| Previous Conversation Analytic studies of the discourse of elderly tend to focus on interactions that take place in care-giving institutions or during care activities in a home-help context (cf. Backhaus, 2009; Heinemann, 2006; Lindström, 2005). Too little is known about the everyday communicative activities of elderly people at normal social gatherings. In this paper, I investigate one such communicative activity in the context of age-homogenous peer groups. Specifically, I focus on how the activity of complaining (cf. Drew & Holt, 1988; Edwards, 2005; Schegloff, 2005) is a practice through which elderly create and reflect their age-based cultural identity. The data consists of eleven hours of video recordings of organized group activities (e.g. having lunch, playing games, or doing handicraft work) of two age-homogenous peer groups in two elderly care centers and two peer groups of autonomously living elderly. |
