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Reported Speech and Reported Affect in

Child Custody Disputes
a a
Henrik Ingrids & Karin Aronsson
a
Department of Child and Youth Studies , Stockholm University ,
Sweden
Published online: 31 Jan 2014.

To cite this article: Henrik Ingrids & Karin Aronsson (2014) Reported Speech and Reported
Affect in Child Custody Disputes, Research on Language and Social Interaction, 47:1, 69-88, DOI:
10.1080/08351813.2014.871806

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 RESEARCH ON LANGUAGE AND SOCIAL INTERACTION, 47(1), 69–88, 2014
Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 0835-1813 print / 1532-7973 online
DOI: 10.1080/08351813.2014.871806

Reported Speech and Reported Affect

in Child Custody Disputes
Henrik Ingrids and Karin Aronsson
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Department of Child and Youth Studies

Stockholm University, Sweden

This study analyzes mothers’ versus fathers’ versions of events in three cases of audio-recorded child
custody disputes in Sweden. We show how the parents use direct reported speech (including self-
quotes) and reports of feelings as discursive devices for creating alternative versions with epistemic
authority and credibility. Data are in Swedish and English translation.

What happens when two parents both have firsthand access to critical events involving their child
but promote widely divergent views of what happened? This article is about how credibility is
built during child custody hearings, where accounts are crucial in establishing the outcome of
the court’s decision. We show how participants build the credibility of their own accounts and
challenge those of the other side. Contesting sides do not openly discredit each other; instead, they
produce alternative versions (Drew, 1992; Komter, 1994; Lynch & Bogen, 1996). Our interest is
in parents’ use of reported speech—and its neighbor, what we call reported affect—to supply the
evidence that supports their version of events.

REPORTED SPEECH AND EPISTEMIC AUTHORITY

The interactional design of reported speech has not been much studied in courtroom settings (for
exceptions, see Galatolo, 2007; Matoesian, 2000). Witnesses cannot just repeat what other people
have said; hearsay evidence is normally not allowed in court, and witnesses are not to speculate
about how other persons have experienced events (Conley & O’Barr, 1990, pp. 13–14; Lynch
& Bogen, 1996). Witnesses are normally constrained from expressing opinions or evaluations of
target events.
One solution for invoking nonpresent parties is to employ reported speech, and particularly
then direct reported speech (DRS), that is, quotes that retain the original prosody and other
expressive features of what was once (allegedly) said (Clark & Gerrig, 1990; Holt, 1996, 2007).
In courtroom contexts (Drew, 1992; Galatolo, 2007; Watson, 1990), as in mundane everyday

We are grateful to the editor and anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this
manuscript.
Correspondence should be sent to Karin Aronsson, Department of Child and Youth Studies, Stockholm University,
SE 106 91 Stockholm, Sweden. E-mail: karin.aronsson@buv.su.se
 70 INGRIDS AND ARONSSON

conversations (Clift, 2006; Holt, 1996), reported speech tends to be used as a discursive resource
for providing evidence. Through reported speech, storytelling acquires “an air of objectivity”
(Holt, 1996, p. 242) and authenticity (Bakhtin, 1981; Besnier, 1992). In mundane contexts, Speer
(2012) has, for instance, shown that reported compliments (reported speech as a preferred alter-
native to self-praise) are employed as ways of creating “objectivity.” Similarly, Wooffitt (1992,
p. 168) has identified quoting as a resource for confirming that spectacular phenomena have been
observable to others.
But reported speech in testimonies often has moral implications (Drew, 1992; Galatolo &
Drew, 2006; Galatolo, 2007). For instance, witnesses are sometimes found to deploy reported
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speech for actions like blame allocation. Conley and O’Barr (1990, p. 39) similarly suggest that
through reported speech litigants can provide listeners with information about “the motives and
thoughts of various parties to the action.” Holt (1996, 2007) shows that DRS is an important
resource for enacting prior events; setting the stage for subsequent social actions; and allowing
for the display of a variety of stances: epistemic, moral, and affective. It includes displaying other
persons’ reactions, offering versatile means for enacting their opinions, emotions, and thoughts
about target events (Holt, 1996, 2007).
Holt (2007) compellingly shows how speakers may enact absent parties. What Bakhtin (1981,
pp. 331–366) has called accentuations and reaccentuations are important discursive devices for
this, which means that the spoken language, with its variation in tempo, volume, pitch, and voice
qualities, is a rich resource for enacting not only what has happened but also how the speaker
distances him-/herself or aligns with reported actions. In a discussion of mundane complaints
about transgressions and misconduct, Drew (1998, p. 323) similarly documents a series of direct
quotes, employed as parts of blame accounts. In a couple of recent contributions to work on DRS,
Clift (2006, 2007) has shown that epistemic stances in everyday life need not necessarily entail
explicit epistemic statements (like “believe” or “distrust”). Instead, important epistemic action is
recurrently performed through interactional means and more specifically through DRS. A spe-
cific case, reported by Clift (2006), is that of self-reported speech, namely, self-quotes. Through
enacting what the speaker has once said, s/he can be seen to demonstrate that s/he was really
there and had access to target events. But at the same time, accountability is somewhat reduced in
that the reporting context is slightly removed in time from what is reported. An interesting ques-
tion is, of course, whether such self-quotes will also appear in institutional storytelling contexts,
such as the testimonies in our study.
The study we report, then, takes as its focus the use of direct reported speech and its cognates
as a resource by parties in a dispute that hinges on establishing a judicial version of events.
To introduce the study, it will be helpful to describe its social and legal context.

