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a complaint can be followed by any type ofresponse.

Overall, as can be seen in table 5, reactionsrejecting complaints are much more frequent thanreactions accepting them: complaints are rejectedin 40% of cases (19 occurrences out of 47).Responses of acceptance are even less frequent(9%, or 4/47) than responses disregarding thecomplaint (13%, or 6/47). Responses of partialacceptance, which are logically on the fencebetween true acceptance and rejection, occurabout as often as responses of rejection (38% ofcases, 18/47).

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Complaintrealization pattern

Reactionsof

acceptance

Reactionsof

partialacceptanc

e

Reactionsof

rejection

Reactionsof

disregarding


— 2 1 —

2. Justification ofdiscontent

— — 1 —

3. Request that thecomplainee justify his/her offensive act

1 1 1 —


2 11 16 3

5. Requesting a change in behaviour

— 2 — 2


1 2 — 1

TOTAL (# occ. and %)

49%

1838%

1940%

613%

Table 5: Distribution of reactions to complaining according to complaint realization pattern(47 tokens – there were 50 complaints in all, but tworesponses were inaudible and in another instance therewas not really any response, since the reason for thecomplaint was not identified.)

Is the complainee's reaction related to thecomplaint realization pattern – particularly thedegree to which that pattern is face-threateningfor the complainee, i.e. the pattern's severityor intensity? The distribution of complaintsshown in table 5 hardly makes verificationpossible, and I have already pointed out that theordering of complaint categories by increasing

34

level of threat is only theoretical. To verifywhether the complaint response is indeed relatedto the severity of the complaint, we need toconsider the possible mitigation orintensification of each occurrence.

Accordingly, intensified complaints withrealization patterns 2 (justification ofdiscontent by the complainant), 3 (request forjustification of the complainee's act) and 4(mention of the offensive act) and unmitigatedoccurrences classified in categories 5 and 6(request for a change in the complainee'sbehaviour and adverse criticism of thecomplainee, respectively) were considered to be"hard" complaints (severe). Such occurrencesrepresent 40% of all complaints with anidentifiable response (19/47, see Table 6). Theremaining 28 complaints – those classified incategory 1 (allusion), the nonintensifiedoccurrences in categories 2, 3 and 4, and themitigated occurrences in categories 5 and 6 –cannot necessarily be regarded as "soft"complaints, but are less severe in terms ofreproval. Table 6 clarifies the distribution: theintensity of reproval increases going from leftto right and top to bottom, and decreases goingfrom right to left and bottom to top.

35

Complaint realization pattern Modulation of intensitymitigat

ednone intensi

fied1. Allusion to an offensive act – 3 –2. Justification of discontent – – 13. Request that the complainee justify his/her act

– 3 –

4. Mentioning the offensive act 3 17 135. Requesting a change in behaviour – 2 26. Adverse criticism of the hearer 2 1 –Table 6: Distribution of complaints according to severity (total of 47 occ.)(shaded cells: high degree of severity)

Table 7 shows the relationship between theseverity of the complaint and the variouspossible responses to it. The results areinteresting. Intuitively, it was expected thatthe more severe complaints would cause theharsher, more combative reactions and thereforebe less often accepted than the less severecomplaints. This was indeed the case: no suchcomplaint was accepted, and only a third of thetotal number of partial acceptances followed suchcomplaints. What was more surprising was thatthis did not imply an increased rejection of thecomplaint. On the contrary, following the patternof partial acceptance, rejection of "hard"complaints was about only half as frequent (37%)as rejection of other complaints (63%). Receiversof severe complaints compensate by disregardingthem, a type of response not found with softercomplaints. The number of occurrences involved is

36

not very high (6), but four different speakersused the strategy of disregarding.

Severity %acceptanc

e

% partialacceptanc

e

%rejection

%disregard

ingSevere complaints (19occ.)

– 33 (6) 37 (7) 100 (6)

Other complaints (28 occ.)

100 (4) 67 (12) 63 (12) --

Table 7: Distribution of reactions to complaints according to severity(the number of occurrences is given in parentheses)

Thus, with severe complaints, we have an in-between strategy: on the whole, complaineesaccept severe complaints less than others, yetthey do not react too confrontationally; theyprefer to ignore the complaint, a perfectlyambiguous strategy.11 All this seems to indicatethat such complaints are truly perceived as moredangerous than the others (for the continuationof the interaction, if not for the relationshipbetween the interactants), and the fact that onlysevere complaints are ignored lends credibility11 In the cases gathered, it is clear that ignoring has amitigating effect, helping to maintain a relativelypeaceful climate. It is obvious, however, that in certainsituations, the response of disregarding the complaintcould be perceived, on the contrary, as aggressive, andinterpreted by the complainant as equivalent to "you don'teven think what I say is important enough to feel obligedto respond!"

