Achieving Authority: Discursive Practices in Russian Girls' Pretend Play

Abstract

In this article, I examine how Russian girls deploy bodily orientation combined with linguistic actions—such as permission and information requests, directives, role negotiation, and assistance appeals–to display their subordination to the authority of dominant peers in nonconflictual environments. The article is based on the micro-analysis of video-recorded, self-organized play and talk activities in a friendship group of girls, ages 6 to 9 years. The data were collected as part of a larger ethnographic study conducted in a mid-sized industrial town in Western Russia. I analyze contextual configurations coconstructed by participants deploying multiple semiotic fields including language, body, physical space, and objects occupying this space. Based on this analysis, I argue that in an environment where participants cannot invoke institutionally established roles, they treat common authoritative criteria as tools that can be actively and deliberately manipulated in interaction to establish an authoritative hierarchy.

Notes

1 However, see the work of M. H. Goodwin on embodied stance and morality.

2 The names of all participants were changed to protect their confidentiality.

3 Due to the complexity of the economic situation in post-Soviet Russia, it is frequently impossible to determine the socioeconomic class of some families using commonly accepted Western standards. For example, it is not infrequent that adults with college or even advanced academic degrees may be making a living as convenience store clerks, mechanics, security guards, or cab drivers, as such jobs currently may provide a higher income than many white-collar positions outside the private business sector such as teachers, hospital doctors, production engineers, or civil servants.

4 For some of the girls, the research site was not a permanent residence. Rather, they were staying with their grandparents for the summer so their parents could pursue full-time employment, frequently in the nearest large city. These girls did not attend the same schools as the girls whose permanent residence was near the research site during the academic year. Moreover, even the “local” girls were not enrolled in the same class due to their age differences. Therefore, possible school relationships of the playgroup participants were not taken into consideration in this study.

5 Both Dasha and Galja stated that they were 7 years old. The playmates in this group never invoked their ages in months as a means of comparing their seniority with respect to the peers of the same age in full years. However, Galja was a few months older than Dasha, which allowed her to start school a year earlier. Thus, despite being of the same age, Galja was 1 year ahead of Dasha in school.

6 The deictic particles vot (proximal) and von (distal) do not have readily available lexical equivalents in English. Depending on the context, they could be translated as this/these, here, or there, but in their unstressed form, they also frequently combine with pronouns for additional emphasis or the individuation of an object/objects. Thus, throughout this article, these particles are marked as DPP (deictic particle, proximal) and DPD (deictic particle, distal) in the gloss line of the transcripts. I have attempted to convey the additional emphasis or individuation in the English translation through various grammatical and lexical means of the English language so as to retain the pragmatic impact of each Russian utterance as much as possible.

7 The Russian particle a has no clear equivalent in English. It may serve as a contrastive marker, a marker of speaker continuation, a marker of undesirable consequences, or a marker of a new topic. Thus, depending on the context, it may be translated as and, but, or else, or not translated at all. Throughout this article, it is marked as a particle (PRT) in the gloss line of the transcript and translated with the context-appropriate English discourse marker.

8 I am grateful to a reviewer for pointing out that translating the pronoun “jej,” which is the dative case of the pronoun ona (she) as the possessive hers would add a more authentic flow both to the word-by-word gloss and to the English version of the text. I believe, however, that preserving the dative case in the gloss and the employment of the benefactive “for” in the translation serves an important purpose. Galja does not employ the possessive form jejo (hers), which would imply that Dasha has already assumed the possession of the dishes or that she should have known that the dishes are for her, and therefore, her complaint is groundless. Rather, Galja opts for the dative form “jej,” which suggests that she intends the dishes to go to Dasha but that Dasha is not yet aware of this fact. Thus, the distinction between the grammatical forms for her and hers constitutes the distinction between an offer of restitution and a rejection of the grounds for Dasha's complaint.

9 The Russian educational system consists of 9 years of obligatory education at the elementary and middle school level. The two additional years of high school—10th and 11th grades—are optional unless a student plans to pursue university studies.

10 Larissa's choice of words in describing Corinna's role presents particular interest for understanding the cultural attitudes toward education observed in this play group. Larissa uses the verb “perekhodit,” which can be roughly translated as is transitioning, with respect to Corinna's starting college (line 7). This verb is normally reserved for the description of children's promotion through the primary and secondary educational systems. In other words, the verb can be applied to a student being promoted from one grade level to another. The verb is generally not used to describe one's transition from the secondary educational level to tertiary. The use of this word by Larissa suggests that for her—and possibly for the rest of the girls in the playgroup—college education is seen as part and parcel of one's maturation rather than an option one may or may not pursue on completing high school.

11 Galja's utterance here is ungrammatical. The Russian language allows for the omission of verbs of motion and location without the loss of meaning as long as the appropriate form of the noun is preserved. Verbs of motion require the use of a prepositional phrase with the noun in the accusative case. Verbs of location require the use of ablative (prepositional) case. Galja uses both, thus producing a structure that is ambiguous with respect to whether she is inquiring about her current or future grade level. Larissa's subsequent use of the accusative in line 18 makes her decision unambiguous as being about Galja's future grade level.

12 The choice between first or second grade that Galja seeks also reflects her knowledge of an important aspect of the Russian educational system in which parents can choose to start their child's formal schooling either at age 6 or at age 7. A 7-year-old is thus as likely to be a first grader as a second grader.

13 I would like to thank Amy Kyratzis for pointing out this important aspect of the action unfolding in this segment.

14 I am grateful to a reviewer who drew my attention to the possibility that the verb in this line is skazhu /skaZu/ (say) rather than “skhazhu” /sxaZu/ (the perfective determinate form of “go” as opposed to the perfective indeterminate “pajdu”). On reviewing the audio and video data carefully, I am preserving the original transcript. The redoubling of the determinate and indeterminate Russian verbs usually translated into English as “go” is not unusual in Russian conversation. Although the verb pojti is closest to the English go, the verb skhodit implies a return trip and can roughly be translated as go and come back.

15 “Shkolnik” is a popular name for school supply stores. The tradition of naming particular types of stores with particular names goes back to the Soviet era when all retail operations were owned and controlled by the government. The same name does not reflect the store belonging to a retail chain.