A Feminist Post-structuralist Discourse Analysis Of Power Negotiation In Family Talk

This thesis is aimed to explore the negotiation of power in an adult familyduring dinnertime interaction. It draws upon a theoretical framework of feministpost-structuralist discourse analysis, which is a relatively new, but underused theoryin the field of linguistics. This study is designed as an ethnographic case study of anadult family. The data is mainly collected from dinnertime conversations over thecourse of one month. It reveals that the negotiation for positions of power in the adultfamily are mainly determined by four competing discourses within which familymembers are positioned, or to which they have access to, namely, the discourses ofadult equality, the discourse of tradition family hierarchy, the discourse of genderdifferentiation and the discourse of competing specialism. Therefore, duringdinnertime interaction, certain family members are more likely to be perceived aspowerful speakers, while other speakers are less powerful speakers. It also showsthat the powerfulness of family members is not constant, but fluctuates in relation toeach other in competing discourses.