Treating as an Exception:

Mothers' Reference to Their Child as Kono Hito (“This Person”)

Abstract

Recently, some researchers have argued that families are “done” and “displayed” (Finch 2007), thereby contributing to the growing attention on family practices in everyday life. Conversation analysis provides a way to investigate family practices from the perspective of the participants' orientation. Using conversation analysis, this study explores how a mother can display in interaction that she is a mother. Conversation analysts (e.g., Stivers 2007) have shown that various forms of reference can do special interactional work in addition to referring. Based on their work, I examine the special interactional work(s) achieved when a mother uses kono hito (“this person”) to refer to her child. Through my examination, I also show how a mother displays her child and herself by using kono hito. For this purpose, three excerpts from videotaped conversations among friends and two from among mothers in two kosodate hiroba are examined. The results show that kono hito is used by a mother—in responding to a turn that treats her child as a typical child—to emphasize the atypicality or exceptionality of the child in some respect. This “helps accomplish” (Stivers 2007: 92) or underscores the mother's action that is implemented by the turn including kono hito. In one instance, a woman apologizes to a child after the latter bumps into her. In order to reassure the woman that no harm has been done, the mother uses kono hito to refer to her child: In emphasizing her exceptionality as a young child, the mother enhances the relieving effect of her response. At the same time, by treating her child as an exception, a mother displays herself as a person who knows her child best, that is, a mother.