SOCIAL CONTEXT AND DATA

Legal Context

Child custody disputes are notoriously delicate affairs, often marked by a high level of con-
flict between the litigating parents (Conley & O’Barr, 2005; Firestone & Weinstein, 2004).
In Sweden, courtroom custody-and-contact proceedings are rare (they occur in less than 5%
of all divorces). As in most of the Western world, Swedish family law emphasizes the child’s
 REPORTED SPEECH AND REPORTED AFFECT 71

best interest as the overall guiding principle in child custody disputes, and the child’s right to
express his or her opinions has become an integral part of the Parents Code (Eriksson, 2011).
However, children have no formal status as litigants in family law and are normally not called
upon to testify, as they would then have to align with one side against the other (Röbäck & Höjer,
2009).

Data
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The data reported here are a sample set of three cases, selected from 42 sets of audio-recorded
courtroom examinations of both sides in child custody disputes. Cases were chosen where at
least one party had asked for sole custody, meaning much was at stake in the proceedings. Public
domain data spanning one month and from 29 courts (collected in a nationwide data collection)
have been used.1 The children themselves were never present during the courtroom examinations.
During the examinations, the attorneys regularly asked for concrete and specific instances of the
other party’s (allegedly) troublesome conduct. Consequently, storytelling played a central role
during the examinations at large.

Analysis and Selection of Cases

The analyses build on listening (repeatedly) to the Swedish tapes. The original transcriptions
are found in the Appendix, as the storytelling-style format of the invited stories did not allow
a (reader-friendly) line-by-line translation. The English translations were done by a native
speaker.
The analyses only focus on cases where both sides sequentially recounted “the same incident”
and on how each side (in the notable absence of the children themselves) presented its own ver-
sion as more credible and compelling than the contested version. In this article we report only
three illustrative cases, chosen for covering important discursive devices in the data at large.
The differences between this sample of mothers’ and fathers’ accounts illuminate the social
action of building one’s own version and credibility and undermining the opponent’s version.
But it should be noted that these case analyses are based on a systematic analysis of our entire
corpus.

CONTESTING VERSIONS AND THE BUILDING OF EPISTEMIC AUTHORITY

In courtroom contexts firsthand witness reports have a privileged status above hearsay evidence
and second-order reports. In the stories here about unhappy incidents where a child is allegedly a
party (as a victim or at least an eyewitness), the most important witness in court should therefore
perhaps have been the child. Yet as is customary in these proceedings, the children concerned
were not present at any of the trials. This means that in one respect all disputes were therefore
based on secondhand evidence, that is, evidence where the witnesses—here, the parents—had

1 The study has been approved by the regional ethical review board in Stockholm (Reg. No. 2011/5:11).
 72 INGRIDS AND ARONSSON

somewhat restricted access to target events and could be seen to have less epistemic authority
(Heritage, 2012; Heritage & Raymond, 2005). Inspection of the data suggested that the parents
attended to two, partly overlapping, sites of dispute in telling their side of the story: (a) what
happened (epistemic access), and (b) who is most credible, the mother (M) or the father (F)
(epistemic authority). An individual parent would employ a series of interactional resources for
building credibility and epistemic authority, that is, for presenting her- or himself as concerned
and knowledgeable about his/her child: reported speech and affect; and self-quotes and reported
expert talk (specific types of reported speech).
In the following, we will present three pairs of contrasting versions that illuminate how story
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versions were backed up and embellished through reported speech and affect.

