20
As a teacher her son’s behaviors are a face threat to Jan’s professional identity
and yet as a mother she is expected to support her child. In the context of her work
environment this places her in a dialectical dilemma, oscillating between professional and
domestic loyalties. This face-threat to her positive self-identity results in a situation
where negotiating audience support for her conversational moves is crucial and this
accounts for her use of a variety of ‘other’ voices in supporting her son’s aggressive
actions, behavior that in her ‘frontstage’ role as a teacher she might normally condemn.
The topic proceeds to a discussion of Jan’s son within the context of her home life
and the amount of hedging in her account of his behavior (lines 447-451) suggests that
Jan is uncertain of the other women’s recipient response to her disclosures. However, on
this occasion rather than relying on the voices of ‘other’s to account for his behavior Jan
attributes David's behavior to adolescence (L450-451). Her comments construct
adolescence as a phase in life, something external to the individual (L450), an event that
can be ‘passed through’. Her remarks reflect a cultural script available to all parents in
accounting for such behaviors in their children. Lou responds to Jan's troubles by using
humor to challenge Jan’s resolution (L452) and her remarks (L452) imply the opposite of
Jan's suggestion. Lou’s dramatically formulated claims predicting that Jan’s problems
may get worse (L455) appear to be an attempt at mitigating the face threat to Jan by
claiming common ground and disclosing that her own son had an equally difficult
adolescence.
Lou’s disclosures open up the conversational floor and allow Jan to provide
further evidence supporting her claim that this is merely a phase common to all
adolescents (lines 459-464). At this point Jan brings in the ‘voice’ of another colleague
Convention