‘Speaking as a mother’: A membership categorisation analysis of
child-centric talk in a UK daytime television talk show
Abstract
In this study, we explore motherhood as an interactionally emergent
identity category which speakers simultaneously construct and lay claim
to in talk, and as a category which is imbued with moral expectations of
how its incumbents should behave. We analyse 18 chid-centric debates
from British daytime television talk show This Morning. We use
Membership Categorisation Analysis to explore how, and to what effect,
women deploy claims to motherhood. We report 3 main findings; (i)
Speakers routinely quantify their motherhood credentials as they develop
rights to be heard on child-centric matters; (ii) Speaking as a mother
habitually trumps the arguments offered by other speakers, including
those with professional expertise; (iii) Any challenge to essentialist
norms of motherhood become accountable concerns for speakers. We
conclude that whilst there is power in motherhood insomuch as it vests
women with expertise and elevates their rights to be heard on
child-centric matters, the speakers in our study of mainstream debates
about child-centric issues nevertheless construct motherhood in a manner
which (re)produces and elevates essentialised notions of gender.