Cover not available

Article published In: Categorization in multilingual storytelling
Edited by Matthew T. Prior and Steven Talmy
[Pragmatics and Society 10:3] 2019
► pp. 423–451

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
authorization required
Special issue section

“I am an adult now”

Re-storying an ‘abuse’ narrative through categorization

 | Arizona State University
Published online: 22 October 2019
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.17032.pri
Abstract
This narrative-based study employs membership categorization analysis to address the following question: How does a victim of abuse formulate and manage various categories and related descriptive details to story past trauma in ways that bring about new endings or insights in the present? Drawing on data taken from a larger research project on immigrant identity, the analysis centers on a Cambodian-Vietnamese man’s narrative of childhood abuse and adulthood confrontation. It shows how the teller, by recalibrating person (e.g., ‘father-son’, ‘victim-abuser’), age (e.g., ‘young-old’), place (e.g., ‘North America-Vietnam’), and other categorial resources, re-stories people and events and their psycho-social and moral inferences and outcomes. By tracing how this narrative teller reconstitutes himself from ‘victim’ to ‘hero’, this study offers insight into how a local interactional event (e.g., a research interview) may be transformed into a therapeutic exchange. Insights for therapeutic (re)storying, narrative research, and second language (L2) research are discussed.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Selective review of the literature
    • 2.1Narratives
    • 2.2Research interviewing and ‘therapy’
    • 2.3Troubles talk, trauma, and immigrant narratives
    • 2.4Membership categorization analysis
    • 2.5Doing Being “ordinary” and “extraordinary”
    • 2.6Categorization and therapy
  • 3.The study
    • 3.1The research context
    • 3.2The participants
    • 3.3The focal narrative
  • 4.Analysis
    • 4.1Categorization as part of framing and launching the narrative
      • 4.1.1Framing the narrative
      • 4.1.2Launching the narrative
    • 4.2Categorization as part of formulating and confronting abuse and transgressive actions
      • 4.2.1‘Abuse’
      • 4.2.2‘Stage of life’
      • 4.2.3Categorizing place
    • 4.3Categorization as part of closing the narrative and managing its therapeutic upshot
  • 5.Concluding comments
  • Notes
  • References
References (79)
References
Adler, Jonathan M., Joshua W. Wagner, and Dan P. McAdams. 2007. “Personality and the Coherence of Psychotherapy Narratives.” Journal of Research in Personality 411: 1179–1198. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Atkinson, Paul, and David Silverman. 1997. “Kundera’s Immortality: The Interview Society and the Invention of the Self.” Qualitative Inquiry 31: 304–325. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Baker, Carolyn D. 2004. “Membership Categorization and Interview Accounts.” In Qualitative Research: Theory, Method and Practice (2nd edition), ed. by David Silverman, 162–176. London: SAGE.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bamberg, Michael, Anna De Fina, & Deborah Schiffrin. 2011. “Discourse and Identity Construction.” In Handbook of Identity Theory and Research, ed. by Seth J. Schwartz, Koen Luyckx, and Vivian Vignoles, 177–199. Berlin: Springer-Verlag. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Boden, Deirdre, and Don H. Zimmerman (eds). 1991. Talk and Social Structure: Studies in Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis, Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brinkmann, Svend, and Steinar Kvale. 2008. “Ethics in Qualitative Psychological Research.” In The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research in Psychology, ed. by Carla Willig and Wendy Stainton-Rogers, 263–279. London: SAGE. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Buttny, Richard. 1993. Social Accountability in Communication. London: SAGE.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chase, Liana, and Ram P. Sapkota. 2017. “‘In Our Community, a Friend is a Psychologist’: An Ethnographic Study of Informal Care in Two Bhutanese Refugee Communities.” Transcultural Psychiatry 54 (3): 400–422. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth. 2007. “Assessing and Accounting.” In Reporting Talk: Reported Speech in Interaction, ed. by Rebecca Clift and Elizabeth Holt, 81–119. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2009. “A Sequential Approach to Affect: The Case of ‘Disappointment’.” In Talk in Interaction: Comparative Dimensions, ed. by Markku Haakana, Minna Laakso, and Jan Lindstrom, 94–123. Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Coupland, Nikolas, Jon F. Nussbaum, and Alan Grossman. 1993. “Introduction: Discourse, Selfhood, and the Lifespan.” In Discourse and Lifespan Identity, ed. by Nikolas Coupland and Jon F. Nussbaum, x–xxviii. London: SAGE.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cuff, Edward C. 1993. Problems of Versions in Everyday Situations. Washington, D.C.: University Press of America.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Drew, Paul. 1998. “Complaints about Transgressions and Misconduct.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 31 (3–4): 295–325. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Edwards, Derek. 1997. Discourse and Cognition. London: SAGE.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2005. “Moaning, Whinging, and Laughing: The Subjective Side of Complaints.” Discourse Studies 7 (1): 5–29. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Edwards, Derek, and Jonathan Potter. 2005. “Discursive Psychology, Mental States and Descriptions.” In Conversation and Cognition, ed. by Hedwig te Molder and Jonathan Potter, 241–259. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Edwards, Derek, and Elizabeth Stokoe. 