37

to the idea that this type of response is used todefuse the potentially explosive force of thecomplaint: the complainee chooses to remainsilent in order not to respond as harshly or moreharshly than the complainant.

Could it be that we are dealing with astrategy that is widespread in the communitystudied?12 "Playing dead" interactionally in orderto avoid a possible confrontation is a strategythat is always available everywhere, and probablywidespread in numerous communities. But we canhypothesize that it is used in different ways bydifferent groups, that is to say, more or lessoften and especially in reaction to differentinteractional events: a special type of complainthas been ignored. Could the type of complaintthat draws this reaction be regarded, forinteractants in the community studied, as a12 One could entertain the hypothesis that choosing toignore the complaint is motivated by the presence of thetape recorder; the complainees, knowing they are beingrecorded, would be disinclined to respond as sharply asthey would if no one were listening, because they areafraid to project a rather unflattering image of themselvesand their relationship with the complainant. But it is notclear that, if complainees do behave differently when theyknow they are being recorded, they always alter theirbehaviour in this way: some complainees may react in theopposite manner, seeking to restore the image of themselvesthat is under attack by denying what they are being blamedfor more forcefully and more often than they usually would.And the strategy of disregarding the complaint can easilybe verified empirically in daily life.

38

threshold where a conflict becomes likely? Thisquestion cannot be answered without furtherresearch. But the data in hand already make itpossible to examine the relationship between thecomplaint and the quarrel or argument.

4.4. From complaining to arguingImportant studies have dealt with arguing and

disagreeing (among them Kochman, 1981; Schiffrin,1984; Grimshaw, 1990; Tannen and Kakava, 1992;Kotthof, 1993; Tannen, 1998). As Vuchinich(1990) has shown, a conflict can end in severalways. The disagreement can be resolved and newrules of behaviour determined. The conflict canalso end in joking or degenerate into physicalviolence. But how does it begin? Or rather, dothe interactants negotiate the entry into thespecial conversational activity of arguing? Sinceit is hard to argue with oneself, theinteractants, no matter how much they disagreeabout their behaviour, must at least agree toargue about it; but it isn't obvious that thisagreement can be obtained, because arguing can bean activity with a high social price.

I am using the word "argument" to refer to aparticular speech activity (see Gumperz, 1982:166) that participants as well as observersrecognize as such. In an argument, theparticipants express and, in a series of speechturns, try to resolve a disagreement about their

39

behaviour and the rules of behaviour they expectto see followed. This opposition between theinteractants is expressed linguistically, butalso paralinguistically (raising the voice,speaking more quickly, varying intonationsignificantly, etc.) and gesturally. From aninteractional standpoint, the struggle for thefloor intensifies (there is considerableoverlapping and frequent repetition of parts ofutterances). The key of the argument is dysphoricand bears the traces of affects that range fromirritation to rage.

On the whole, this characterization of theargument corresponds to that of Schiffrin (1984:316), who uses three traits to define thislanguage activity: a) "sustained disagreement";b) a "participation framework with differentialcommitments and nonalignment" of the speakers;and c) "competition for interactionallynegotiable goods". However, it is important topoint out that I am dealing only with trueconfrontations (which may be brief), that is tosay, with the serious argument and not witharguing "for the fun of it", which iscaracterized by a light-hearted key and does notthreaten the speakers positive-face want or thesolidarity of the group of speakers. Thus, I willexclude the "sociable argument" that Schiffrin(1984) analysed as characteristic of theinteractional style of Jews from Eastern Europe.That is why I say that "dysphoric key" is an

40

essential element of what I am calling anargument in this study.

The definition I have given implies that theargument is, in a way, an interactional genre,and that a mere complaint/response sequence isnot enough to identify it, even though thecomplaint itself appears to be an essentialelement of the argument.

