The aim of the present study was to analyse family dinners as context of argumentation and argumentative development by using a context-sensitive model of basic argumentative structures in every day conversations. The data consisted of 40 argumentative sequences in dinner conversations in twenty Swedish families with children aged 7 to 17 years. The families were divided in two groups depending on the children's ages (10-11 years with younger siblings and 1012 years with older siblings). The model revealed characteristic structures of argumentation appearing as co-text and suggested differences between family groups depending on contextual factors such as age of the children. The groups of older children produced longer argumentative sequences, more exchanges per sequence and higher rate of turns. The older children also engaged in non-instrumental deliberations and disputations significantly more often and they performed more elaborated expansions (through a higher quantity of backing arguments). The groups of younger children on the other hand were more often involved in negotiations on topics relevant in the immediate context. Less expected was, however, the lack of more complex and varied arguments, even in the groups of older children.

The present study addresses the issue of indirect speech and implication in family dinner conversations, viewed from a Gricean perspective. Dinner conversations in 19 families were video recorded and analysed with regard to acts of non-observance (i.e. flouting or violating) of Gricean maxims. The recordings were divided into two groups in terms of the age of participating children (6-10 or 10-14 years respectively). The results gave no evidence that the degree of non-observance differed between the two age groups or between mothers and fathers totally, thus not confirming findings of previous studies [Rundquist, S., 1992. Indirectness: a gender study of flouting Grice's maxims. Journal of Pragmatics 18, 431-449]. But quantitative data showed variations regarding the distribution of different contexts and types of non-observance between the two groups of fathers and between the two groups of mothers, as well as between the groups of children and between the parents and children of the two groups. Furthermore, qualitative analyses suggest that fathers more often than mothers use hints for socializing purposes whereas the children, especially in the older group, seem to break against the maxims primarily for social purposes, e.g. joking.

The present study compares preschool children in Finland, Estonia and Sweden regarding linguistic structures with which children in dyads elicited talk from each other in a naturalistic play activity Nineteen Finnish (mean age 5.1), 19 Estonian (mean age 5.4) and 17 Swedish (mean age 5.1) same-sex pairs were video-recorded by a native researcher Analyses of the results showed that children in different groups produced quite a similar number of utterances and eliciting talk structures. The Swedish and Finnish children used most yes-no questions, whereas the Estonian children had the highest occurrence of open questions. Imperative as well as elliptic structures were used by the Finnish children to a significantly higher extent than by the Swedish children. In summary, the groups differed less from each than was predicted on the basis of adult-child interaction. The results suggested that the symmetrical child-child free play context affected the choice of eliciting talk structures.

Prior findings of strict control of middle-class Estonian mothers have not been consistent with middle-class parent-child interaction patterns reported in other studies. The current study sought to find out to what degree the tendency to be more controlling toward children can be explained by the Estonian mothers' own experience of growing up in a totalitarian society. With this aim, measures of maternal controlling attitudes and actual verbal control of children were employed in a second country with a similar history of Soviet occupation-Latvia-and compared with previous data on Estonian, Finnish, and Swedish mono- and bicultural mothers. The questionnaire data revealed that Estonian (including Swedish-Estonian) and Latvian mothers placed higher emphasis on controlling children than did Finnish and Swedish mothers. At the same time, in their real-life interactions, only Estonian mothers living in Estonia exhibited a highly directive conversational style. Finally, the discussion focuses on possible reasons for cultural variability in maternal controlling attitudes and actual control of children.

In the present study, the child-rearing goals of mothers of 4- to 6-year-old children from Estonia, Finland, and Sweden were compared. The developed Child-Rearing Goals Questionnaire consisted of three different tasks: open-ended questions, item rating, and item ranking. All mothers were similar in valuing highly self-maximization, but differed in emphasis on traditional child-rearing goals (e.g., conformity, obedience, politeness, being hard-working, etc.). The Swedish mothers tended to stress the characteristics connected with self-maximization as well as self-confidence and children's happiness, but did not value the traditional child-rearing goals. The Estonian mothers attached a great significance both to the traditional characteristics and to self-maximization. The Finnish mothers also stressed both traditional and non-traditional values, but to a lesser extent than the Estonians. The Swedish and Finnish mothers' child-rearing goals were relatively homogeneous. In contrast, the Estonian mothers were generally less focused on any specific goal. Mothers with a lower level of education stressed traditional goals more than mothers with a higher level of education. The results are discussed in the light of the possible effect different cultural contexts have on maternal child-rearing goals: bringing up children in stable welfare societies (such as Sweden and Finland) in contrast to a rapidly changing society (such as Estonia).