Accounts and their epistemic implications
An investigation of how ‘I don’t know’ answers by children are received in trauma recovery talk
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/rcsi.35244Keywords:
children, I don't know answers, trauma recovery talk, accounts, remembering, conversation analysis, competenceAbstract
We examine how “I don’t know” answers provided by children in psychological research interviews on trauma recovery talk are received. We analyse the two main ways in which these answers are taken up by the psychologist. Both are hearable as offering an account for the child, but carry different implications. Where the first account claims access to what can legitimately be remembered, the second steers away from this ‘sensitive’ epistemic course by accounting for the question the interviewer asked. The first strategy results in qualifying responses from the child and the second strategy invites more elaborate replies from the child on what happened. Exploring these practices demonstrates how children display their social competence in this delicate interview setting.
References
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Aronsson, K. & Hundeide, K. (2002). Relational rationality and children’s interview responses. Human Development, 45, 174–186. https://doi.org/10.1159/
000057073
Bateman, A. & Danby, S. (2013). Recovering from the earthquake: Early childhood teachers and children collaboratively telling stories about their experiences. Disaster Prevention and Management, 22 (5), 467–479. https://doi.org/10.1108/DPM-10-2013-0177
Betz, E. (2015). Indexing epistemic access through different confirmation formats: Uses of responsive (das) stimmt in German interaction. Journal of Pragmatics, 87, 251–266. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2015.03.018
Boyd, E. & Heritage, J. (2006). Taking the history: Questioning during comprehensive history taking. In J. Heritage & D. W. Maynard (eds), Communication in Medical Care (pp. 151–184). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511607172.008
Brady, G., Lowe, P. & Olin Lauritzen, S. (2015). Connecting a sociology of childhood perspective with the study of child health, illness and well-being: Introduction. Sociology of Health and Illness, 37(2), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9566.12260
Butler, C. & Weatherall, A. (2006). ‘No, we’re not playing families’: Membership categorization in childrens’ play. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 39(4), 441–470. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327973rlsi3904_4
Clemente, I. (2009). Progressivity and participation: Children’s management of parental assistance in paediatric chronic pain encounters. Sociology of Health and Illness, 31(6), 872–888. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9566.2009.01156.x
Danby, S., Butler, C. & Emmison, M. (2011). ‘Have you talked with a teacher yet?’ How helpline counsellors support young callers being bullied at school. Children and Society, 25, 328–339. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1099-0860.2011.00379.x
Drew, P. (1992). Contested evidence in courtroom cross-examination: The case of a trial for rape. In P. Drew & J. Heritage (eds), Talk at work (pp. 470–520). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Edwards, D. (1997). Discourse and cognition. London: Sage.
Edwards, D. & Fasulo, A. (2006). ‘To be honest’: Sequential uses of honesty phrases in talk-in-interaction. Research on Language and Interaction, 39 (4), 343–376. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327973rlsi3904_1
Fogarty, K., Augoustinos, M. & Kettler, L. (2013). Re-thinking rapport through the lens of progressivity in investigative interviews into child sexual abuse. Discourse Studies, 15(4), 395–420. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461445613482429
Freed, A. F. & Ehrlich, S. (eds) (2010). ‘Why do you ask?’ The function of questions in institutional discourse. New York: Oxford University Press.
Hepburn, A. & Bolden, G. (2013). The conversation analytic approach to transcription. In J. Sidnell & T. Stivers (eds), The handbook of conversation analysis (pp.57–76). Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Heritage, J. (1984). Garfinkel and ethnomethodology. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Heritage, J. (2010). Questioning in medicine. In A. F. Freed & S. Ehrlich (eds), ‘Why do you ask?’ The function of questions in institutional discourse (pp.42–68). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Heritage, J. (2012). The epistemic engine: Sequences organization and territories of knowledge. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 45(1), 30–52. https://doi.org/10.1080/08351813.2012.646685
Heritage, J. & Raymond, G. (2005). The terms of agreement: Indexing epistemic authority and subordination in talk-in-interaction. Social Psychology Quarterly, 68(1), 15–38. https://doi.org/10.1177/019027250506800103
Hutchby, I. (2002). Resisting the incitement to talk in child counselling: Aspects of the utterance ‘I don’t know’. Discourse Studies, 4, 147–168. https://doi.org/10.1177/14614456020040020201
Hutchby, I. (2007). The discourse of child counselling. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/impact.21
Hutchby, I. & O’Reilly, M. (2010). Children’s participation and the familial moral order in family therapy. Discourse Studies, 12(1), 49–64. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461445609357406
Iversen, C. (2012). Recordability: Resistance and collusion in psychometric interviews with children. Discourse Studies, 14(6), 69–709. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461445612456997
Iversen, C. (2014). ‘I don’t know if I should believe him’: Knowledge and believability in interviews with children. British Journal of Social Psychology, 53, 367–386. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjso.12028
Jefferson, G. (2004). Glossary of transcript symbols with an introduction. In G. H. Lerner (ed.), Conversation analysis: Studies from the first generation (pp.13–31). Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.125.02jef
Jenkins, L. (2015). Negotiating pain: The joint construction of a child’s bodily sensations. Sociology of Health and Illness, 37(2), 298–311. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9566.12207
Jol, G. & Stommel, W. (2016). Resisting the legitimacy of the question: Self-evident answers to questions about sources of knowledge in police interviews with child witnesses. International Journal of Legal Discourse, 1(2), 345–374. https://doi.org/10.1515/ijld-2016-0014
Jol, G. & van der Houwen, F. (2014). Police interviews with child witnesses: Pursuing a response with but-prefaced questions. International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law, 21(1), 113–138.
