Participation, affect, and trajectory in family directive/response sequences

Making use of videotapes of family interaction, this paper investigates alternative trajectories that develop as parents and children negotiate disputes resulting from directive/response sequences. Forms of arguments constituted through recycled positions are distinguished from arguments that are buttressed by accounts or rule statements. Constellations of features including structures of control, forms of tying utterances to prior utterances, accounts, as well as facing formations are consequential. The forms of participation frameworks that are constructed afford different ways of sustaining focused interaction, gearing into what someone has said, and displaying to each other how participants are aligned within the activity frame. Alternative trajectories develop in light of the forms of joint attention that are established, as well as sustained engagement.