Case 1: Reported Direct Speech and Reported Affect

As mentioned already, a striking feature of the courtroom examinations was the litigants’ use of
reported speech. All parents in our examples employed reported speech in relaying, for instance,
what a target child had said. This was often embedded in reports about affects, as when a child’s
crying was deployed to illuminate how the child reacted to the other parent’s conduct. Like
epistemic stances, affective stances can be conveyed either through metacomments or, more indi-
rectly, the speaker’s ways of indexing affects. Especially through quotes (DRS), the testifying
parent managed to convey various affects by changing, for instance, prosody, volume, tempo,
or voice qualities (Ochs & Schieffelin, 1989; Stivers, 2008), indexing his or her thoughts about
other story versions. In brief, what we call reported affect covers the speaker’s or other partic-
ipants’ affects in response to target events, embellishing or backing up the speaker’s version,
rendering it more authentic, as it were. Quotes regularly involved such reported affect and vivid
descriptions were in our data designed through various combinations of reported speech and
affect.

Case 1: “Throwing the stroller at M or just spinning it around?” (Extract 1 versus

2). At the time of the trial, the parents were joint custodians of their 4-year-old daugh-
ter (C). M claimed sole custody due to a long history of severe cooperation difficulties with
F. In view of these difficulties, the court ultimately awarded M sole custody. (F can be
seen to have “lost” this case in that he had asked for continued joint custody). Preliminary
contrastive analyses revealed a series of incompatible descriptions of the events where the
target events were constructed and reconstructed by the parents into alternative versions that
radically transformed the litigants’ agency, turning accusations into defensive accounts and
vice versa, changing the actor-agent-action constellations (Pomerantz, 1978) of the partici-
pants:

C witnessed violence and screamed (M’s version: Ex. 1: lines 28–30)

C had her back to what was going on and could not see F’s actions (F’s version: Ex. 2: line 5)
F just threw the stroller at M (M’s version: Ex. 1: lines 13–14, 19–20)
F was provoked by others (F’s version: Ex. 2: lines 6–8)
 REPORTED SPEECH AND REPORTED AFFECT 73

(Extract 1) M’s version (direct examination by M’s own attorney; boxes index DRS)

1 MA: It’s early summer (.) 0X (year) we’re thinking about then
2 ((hawks)). Then the conflicts get even more accentuated
3 that’s (.) before you move to X-town when (.) uh (1.2) the
4 fights then >so to speak< when C is >so to speak< involved
5 Do you have some examples of that?
6 (1.5)
7 M: Ye:s he- u:h before I left Y-town the:n (.) he stood there
8 pushed me and threw a stroller down the staircase there on-
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9 in Y-town (.) and this was- then my son and sister-in-law

10 were there (.) and my son placed himself there (.) he got
11 → between him and me and said to F “you can’t hit my
12 mom at least not when I’m here” (1.8) uh that time he’d
13 thrown a stroller at me=
14 MA: Mhm
15 M: → = C screamed in desperation (.) he [took a stroller
16 MA: [Mhm
17 (0.5)
18 M: → We:ll it sounds awful (.) he took a stroller >and he just
19 threw it at me<
20 MA: M:hm
21 (1.8)
22 MA: But has C been involved in a more (.) uh more physical
23 way >so to speak< in this context?
24 (1.3)
25 M: She’s gotten in between [too
26 MA: [Mhm (.) uhm
27 M: She has placed herself- she held- held onto my legs and
28 → cried “mommy mommy mommy mommy .hhh does it-
29 does it hurt? Does it hurt Mommy? Does it hurt?”

As an initial part of the hearings, the mother’s attorney (MA) invites accounts about fights
involving the child. M responds by producing a narrative about how F allegedly pushed her and
threw a stroller at her (lines 8–29). It can be noted that she reports that there were a number
of eyewitnesses to the event (her sister-in-law and grown-up son, as well as the young target
child), which can be seen as a way of strengthening her version of the event (and her epistemic
authority). But notably these reported eyewitnesses were not present in court. However, she not
only says that they were there but also produces direct quotes, as when she cites her grown-up son
audibly protesting against F’s violent action, “you can’t hit my mom at least not when I’m here”
(lines 11–12). This simultaneously shows that she witnessed this event (that she has epistemic
access).
She also presents indirect reported speech (IRS) about how her little child “screamed in des-
peration” (line 15; our italics) and later escalates this into a direct quote of the screaming,
enacting (Holt, 1996, 2007) the child’s desperation, “mommy mommy mommy mommy .hhh
does it- does it hurt? Does it hurt Mommy? Does it hurt?” (lines 28–29). Through the repeated
“mommy,” she invokes strong affect, and the anxious question “does it hurt?” simultaneously
 74 INGRIDS AND ARONSSON