Keevallik, L. (2011). The terms of not knowing. In T. Stivers, L. Mondada & J. Steensig (eds), The morality of knowledge in conversation (pp. 184–206). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511921674.009
Labov, W. & Fanshell, D. (1977). Therapeutic discourse: Psychotherapy as conversation. New York: Academic Press.
Lamerichs, J., Alisic, E. & Schasfoort, M. (2015). ‘You just have to be cheerful really’: Children’s accounts of ordinariness in trauma recovery talk. In M. O’Reilly & J. N. Lester (eds), The Palgrave handbook of child mental health: Discourse and conversation studies (pp. 618–635). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137428318_33
Lee, S. & Tanaka, H. (2016). Affiliation and alignment in responding actions. Journal of Pragmatics, 100, 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2016.05.008
Lindström, J. & Karlsson, S. (2016). Tensions in the epistemic domain and claims of no-knowledge: A study of Swedish medical interaction. Journal of Pragmatics, 106, 129–147. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2016.07.003
Moran-Ellis, J. (2010). Reflections on the sociology of childhood in the UK. Current Sociology, 58(2), 186–205. https://doi.org/10.1177/0011392109354241
Muntigl, P. & Choi, K. T. (2010). Not remembering as a practical epistemic resource in couple’s therapy. Discourse Studies, 12(3), 331–356. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461445609358516
O’Reilly, M. (2008). What value is there in children’s talk? Investigating family therapists’ interruptions of parents and children during the therapeutic process. Journal of Pragmatics, 40(3), 507–524. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2007.12.005
O’Reilly, M., Karim, K. & Kiyimba, N. (2015). Question use in child mental health assessments and the challenges of listening to families. British Journal of Psychiatry Open, 1(2), 116–120. https://doi.org/10.1192/bjpo.bp.115.001503
O’Reilly, M., Lester, J. N. & Muskett, T. (2016). Children’s claims to knowledge regarding their mental health experiences and practitioner’ negotiation of the problem. Patient Education and Counseling, 99, 905–910. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pec.2015.10.005
Pomerantz, A. (1988). Offering a candidate answer: An information seeking strategy. Communication Monographs, 55, 360–73. https://doi.org/10.1080/03637758809376177
Potter, J. (1996). Representing reality. London: Sage.
