Teenage Resistance to a Parental Threat: Intercepting an Action-in-Progress as a Form of Resistance

Abstract

This conversation analytic study explores a single case of a teenager's resistance to a parental threat. Resistance in the conversation analytic literature typically refers to an interactional move that displaces a sequentially relevant or normatively expected next action. A resistant turn, while not aligning with the ongoing course of action, also avoids overtly disaligning with it. In this paper, we make the case for a particular form of resistance that involves intercepting an action-in-progress. In our data, the teenager deploys this form of resistance as an alternative to either complying with or defying a parental threat. More specifically, our analysis shows how the threat recipient uses resources such as complex turn design, projectability and repair to anticipate and resist the projected trajectory of the sequence where the projected trajectory is compliance or defiance. The analysis also explores how participants invoke epistemics and deontics in this context as resources in resistance.