The conversations analysed are rarelyconflictual (and, when so, in varying degrees).Complaints are more concentrated in the mostconflictual passages, as might be expected, buttheir distribution in the corpus as a wholeclearly shows that, when they occur, an argumentdoes not automatically ensue. The important thingis their impact on the conversation that follows.Indeed, there is reason to believe that thecomplaint/response sequence plays a lesser rolein determining the entry into an argument thatmay or may not ensue than the following speechturn (see Traverso, 1999; Newell and Stutman,1989/90: 145).

As previously mentioned, in everydayconversations, complaints are most often about anact or a behaviour that has just taken place.This, and the fact that, between people who areclose, the complaint can be expressed, quitedirectly, without precautions or an introduction(such as “There's something I have to tell you”,“Don't get me wrong, but ...”, etc.) probablyexplains that, in a great majority of cases, the

41

complaint causes a break in the subject underdiscussion. When the complainee has responded tothe complaint, there are two possibilities forwhat follows:either (1) a new subject of conversation isintroduced or there is a return to the subjectunder way before the complaint was uttered; or(2) the conversation continues on the basis of thecomplaint, for a shorter or longer period oftime.In the first case, the complaint remainsisolated; it is discursively nonproductive, aparenthetical remark that is soon passed over.

(15)Paul is pointing to food left on the table instead of put back in the refrigeratorLui: AH ma maudite gaspilleuse!Elle: Ah je voulais le serrer. [ton penaud]

(pause 2 sec.)-->

C'est vrai Lise est venue à midi.

Him: DAMN, you're wasteful!Her: Ah I was going to put it away.

[apologetically](2-second pause)

-->

You know Lise came over at lunchtime.

Sometimes, in a variant of this case, a singleevaluative remark, with a value of closure, gives

42

the complainer the last word on the matter beforea new subject is introduced. The remark, which,in a way, sometimes reiterates the complaint, butis also often conciliatory or humorous, gives aninteractional advantage to the complainer(precisely that of having the last word onsomething) without carrying too great a risk ofhaving the conversation degenerate (unless theremark in question is extremely aggressive).

(16)Lui: [...] Là tu continues à fumer ça t'aide pas. (rire)Elle: C'est pas ça du tout ça a rien à voir.

[babillage du bébé]-->

Lui: (en riant) Ah ça, même le bébé est pas d'accord regarde ça!

Him: [...] You keep right on smoking it isn't helping you. (laughs)

Her: That's not it at all it has nothing to do with it.[baby's babbling]

-->

Him: (laughs) Look here, even the baby doesn't agree with you!

When the complaint is taken up as a subject inits own right, it changes the course of theconversation for a variable length of time. Itgenerates discourse, and that is when, undercertain conditions, an argument can arise. Amongthe various possible continuations based on thecomplaint are:

43

1) development of the subject raised by thecomplaint, but with no further FTAs;2) a string of complaints, all uttered by theinitial complainer (see example 19);3) a string of complaints, but with theinteractants alternating in the role ofcomplainer (all cases of counter-attack, as inexample 12);4) contestation of the response to the complaint(the initial complainer objects to the response,tries to show how weak it is, demands that it befurther justified, etc.)

These various continuations condition thedevelopment of the conversation in a variety ofways, and all of them, except the first,constitute ways of entering into an argument.However, the data show that, much more thanstrings of complaints, the complainer'scontestation of the response to the complaint isthe distinguishing characteristic of the mostconflictual conversations. Apparently, thecontestation increases the impact of thecomplaint by directly questioning thecomplainee's willingness or ability to face up toit; once faced with the explicit dissatisfactioncaused by his or her response, the complainee isforced to intervene on the subject again andcannot easily avoid becoming actively engaged inthe disagreement: an argument breaks out.Examples 17 and 18, drawn from the two most

44

conflictual passages in the corpus, illustratethis phenomenon:(17)France and her husband Charles are talking asthey prepare supper. Charles criticizes at lengththe organization of work at the local communityservice centre where his wife is anadministrator.

45

COMMENTS TRANSCRIPTIONcomplaint 1. Lui: Vous vous réunissez une fois par SEMAINE,

France pour discuter de BAlivernes. Pour la plupart du temps

response (rejection)

2. Elle: Mais là: là: là ça Charles tu portes des jugements un peu GROS je trouve.

--> contestationof the response

3. Lui: Non il y a des problèmes que: Non non. Il y a des problèmes importants que vous discutez mais il y a bien souvent des MAUDITES NIAISERIES.

beginning ofargument

4. Elle: [en criant presque] Mais ( ). T'es pas LÀ, tu lesais PAS. Ça fait que:

5. Lui: Non non mais t'admettras avec moi que il ya bien des fois là vous perdez votre temps. […]

complaint 1. Him:

You meet once a WEEK, France totalk NONsense. Most of the time


2. Her:

But now: now: now that Charles Ithink is a pretty BIG value judgment you're making.