documents the child’s concern and, on another level, the close relationship between child and
mother. In brief, this quote orients to the audience in reenacting the scene, providing details of
the original delivery that testify to both the authenticity of the feelings and her concern as a
mother (Besnier, 1992), authorizing her testimony as it were (Bakhtin, 1981; Watson, 1990).
A basic idea of this article is that “reported affect” constitutes a conversational resource for
building epistemic authority in that it can at times render a description more vivid or authentic.
Telling the court about the two eyewitnesses’ displayed affect (here her daughter’s crying and
screaming) can thus be seen as one way for M to underpin her claims to epistemic access to the
target events. She simultaneously upgrades her epistemic claim that the violent action actually
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took place, consolidating and authorizing her version of the key events, indirectly also upgrading
her own epistemic authority (her credibility as an eyewitness).
At the same time, her reports about the child witness’s concerns can be seen as showing the
child’s alignment with her (Stivers, 2008) as it suggests a strong bond between M and her chil-
dren, which is relevant to her aspired identity as “the best parent.” M thus invokes a participant
perspective, pointing out how the participants themselves oriented to the events, allowing the
listeners to temporarily assume the position of a quoted person.
Before telling about F’s violent action, M orients to the unusual nature of the target event by
prefacing her blame-implicative account with an epistemic metacomment, “well it sounds awful”
(line 18), orienting to potential audience reactions of incredulity. What she then tells the court
is that F not only “threw” a stroller but he also “just threw it at me” (our italics), upgrading the
blame-implicatives of her story by invoking violent intentions.
We will now scrutinize how F, that is, the opposing party, also employed reported affect in his
description of the same target event.

(Extract 2) F’s version (cross-examined by the MA, the other side’s attorney)

1 MA: M said something about (.) you throwing a stroller (.) for
2 example at her (0.6) is that something (.) you remember?
3 F: I can recount that incident (.) it was also reported to the
4 police by M (1.3) e:h I had gone out and put C in the car in
5 the car seat, buckled her in, C sat with her back to the
6 stairs (1.2) I enter there (.) well there are three of them (.)
7 she and her sister-in-law (.) S (.) are standing there
8 → you see (.) provoking me (1.2) I go in there and they get in my way
9 (.)↑we:ll I grab that stroller (.) and spin it right round in
10 the air (.) but it doesn’t hit anybody (.) >go in and get my
11 keys, go out again< then they get in my way (.) and I go
12 out and get into the car and drive away
13 MA: >Right yes I understand that you have different[views=
14 F: [Yes
15 MA: = about what happened here<

Here F introduces a defensively detailed narrative version where their child could not actually
witness the events: She was buckled up in the child seat, with her back to what was going on.
He simultaneously produces a “contrasting version” (Drew, 1992) to M’s account. If the court is
 REPORTED SPEECH AND REPORTED AFFECT 75

to accept his version, M’s version (and her identity as a knowledgeable and credible witness) is
conversely undermined in that the child could neither see the events nor hold onto M’s legs as the
child was already buckled up in the car.
Moreover, F not only claims that the young child had her back to what was going on but
also that the other copresent persons were “standing there provoking me” (lines 7–8). Thereby,
the onlookers are repositioned as instigators of problematic actions rather than eyewitnesses.
The witnesses now become less credible in that they, through their provocations, displayed their
affiliation with the other side, M. This means that the actor-agent-action constellation is entirely
transformed, and F is no longer a perpetrator but a victim. He is someone who merely reacts to
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events rather than someone who acts (on action-reaction, see Goodwin, 1994), thereby providing
an excuse for his putatively blameworthy action.
In his narrative, F orients to both the contested nature of the event (domestic violence) and
category-bound activities where one of the litigants here transforms target activities, changing
“throwing at” to “spin it around” (for related transformations in a criminal trial context, see
Komter, 2003). In this courtroom setting, social categorizations are intimately linked to differ-
ent types of legal accountabilities. The very fact that you throw something at someone implies
intentionality. Obviously, F was less guilty of violence if he was merely playing around with the
stroller, “spinning it around.”
In brief, what F can be seen to be doing through his narrative is primarily to try to replace M’s.
Indirectly, he undermines her version and challenges her credibility. Like M, he is a firsthand
witness, but unlike M, who repeatedly invoked the children’s voices, he does not quote what
they said. But he tells a competing story where he can be seen to (a) reformulate the nature of
target events and (b) try to undermine the court’s belief in M’s version (and on another level, her
epistemic authority) since the child could not actually see the target event. Even if he does not
overtly correct M’s story, his version can then be seen as an implicit attack on hers (and her moral
persona).
It is well recognized in studies of interactions that stories generate other stories (Arminen,
2004), and second stories can be identified as a particular type of response to an original story
(Arminen, 2004, p. 321). For example, speakers may display alignment with the previous speak-
ers. However, in the adversarial setting of child custody litigation, second stories were instead
recurrently designed as implicit challenges to or attacks on the first story. F’s second story is far
from an isolated case of such deconstructive work.

