The Hidden Life of Girls: Games of Stance, Status and Exclusion by Marjorie Harness Goodwin

Author:Marjorie Harness Goodwin
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: &NEW, Developmental, Psychology, Girls, Peer Pressure in Children, Child
ISBN: 9780631234258
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
Published: 2006-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

Stance and Structure in Assessment and Gossip Activity 205

marked contrast to Janis, she is concerned with “who Iam and not how I look” (line 13). Parallel structures occur here as well: Who

I am

How

I look

“I am” and “I look” provide contrastive pairs; “who” and “how,” words with similar rhythmic structure, frame each of the linked phrases. Ironically Sarah assumes the pose of a model (the image she proclaims she objects to) while she states, “Gimme some su gah.” She uses African American Vernacular English phonology with the production of the word “sugah” in her alignment with Aretha, and subsequently makes use of an African American celebratory handclap, saying “Give me some dap.”

In response to Sarah’s “Gimme some su gah” Aretha provides in her matching move a slightly different version of the same phrase with “Gimme some dap” (high five). “Sugah” (“sugar”) is replaced with “dap,” while the rest of the utterance remains the same. Through her action Sarah requests that Aretha collaborate in a celebratory handclap to seal their congruent stance with the negative assessment of Janis (see Figure 6.1). Together Aretha and Sarah then begin a three-beat exchange of poundings with closed fists: a first player hits the partner’s rounded fist from above, the players reverse positions, and the second player hits from above; and then both knock fists sideways in the final move of the three-part fist pounding exchange. While the exchange begins with poundings of paired fists between Sarah and Aretha, Angela’s joining in (during line 22) is not objected to.

Figure 6.1

Girls celebrate their congruent assessment with a handclap 206

Stance and Structure in Assessment and Gossip Activity The hand clap provides a final “seal” on the pact they have just made, celebrating their united stance opposing Janis’s way of being in the world.

When the celebratory handclap game began, only Aretha and Sarah participated. At the close of the sequence comparing shirts the three girls produce a fist pounding sequence in which Angela joins with Sarah and Aretha. While generally marginalized, on this occasion Angela collaborates in the construction of negative commentary about an absent party. Angela’s embodied participation in the sequence is ratified by the other girls.

Differentiated Participation and Alliances in

Assessment

Researchers examining assessments across various contexts – in compliment sequences,38 forms of “good gossip,”39 and in pejorative commentary on other people40 – have argued that such types of talk lead to alliance building. In this chapter we have seen how pejorative commentary about absent parties establishes a joint framework for lively coparticipation with congruent positioning as well as differentiated stance-taking towards offending parties.

Once someone has provided an assessment, a new second assessment may be built from this utterance; either agreeing or disagreeing with the prior speaker is possible. In this way group members can build their local social organization. In the American Girl example (6.3–6.4) we saw that Kathy, a peripheral member of the group, belonging to a younger age cohort, did not provide the same alignment toward the magazine that Sarah and her friends did. Clear lines

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