3. Him:

No there are problems that: No no. There are important problemsyou discuss but very often what you say is DAMN STUPID.

beginning of argument

4. Her:

[almost screaming]: But ( ). You're not THERE, you don't KNOW. So:

5. Him:

No no but you have to admit thatreally often it's a waste of time. […]

46

(18)Paul is preparing breakfast and Christine hasjust come out of the bathroom.COMMENTS TRANSCRIPTIONcomplaint 1. Lui: Ton crisse de pomponnage le matin là!response (rejection)

2. Elle: [ton de protestation] Comment ça?

complaint 3. Lui: TOI tu fermes la PORTE puis tu restes enfermée là toute SEULE là!

response (partial acceptance)

4. Elle: [ton de protestation] J'ai PISSÉ!


5. Lui: T'AS PAS JUSTE FAIT ÇA C'EST PAS VRAI!Ce qui est la preuve c'est que tu rouvres laporte dès que je te parle ok? Si t'étais aprèspisser tu rouvrirais pas la porte!


6. Elle: [ton exaspéré] Je peux tu me réveiller ?

7. Lui: NON! PAS DU TOUT! Pas du tout pas du tout!Hey viens ici viens ici. Viens ici.

8. Elle: QUOI?

complaint 1.Him:

You and your God damn prettyingyourself up in the morning!


2.Her:

[tone of protest] What's wrongwith it?

complaint 3.Him:

YOU go and close the DOOR and you stay shut up in there all byYOURSELF!


4.Her:

[tone of protest] I took A PEE!

47


5.Him:

THAT'S NOT ALL YOU DID THAT'SFOR SURE!I can tell 'cause you open thedoor when I talk to you you see?If you were taking a pee youwouldn't open the door!


6.Her:

[exasperetedly] Can I wake upnow?

7.Him:

NO! NO YOU CAN'T! No you can'tno you can't. Hey come here comehere. Come here.

8.Her:

WHAT?

Example 17 has numerous traits characteristic ofarguing: the interactants talk loud and interruptone another (as can be seen from the extensiveoverlapping), they talk more quickly than usual(for the couple concerned) and the key is clearlydysphoric. The excerpt is from a long andrelatively stormy discussion about an unexpectedchange in the scheduling of France's vacation,due to her boss, that compromises the plans ofthe whole family. Complaints occur quitefrequently and, occasionally, the complaineeresponds by complaining back, as at the beginningof the example (turn 2). Turn 3 both deniesFrance's counterattack ("No […] no no") andcontests it by repeating the initial complaint(more aggressively: for a Québec speaker, mauditesniaiseries – "damn stupid" – is more derogatory thanbalivernes – "nonsense"). France's next response(turn 4) is very violent in terms of prosody:

48

France is nearly screaming and her tone of voiceshows that no reply is acceptable. At this stage,the discussion reaches a climax of aggressionthat is maintained for a short while longer: afull-fledged argument occurs.

Example 18 is striking because of the contrastbetween the very vehement tone of theinteractants and the reason for the complaint,arising from a perfectly ordinary situation. Hereagain, in turn 5, it is the contestation of theresponse to the complaint, made in turn 4, which,added to the two consecutive complaints (in turns1 and 3) truly negotiates the entry into anargument.

Examples like these suggest the hypothesisthat, in the community studied, the complaint isa perfectly acceptable means of controlling thebehaviour of another person, as long as the valueof the reaction to the complaint is notquestioned. It is interesting to compare theseexamples with other, quite surprising passagesthat contain just as high a concentration ofcomplaints, and are therefore potentiallyconflictual, but do not develop into an argument,because the interactants negotiate the activityin progress in such a way that the conflicteither never really gets off the ground or elseis subtly transformed into another activity (seeexample 19).

49

(19)Over lunch at home, Paul and Christine aretalking about anything and everything. COMMENTS TRANSCRIPTION

1. Elle: Ça serait le fun si on pourrait aller quinze minutes voir Sophie. [une de ses amies qui vient d'avoir un bébé]

2. Lui: Hum?3. Elle: Ça serait le fun si on pourrait aller voir au

moins Sophie.complaint 4. Lui: HEY ça s: c'est une obsession pour toi ça là

là!inaudible response

5. Elle: ( ).

complaint 6. Lui: Non non mais ça fait une semaine tu me parles de ça là! (pause 2 sec.) Ça fait une semaine [imitant Christine] "Sophie Sophie Sophie Sophie Sophie!"


