Fighting words and challenging expectations: language alternation and social roles in a family dispute

This paper investigates the part that social roles play in the interpretation of code-switching in a Chinese American family dispute. In this dispute, a mother and her adult daughter argue over where the mother should be employed, frequently switching between Cantonese and English, despite definite, and different, language preferences. Calling this argument a mother-daughter dispute is problematic, as the daughter repeatedly attempts to adopt an authoritative 'parent' role, while the mother sometimes takes on an advice-seeking 'child' role. At the same time, these challenges to social expectations, and the mother's persistent rejection of many of these attempts, are important parts of this argumentative context. Applying a conversation analytic approach that examines the relevance of these social roles empirically and sequentially, we find that social roles and expectations can be, but are not always, useful in understanding language alternation in this family dispute, and that language alternation can be involved in structuring and restructuring family relationships in talk.