ABSTRACT
A new and unexplored question in socialization research asks how children use conversational resources in everyday interactions and activities. Children presumably have sufficient competence to cooperate in interactional development over a great variety of social circumstances. One major problem in the child’s socialization to family life is how he competently used referential terms for relevant others in the family membership unit. One of the features of family arrangements consists of an ecological containment of members inside the confines of a physical setting, commonly thought of as a residence. The correct use of referential procedures for naming others comprises one part of the child’s cultural apparatus pertaining to typical family arrangements and to the structure of social relationships these arrangements encompass. The composite of several identities selected as appropriate to a given interaction consitutes the selector’s social persona in the interaction.