7. Elle: Bien non.

complaint 8. Lui: Hier, QUATRE FOIS dans la veillée.response (partial acceptance)

9. Elle: Deux.

complaint 10. Lui: [toujours imitant Christine] "J'espère qu'on va avoir le temps" puis "j'espère qu'on va avoir le temps".

response (disregarding)

11. Elle: Mets-les ici. [concerne ce qu'ils sont en train de faire dans la cuisine] (pause 3 sec.)

complaint 12. Lui: À chaque fois là c'est pareil comme si: Mettons c'est pareil comme si tu voudrais me dire "Ben réveille-toi baquet [fainéant] làon va voir Sophie!" "Réveille-toi baquet on va voir Sophie!".


13. Elle: Mais non. (pause 14 secondes)

50

1.Her:

It would be nice if we could go see Sophie for a little while [afriend of her who has just had ababy].

2.Him:

Huh?

3.Her:

It would be nice if we could at least go see Sophie.

complaint 4.Him:

JEEZ, you're really obsessed with that idea!

inaudible response

5.Her:

( ).

complaint 6.Him:

No no but for a week now you've been talking about it! (2-secondpause) A whole week [imitating Christine in a mocking way] "Sophie Sophie Sophie Sophie Sophie"!


7.Her:

No I haven't.

complaint 8.Him:

FOUR TIMES, last night.


9.Her:

Two.

complaint 10.Him:

[still imitating Christine] "I hope we'll have the time" "I hope we'll have the time".

response (disregarding)

11.Her:

Put them over here. [concerning what they're doing in the kitchen] (3-second pause)

51

complaint 12.Him:

Every time it's just like: Let'ssay it's just like you wanted tosay "Well get up lazy bones let's go see Sophie!" "Get up lazy bones let's go see Sophie!".


13.Her:

No it isn't. (14-second pause)

Paul's first complaint (turn 4) is belligerantand constitutes, in the opinion of everyone wholistened to the recording,13 true verbalaggression, which is all the more surprisinggiven that Christine's request seems innocentenough. Paul raises his voice and speaks in anangry tone. He pursues immediately with a seriesof four other complaints. Christine doesn'ttotally accept any of them. She denies thecriticism calmly and quietly, never raising hervoice. Her last turn is followed by 14 seconds ofsilence, after which another part of theconversation (not transcribed here) begins. Paul,who has calmed down again, remains the principalspeaker, and devotes 12 turns to explaining whyhe thinks that he and Christine have no reason tomake an effort to find the time to go and seeSophie. His discourse includes a significantnumber of prolepses aimed at pointing out thatwhat he is saying shouldn't be taken the wrong13 These opinions were not elicited by means of a formalprocedure: a few colleagues were simply asked to say whatthey thought.

52

way and utterances expressing regret for hiscriticism and explaining the tone he used toutter it14. Christine is just as reserved as inthe first part of the conversation, saying verylittle.

In spite of the fact that we have a series offive intensified complaints, none of which isreally accepted, we can't say that an openconfrontation has begun: (1) the mitigatingstrategy displayed in Christine's denying remarksand her low degree of commitment to thediscussion show that she is not ready to argue,even if she doesn't accept the criticismslevelled at her; (2) the time that Paul spendsjustifying his complaints and excusing himselfshows that he is conscious of having verballyaggressed Christine and, most interestingly,illustrates the very negative idea he has ofarguing, which he seems to feel is an incidentone should try to avoid at any cost and thatoccurs in spite of oneself.

In other cases like these, with a highconcentration of complaints, different strategiesare used to avoid an argument: as we have seen, aspeaker may complain as though kidding, so that,even when he/she raises his/her voice, there is akind of ironic distance that takes away the14 Examples : "I just want you to understand what I'm trying to say. [...] I don't want you to think that I'm madat Sophie or anything"; "I'm always raising my voice. I don't know why", etc.

