Tainio2003

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Tainio2003
BibType ARTICLE
Key Tainio2003
Author(s) Liisa Tainio
Title “When shall we go for a ride?” A case of the sexual harassment of a young girl
Editor(s)
Tag(s) EMCA, conversation analysis, gender, invitations, sexual harassment
Publisher
Year 2003
Language English
City
Month
Journal Discourse & Society
Volume 14
Number 2
Pages 173–190
URL Link
DOI 10.1177/0957926503014002754
ISBN
Organization
Institution
School
Type
Edition
Series
Howpublished
Book title
Chapter

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Abstract

In this article, I explore the benefits and limits of conversation analysis for the analysis of a conversation that has been labelled (post-hoc) as an instance of 'sexual harassment'. The data analysed is a phone call between a 15-year-old girl and a male Member of Parliament. I explore how 'harassment-in-action' may be embedded in the mundane procedures of talk. Analysis of the MP's strategies to pursue the girl's acceptance of his invitation to 'come for a ride' revealed a number of patterns: recurrent invitations, personal knowledge displays, an orientation to secrecy and confidentiality and implicit and explicit threats. The girl's strategies to resist the MP's suggestions were formulated according to the norms of preference organization, by doing dispreferred activities, using repair initiators and standard responses. I argue that although no single feature of the talk could directly index sexual harassment, the 'formal analysis' of (recurrent) patterns of interaction, combined with the cultural knowledge about the identity of the interactants, forms a basis to construct also a feminist-informed explication of 'sexual harassment'.

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