2006. “Story Formulations in Talk-in-Interaction.” Narrative Inquiry 16(1): 56–65. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fancher, Tonya L., Hendrey Ton, Oanh Le Meyer, Thuan Ho, and Debora A. Paterniti. 2010. “Discussing Depression with Vietnamese American Patients.” Journal of Immigrant Minority Health 121: 263–266. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ferrara, Kathleen W. 1994. Therapeutic Ways with Words. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fitzgerald, Richard, and William Housley. 2015. Advances in Membership Categorization Analysis. London: SAGE. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Frankel, Richard M. 1995. “Some Answers about Questions in Clinical Interviews.” In The Talk of the Clinic: Explorations in the Analysis of Medical and Therapeutic Discourse, ed. by George H. Morris and Ronald J. Chenail, 49–70. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gafaranga, Joseph. 2005. “Demythologising Language Alternation Studies: Conversational Structure vs. Social Structure in Bilingual Interaction.” Journal of Pragmatics 371: 281–300. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Giddens, Anthony. 1991. Modernity and Self-Identity. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goffman, Erving. 1981. Forms of Talk. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gordon, Daryl. 2011. Trauma and second language learning among Laotian refugees. Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement 61: 1–14.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Günthner, Susanne. 1997. “Complaint Stories: Constructing Emotional Reciprocity Among Women.” In Communicating Gender in Context, ed. by Helga Kotthoff and Ruth Wodak, 179–218. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Halonen, Mia. 2008. “Person Reference as a Device for Constructing Experiences as Typical in Group Therapy.” In Conversation Analysis and Psychotherapy, ed. by Anssi Peräkylä, Charles Antaki, Sanna Vehviläinen, and Ivan Leudar, 139–151. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hepburn, Alexa, and Sally Wiggins (eds). 2007. Discursive Research in Practice: New Approaches to Psychology and Interaction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heritage, John. 2011. “Territories of Knowledge, Territories of Experience: Empathic Moments in Interaction.” In The Morality of Knowledge in Conversation, ed. by Tanya Stivers, Lorenza Mondada, and Jakob Steensig, 159–183. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2013. “Epistemics in Conversation.” In The Handbook of Conversation Analysis, ed. by Jack Sidnell and Tanya Stivers, 370–394. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hester, Stephen, and Peter Eglin (eds). 1997. Culture in Action: Studies in Membership Categorization Analysis. Washington, D.C.: International Institute for Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis and University Press of America.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Holstein, James A., and Jaber F. Gubrium. 2012. Varieties of Narrative Analysis. London: SAGE. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Housley, William, and Richard Fitzgerald. 2009. Membership Categorization, Culture and Norms of Action. Discourse & Society 20 (3): 345–362. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hutchby, Ian, and Robin Wooffitt. 2008. Conversation Analysis. Oxford: Polity Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jacquemet, Marco. 2005. “The Registration Interview: Restricting Refugees’ Narrative Performances.” In Dislocations/Relocations: Narratives of Displacement, ed. by Mike Baynham and Anna De Fina, 197–220. Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jakobson, Roman. 1957/1971. “Shifters, Verbal Categories and the Russian Verb.” In Roman Jakobson, Selected Writings, vol. 21, 130–147. The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jayyusi, Lena. 1984. Categorization and the Moral Order. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1991. “Values and Moral Judgement.” In Ethnomethodology and the Human Sciences, ed. by Graham Button, 227–251. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jefferson, Gail. 1988. “On the Sequential Organization of Troubles-Talk in Ordinary Conversation.” Social Problems 35 (4): 418–441. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2004. “Glossary of transcript symbols with an introduction.” In Conversation Analysis: Studies from the First Generation, ed. by Gene H. Lerner, 13–31. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jefferson, Gail, Harvey Sacks, and Emanuel A. Schegloff. 1987. “Notes on Laughter in the Pursuit of Intimacy.” In Talk and Social Organisation, ed. by Graham Button and John R. E. Lee, 152–205. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Labov, William. 1972. Socioloinguistic Patterns. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lambrou, Marina. 2014. “Narrative, Text and Time: Telling the Same Story Twice in the Oral Narrative Reporting of 7/7.” Language and Literature 23 (1): 32–48. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Liddicoat, Anthony J. 2011. An Introduction to Conversation Analysis (2nd edition). New York: Continuum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Longmire, B. Jean. 1995. “Cambodian Narratives of Personal Experience.” In Papers from the Third Annual Meeting of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society, ed. by Mark Alves, 129–144. Tempe, Ariz.: Program for Southeast Asian Studies, Arizona State University.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Marshall, Grant N., Terry Schell, Marc N. Elliott, S. Megan Berthold, and Chi-Ah Chuh. 2005. “Mental Health of Cambodian Refugees Two Decades After Resettlement in the United States.” Journal of American Medical Association 294 (5): 571–579. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Maynard, Douglas. 1991. “Interaction and Asymmetry in Clinical Discourse.” American Journal of Sociology 97 (2), 448–495. