Tired, but not (only) because of age: An interactional sociolinguistic study of participants' variable stances towards older-age categorial explanations in everyday hair-salon talk

摘要

A growing body of research examining age-in-interaction has revealed the way in which people orientate to stereotypical associations of aging. However, relatively little attention has been given to the way older-age categorial terms and expressions are used in everyday, non-medicalised settings and the kinds of identities thereby achieved. In this study I aim to bring to the fore and explain the variability of stances towards older-age terms and expressions in an ordinary setting, a hair-salon. I explore this variability by scrutinizing in detail cases where older women resist another's use of aging to explain their ailment or complaint, and contrast these with cases where the same women, in the same appointment, themselves invoke older age to explain or intensify their own problem. Drawing on audio-recorded conversations between clients and salon-workers and using the micro discourse analytic tools of Conversation Analysis and Membership Categorization Analysis, I show that these seemingly inconsistent orientations to older age emerge out of the unfolding sequential context and the different projects in which participants are engaged in interaction. I further show that older age is not the only or main identity orientated to in such uses in this setting. The discussion as a whole highlights the value of adopting an age-blind approach to the data and of examining people's use of older-age terms and expressions in a range of ordinary settings.