FAMILY CONVERSATION

Several publications abound on discourse and conversational analysis as well as the sociology of the family and family conversation. It seems most of these scholarly works often focus on the native English context, particularly the English family or American family and ignore the interaction that takes place in non-native English speaking contexts particularly where English is used as a Second or Foreign language. Yet much of the world''s verbal communication takes place by means of languages, which are not the users'' "mother tongue", but their second, third, on even fourth language acquired one way or another and used when appropriate. This is particularly so in today’s global village, where English, for example, has become popular as a means of interaction in elitist families or inter-cultural relationships/families. In this book, the author describes the discourse structure of family conversation in native English and English as a Second Language (ESL) setting.