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mazeland, Harrie. 2007. “Parenthetical Sequences.” Journal of Pragmatics 391: 1816–1869. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McGuire, Kathleen N. 1991. “Affect in Focusing and Experiential Psychotherapy.” In Emotion, Psychotherapy, and Change, ed. by Jeremy D. Safran and Leslie S. Greenberg, 227–251. New York: Guilford Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Menard-Warwick, Julia. 2009. Gendered Identities and Immigrant Language Learning. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mishler, Elliot G. 2006. “Narrative and Identity: The Double Arrow of Time.” In Discourse and Identity, ed. by Anna De Fina, Debra Schiffrin, and Michael Bamberg, 30–47. New York: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Peräkylä, Anssi, Charles Antaki, Sanna Vehviläinen, and Ivan Leudar (eds). 2008. Conversation Analysis and Psychotherapy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Peräkylä, Anssi, and Marja-Leena Sorjonen. 2012. Emotion in Interaction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pomerantz, Anita. 1986. “Extreme-Case Formulations: A Way of Legitimizing Claims.” Human Studies 9 (2/3): 219–229. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Potter, Jonathan, and Alexa Hepburn. 2012. “Eight Challenges for Interview Researchers.” In The SAGE Handbook of Interview Research: The Complexity of the Craft (2nd edition), ed. by Jaber F. Gubrium, James A. Holstein, Amir B. Marvasti, and Karyn D. McKinney, 555–570. London: SAGE.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Prior, Matthew T. 2016. Emotion and Discourse in L2 Narrative Research. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pumariega, Andres J., Eugenio Rothe, and JoAnne B. Pumariega. 2005. “Mental Health of Immigrants and Refugees.” Community Mental Health Journal 41 (5): 581–597. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Roulston, Kathryn. 2010. Reflective Interviewing: A Guide to Theory and Practice. London: SAGE. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sacks, Harvey. 1992. Lectures on Conversation. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sarangi, Srikant. 2003. “Institutional, Professional, and Lifeworld Frames in Interview Talk.” In Analyzing Race Talk: Multidisciplinary Approaches to the Interview, ed. by Harry van den Berg, Margaret Wetherell, and Hanneke Houtkoop-Steenstra, 64–84. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schegloff, Emanuel A. 2007. “A Tutorial on Membership Categorization.” Journal of Pragmatics 391: 462–482. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schiffrin, Deborah. 2002. “Mother and Friends in a Holocaust Life Story.” Language in Society 311: 309–353. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Seidman, Irving. 2013. Interviewing as Qualitative Research: A Guide for Researchers in Education and the Social Sciences. New York: Teachers College Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Shuman, Amy. 2005. Other People’s Stories Entitlement Claims and the Critique of Empathy. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sidnell, Jack, and Tanya Stivers (eds). 2013. The Handbook of Conversation Analysis. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Silverman, David. 2001. “The Construction of ‘Delicate’ Objects in Counselling.” In Discourse Theory and Practice: A Reader, ed. by Margaret Wetherell, Stephanie Taylor, and Simon J. Yates, 119–137. London: SAGE.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stivers, Tanya, Lorenza Mondada, and Jakob Steensig (eds). 2011. The Morality of Knowledge in Conversation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stokoe, Elizabeth. 2012. “Moving Forward with Membership Categorization Analysis: Methods for Systematic Analysis.” Discourse Studies 14 (3): 277–303. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Talmy, Steven, and Keith Richards (eds). 2011. “Qualitative Interviews in Applied Linguistics: Discursive Perspectives” Applied Linguistics 32 (1): 1–128 [Special Issue]. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
van den Berg, Harry, Margaret Wetherell, and Hanneke Houtkoop-Steenstra (eds). 2003. Analyzing Race Talk: Multidisciplinary Approaches to the Interview. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
White, Michael, and David Epston. 1990. Narrative Means to Therapeutic Ends. London: W.W. Norton & Company.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wiggins, Sally. 2017. Discursive Psychology: Theory, Method and Applications. London: SAGE. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wooffitt, Robin. 1992. Telling Tales of the Unexpected: The Organization of Factual Discourse. Hertfordshire: Harvester Wheatsheaf.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wooffitt, Robin, and Sue Widdicombe. 2006. “Interaction in Interviews.” In Talk and Interaction in Social Research Methods, ed. by Paul Drew, Geoffrey Raymond, and Darin Weinberg, 28–49. London: SAGE. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zimmerman, Don H. 1998. “Identity, Context and Interaction.” In Identities in Talk, ed. by Charles Antaki and Sue Widdicombe, 87–106. London: SAGE.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (3)

Cited by three other publications

Theodórsdóttir, Guðrún
2024. Not-knowing as membership knowledge. The mediation of sociocultural facts through storytelling. Nordand 19:1 ► pp. 3 ff. DOI logo
Diebold, Josal, Mickey Sperlich, Elyse Heagle, Whitney Marris & Susan Green
2021. Trauma Talks: Exploring Personal Narratives of Trauma-Informed Care through Podcasting. Journal of Technology in Human Services 39:1 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Lee, Yo-An & John Hellermann
2020. Managing language issue in second language storytelling. System 93 ► pp. 102311 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 30 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue