Constituting Friendship in Talk and Metatalk

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
This work sets forth a relational perspective on developing friendships. It examines the interface between children's talk in conversations with their friends and what they say about that talk in interviews following the conversation. Five configurations emerged in the interface between friends' conversational control and their expectations for control. Two patterns were fairly static and described older, long-term or less-than-best friends. In these configurations, partners either agreed that one partner controlled the conversation when actually they shared control, or else both of them failed to perceive that one partner controlled the talk. The other three configurations revealed change and/or disagreement between best friends. In these cases, partners consistently disagreed in their perceptions of control, but one partner accurately perceived the controller. These latter patterns may describe the kinds of relational talk that constitute developing models of friendship.