Puchta, C. & Potter, J. (2004). Focus group practice. London: Sage. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781849209168
Silverman, D. & Peräkylä, A. (1990). AIDS counselling: The interactional organisation of talk about ‘delicate’ issues. Sociology of Health and Illness, 12 (3), 293–318. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9566.ep11347251
Steensig, J. & Drew, P. (2008). Introduction: Questioning and affiliation/disaffiliation in interaction. Discourse Studies, 10(1), 5–15. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461445607085581
Stivers, T. & Hayashi, M. (2010). Transformative answers: One way to resist a question’s constraints. Language in Society, 39, 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404509990637
Stivers, T. & Robinson, J. D. (2006). A preference for progressivity in interaction. Language in Society, 35(3), 367–392. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404506060179
Van Nijnatten, C. (2013). Downgrading as a counterstrategy: A case study in child welfare. Child and Family Social Work, 18, 139–148. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2206.2011.00809.x
Weatherall, A. (2011). ‘I don’t know’ as a prepositioned epistemic hedge. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 44(4), 317–337. https://doi.org/10.1080/08351813.2011.619310
Weiste, E., Voutilainen, L. & Peräkylä, A. (2016). Epistemic asymmetries in psychotherapy interaction: Therapists’ practices for displaying access to clients’ inner experiences. Sociology of Health and Illness, 38(4), 645–661. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9566.12384
Wootton, A. (2006). Children’s practices and their connections with mind. Discourse Studies, 8(1), 191–198. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461445606059567
Antaki, C. (2002). Personalized revision of ‘failed’ questions. Discourse Studies, 4(4), 411–428. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461445602004004022
Aronsson, K. & Hundeide, K. (2002). Relational rationality and children’s interview responses. Human Development, 45, 174–186. https://doi.org/10.1159/
000057073
Bateman, A. & Danby, S. (2013). Recovering from the earthquake: Early childhood teachers and children collaboratively telling stories about their experiences. Disaster Prevention and Management, 22 (5), 467–479. https://doi.org/10.1108/DPM-10-2013-0177
Betz, E. (2015). Indexing epistemic access through different confirmation formats: Uses of responsive (das) stimmt in German interaction. Journal of Pragmatics, 87, 251–266. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2015.03.018
Boyd, E. & Heritage, J. (2006). Taking the history: Questioning during comprehensive history taking. In J. Heritage & D. W. Maynard (eds), Communication in Medical Care (pp. 151–184). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511607172.008
Brady, G., Lowe, P. & Olin Lauritzen, S. (2015). Connecting a sociology of childhood perspective with the study of child health, illness and well-being: Introduction. Sociology of Health and Illness, 37(2), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9566.12260
Butler, C. & Weatherall, A. (2006). ‘No, we’re not playing families’: Membership categorization in childrens’ play. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 39(4), 441–470. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327973rlsi3904_4
Clemente, I. (2009). Progressivity and participation: Children’s management of parental assistance in paediatric chronic pain encounters. Sociology of Health and Illness, 31(6), 872–888. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9566.2009.01156.x
Danby, S., Butler, C. & Emmison, M. (2011). ‘Have you talked with a teacher yet?’ How helpline counsellors support young callers being bullied at school. Children and Society, 25, 328–339. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1099-0860.2011.00379.x
Drew, P. (1992). Contested evidence in courtroom cross-examination: The case of a trial for rape. In P. Drew & J. Heritage (eds), Talk at work (pp. 470–520). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Edwards, D. (1997). Discourse and cognition. London: Sage.
Edwards, D. & Fasulo, A. (2006). ‘To be honest’: Sequential uses of honesty phrases in talk-in-interaction. Research on Language and Interaction, 39 (4), 343–376. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327973rlsi3904_1
Fogarty, K., Augoustinos, M. & Kettler, L. (2013). Re-thinking rapport through the lens of progressivity in investigative interviews into child sexual abuse. Discourse Studies, 15(4), 395–420. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461445613482429
Freed, A. F. & Ehrlich, S. (eds) (2010). ‘Why do you ask?’ The function of questions in institutional discourse. New York: Oxford University Press.
Hepburn, A. & Bolden, G. (2013). The conversation analytic approach to transcription. In J. Sidnell & T. Stivers (eds), The handbook of conversation analysis (pp.57–76). Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Heritage, J. (1984). Garfinkel and ethnomethodology. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Heritage, J. (2010). Questioning in medicine. In A. F. Freed & S. Ehrlich (eds), ‘Why do you ask?’ The function of questions in institutional discourse (pp.42–68). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Heritage, J. (2012). The epistemic engine: Sequences organization and territories of knowledge. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 45(1), 30–52. https://doi.org/10.1080/08351813.2012.646685
Heritage, J. & Raymond, G. (2005). The terms of agreement: Indexing epistemic authority and subordination in talk-in-interaction. Social Psychology Quarterly, 68(1), 15–38. https://doi.org/10.1177/019027250506800103
Hutchby, I. (2002). Resisting the incitement to talk in child counselling: Aspects of the utterance ‘I don’t know’. Discourse Studies, 4, 147–168. https://doi.org/10.1177/14614456020040020201
Hutchby, I. (2007). The discourse of child counselling. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/impact.21
Hutchby, I. & O’Reilly, M. (2010). Children’s participation and the familial moral order in family therapy. Discourse Studies, 12(1), 49–64. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461445609357406
Iversen, C. (2012). Recordability: Resistance and collusion in psychometric interviews with children. Discourse Studies, 14(6), 69–709. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461445612456997
Iversen, C. (2014). ‘I don’t know if I should believe him’: Knowledge and believability in interviews with children. British Journal of Social Psychology, 53, 367–386. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjso.12028
Jefferson, G. (2004). Glossary of transcript symbols with an introduction. In G. H. Lerner (ed.), Conversation analysis: Studies from the first generation (pp.13–31). Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.125.02jef
Jenkins, L. (2015). Negotiating pain: The joint construction of a child’s bodily sensations. Sociology of Health and Illness, 37(2), 298–311. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9566.12207
Jol, G. & Stommel, W. (2016). Resisting the legitimacy of the question: Self-evident answers to questions about sources of knowledge in police interviews with child witnesses. International Journal of Legal Discourse, 1(2), 345–374. https://doi.org/10.1515/ijld-2016-0014
Jol, G. & van der Houwen, F. (2014). Police interviews with child witnesses: Pursuing a response with but-prefaced questions. International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law, 21(1), 113–138.
Keevallik, L. (2011). The terms of not knowing. In T. Stivers, L. Mondada & J. Steensig (eds), The morality of knowledge in conversation (pp. 184–206). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511921674.009
Labov, W. & Fanshell, D. (1977). Therapeutic discourse: Psychotherapy as conversation. New York: Academic Press.
Lamerichs, J., Alisic, E. & Schasfoort, M. (2015). ‘You just have to be cheerful really’: Children’s accounts of ordinariness in trauma recovery talk. In M. O’Reilly & J. N. Lester (eds), The Palgrave handbook of child mental health: Discourse and conversation studies (pp. 618–635). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137428318_33
Lee, S. & Tanaka, H. (2016). Affiliation and alignment in responding actions. Journal of Pragmatics, 100, 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2016.05.008
Lindström, J. & Karlsson, S. (2016). Tensions in the epistemic domain and claims of no-knowledge: A study of Swedish medical interaction. Journal of Pragmatics, 106, 129–147. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2016.07.003
Moran-Ellis, J. (2010). Reflections on the sociology of childhood in the UK. Current Sociology, 58(2), 186–205. https://doi.org/10.1177/0011392109354241
Muntigl, P. & Choi, K. T. (2010). Not remembering as a practical epistemic resource in couple’s therapy. Discourse Studies, 12(3), 331–356. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461445609358516
O’Reilly, M. (2008). What value is there in children’s talk? Investigating family therapists’ interruptions of parents and children during the therapeutic process. Journal of Pragmatics, 40(3), 507–524. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2007.12.005
O’Reilly, M., Karim, K. & Kiyimba, N. (2015). Question use in child mental health assessments and the challenges of listening to families. British Journal of Psychiatry Open, 1(2), 116–120. https://doi.org/10.1192/bjpo.bp.115.001503
O’Reilly, M., Lester, J. N. & Muskett, T. (2016). Children’s claims to knowledge regarding their mental health experiences and practitioner’ negotiation of the problem. Patient Education and Counseling, 99, 905–910. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pec.2015.10.005
Pomerantz, A. (1988). Offering a candidate answer: An information seeking strategy. Communication Monographs, 55, 360–73. https://doi.org/10.1080/03637758809376177
Potter, J. (1996). Representing reality. London: Sage.
Puchta, C. & Potter, J. (2004). Focus group practice. London: Sage. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781849209168
Silverman, D. & Peräkylä, A. (1990). AIDS counselling: The interactional organisation of talk about ‘delicate’ issues. Sociology of Health and Illness, 12 (3), 293–318. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9566.ep11347251
Steensig, J. & Drew, P. (2008). Introduction: Questioning and affiliation/disaffiliation in interaction. Discourse Studies, 10(1), 5–15. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461445607085581
Stivers, T. & Hayashi, M. (2010). Transformative answers: One way to resist a question’s constraints. Language in Society, 39, 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404509990637
Stivers, T. & Robinson, J. D. (2006). A preference for progressivity in interaction. Language in Society, 35(3), 367–392. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404506060179
Van Nijnatten, C. (2013). Downgrading as a counterstrategy: A case study in child welfare. Child and Family Social Work, 18, 139–148. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2206.2011.00809.x
Weatherall, A. (2011). ‘I don’t know’ as a prepositioned epistemic hedge. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 44(4), 317–337. https://doi.org/10.1080/08351813.2011.619310
Weiste, E., Voutilainen, L. & Peräkylä, A. (2016). Epistemic asymmetries in psychotherapy interaction: Therapists’ practices for displaying access to clients’ inner experiences. Sociology of Health and Illness, 38(4), 645–661. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9566.12384
Wootton, A. (2006). Children’s practices and their connections with mind. Discourse Studies, 8(1), 191–198. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461445606059567
Published
2018-08-03
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Lamerichs, J., Alisic, E., & Schasfoort, M. (2018). Accounts and their epistemic implications: An investigation of how ‘I don’t know’ answers by children are received in trauma recovery talk. Research on Children and Social Interaction, 2(1), 25-48. https://doi.org/10.1558/rcsi.35244