53

severity of the blame; the complainee can usehumour, too, when responding, in addition toemploying the strategy of ignoring the complaintsfelt to be most explosive; finally, in responseto a counterattack, the initial complainer almostalways chooses not to up the ante with a thirdcomplaint. In summary, it is clear that bothinteractants agree quite rapidly on theirperception of a threshold of possible conflictand work to restrict the discursive developmentof the complaint, and it can be said that thereis a true preference for maintaining a light-hearted tone in the conversation.

5. ConclusionThe complaints analysed here illustrate numerousways in which speakers are dissatisfied with thebehaviour of people close to them. They havepreferential realization patterns that can belinked in part to the intimacy of therelationship between the interactants: in manyways, they are uttered without the specialprecautions generally associated with FTAsoutside the private sphere. The complainees mostoften reject the blame levelled at them. How,then, are we to explain the fact that wellcharacterized arguments are virtually absent fromthe Montréal 1995 corpus? Neither the presence ofthe tape recorder nor the mundane nature of mostof the reasons for complaining given in dailylife provides us with a sufficient explanation

54

for this rarety – we all know that a violentargument in the home can be sparked by next tonothing.

My analysis seems to indicate that it takesmuch more than even a high concentration ofcomplaints in a short time to spawn an argumentand that the interactants do not willingly getinto such an interaction. The entry into theargument is negotiated in the speech turns thatfollow the complaint/response sequence, and theargument only breaks out if the complainerquestions the value of the complainee's response.Thus, the dynamic is not one of mitigating thecomplaint, or expressing it politely, but ofseverely restricting its impact on thecontinuation of the conversation, the resultbeing that the complaint, or even a series ofcomplaints, remains localized and does not"contaminate", as it were, the interaction as awhole. Restricting the impact of the complaint isachieved with a certain number of techniques foravoiding an argument. Those techniques succeedmore often than not and are used by bothinteractants.

Thus, it seems clear that certain strategiesare employed to avoid a true verbalconfrontation, while allowing dissatisfaction tobe expressed. These strategies bear witness tothe fact that, in daily life, the interactants,much as they may disagree about their behaviour,in any case generally agree not to argue, and

55

therefore negotiate what happens after acomplaint.

What is the meaning of these avoidancestrategies? Conjugal therapists, who are amongthe first to have done research on arguing, willperhaps see them as indicators of the quality offamily relations. But from an entirely differentperspective, they can be seen as indicators ofthe status of verbal confrontation in thecommunity and of the threshold where suchconfrontation becomes likely. In this connection,research into complaining, with the approach usedhere, is a step toward revealing the attitudesQuébec speakers have towards speech activitiesthat can be regarded as interactionally risky.

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Newell, Sara E., and Randall Stutman, 1989/1990.Negotiating confrontation: The problematicnature of initiation and response. Research onLanguage and Social Interaction 23: 139-162.

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Traverso, Véronique, 1999. Négociation etargumentation dans la conversation familière.Unpublished manuscript read at the Pragma99conference, University of Tel Aviv.

Vincent, Diane, Marty Laforest and GuylaineMartel, 1995. Le corpus de Montréal 1995:adaptation de la méthode d'enquêtesociolinguistique pour l'analyseconversationnelle. Dialangue 6: 29-46.

Vuchinich, Samuel, 1990. The sequentialorganization of closing in verbal familyconflict. In A. D. Grimshaw, ed., ConflictTalk, 118-138. Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress.

1999 Traverso V., "Négociation et argumentation dans la conversation familière", in C. Plantin (éd.), numéro spécial de la Revue Escritos, Mexique, 51-89.

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Appendix: Transcription symbolsPunctuation is used to give an idea of intonation. In the absence of punctuation or another indication, the flow of speech is continuous.

Symbol Interpretation: Sound stretch. Ending, low falling,

intonation, Short pause? Interrogative

intonation! Exclamative intonationHer: XXX Loudly( ) Inaudible words[xxx] Analyst's commentHer: xxxHim: yyy

Overlapping passages

"xxx" Reported speech

Marty Laforest is Professor of Linguistics at theUniversité du Québec à Trois-Rivières (Québec,Canada). She specializes in discourse analysis.Her research interests include conversation,narratives, conflictual discourse,misunderstandings, and other phenomena related tothe negotiation of meaning in talk-in-interaction. She has edited Autour de la narration

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(Ed. Nota bene, 1996), and she is author of Étatsd'âme, états de langue (Ed. Nota bene, 1997).

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Scenes of family life: Complaining in everyday conversation

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Transcript of Scenes of family life: Complaining in everyday conversation