ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the degree of cultural diversity in the dinner-table conversation narrative events of middle-class Jewish-American and Israeli families, matched on family constellation. Conceptualized in terms of a threefold framework of telling, tales, and tellers, the analysis reveals both shared and unshared narrative event properties. The narrative events examined, performed by adults and children, function as crucial socializing contexts for family interaction in general, as claimed by Bernstein 1971. The database for the study consists of 264 narrative events that occurred during two dinner-table conversations with eight middle-class Jewish-American and eight Israeli families. All Jewish-American families were residents of the Boston area; all Israeli families lived at the time in Jerusalem. The chapter distinguishes three major modes of telling: monologic, dialogic, and polyphonic. Even though family narrative events are jointly constructed affairs, styles of collaborations vary from low to high participation by participants other than the primary narrators.