Case 2: Self-Quotes as Interactional Resources

In terms of epistemic access, the two parents in our next case (Extracts 3 and 4) have some-
what different epistemic rights, as F but not M witnessed the target event, which means that his
epistemic access is greater than that of M, who has not seen the event in question (Heritage, 2012;
Heritage & Raymond, 2005). However, much more than epistemic access is involved in the trials
and their outcomes.
The analyses show that epistemic dilemmas and concerns were solved in a number of ways.
Normally, hearsay evidence is not solicited in courtroom contexts (Conley & O’Barr, 1990), but
in these child custody cases, parents recurrently talked about unhappy incidents, told by their
children, regardless of whether the parents themselves had witnessed these very events.
 76 INGRIDS AND ARONSSON

Case 2: “Youngest child getting lost or running away?” (Extract 3 versus 4). At the
time of the trial, M had sole custody of two preschool girls, and she maintained that F was
aggressive and shouted too much at them. But he claimed extended visitation rights and retorted
that he was just a bit of a stickler for rules. In this case, as in the next one, the court decided on
the status quo. Preliminary contrastive analyses of M’s version versus F’s revealed incompatible
descriptions of the target event that invoked different agent-action constellations:
C was “very very angry” (M’s version: Ex. 3: line 20)
F was scared; concerned about C’s disappearance (F’s version: Ex. 4: line 1)
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C was separated (M’s version: Ex. 3: line 19)

C went away (F’s version: Ex. 4: line 7)

(Extract 3) M’s version (direct examination by her own attorney)

1 M: So- so uh he’s uh calm and he’s happy (.) and treats the
2 children really (.) well (1.0) I think
3 MA: You think yes (.) ri:ght?
4 M: That’s the conclusion I’ve drawn but then when it gets to
5 be routine (.) when there’s a routine (.) eh it’s so bad so it-
6 it’s not good for the children
7 MA: What’s it like then? How does F react then? What happens
8 then?
9 M: → Well then- then (1.0) then- then there’s no patience. (.) I’ve
10 seen it with my own eyes du- during the period we lived
11 together
12 MA: Mhm
13 (1.2)
14 M: → U:h (2.5) And the girls talk about how he yells a lot (1.5)
15 → e:h (0.8) C2 is the one who- who uh cries the most and
16 → who talks the most (.) about (.) about how hard it is uh
17 (0.5) like now they’ve been to the circus for instance and
18 then C2 had to go to the bathroom (0.6) she told me (0.5)
19 and then she sat on the toilet and got away (.) got separated
20 → from Daddy and C1 (.) and then he got “very very angry”
21 and cancelled the whole- whole excursion (.) and eh gone
22 went home with the kids instead (.) as punishment
23 → It’s just coz he doesn’t inquire (.) “Why (0.6) eh
24 did you go away?” (1.5). Instead he eh punishes (.) right
25 away without finding out why things are as they are (1.5)
26 so all the fu- all the fun was over

In this excerpt, M recounts an unhappy incident that she has merely heard about through her
children, that is, an event to which she does not have firsthand epistemic access. But she indirectly
backs up her epistemic authority (Heritage & Raymond, 2005) and overall credibility by referring
to herself as someone who has “seen it with my own eyes,” invoking a firsthand experience even
though she actually has not witnessed the target event but just the way F would generally act.
 REPORTED SPEECH AND REPORTED AFFECT 77

Initially, M positions herself as her children’s spokesperson or animator (Goffman, 1981,

pp. 124–159), adopting the position of a caring parent, concerned about things that, in her assess-
ment, are “not good for the children” (line 6). But in child custody disputes, parents’ general
assessments of the opposing side often do not carry great weight, being easily dismissed as
reflecting their own stake and interest in the matter (Potter, 1996). M’s attorney, therefore, invites
M to specify how F would react and what would happen (lines 7–8). In response, M draws on
both reported speech and affect, presenting a vivid description of F’s yelling a lot, enacting how
C reacted to F’s becoming “very very angry” (line 20), backing up the authenticity of her story by
animating the youngest child’s own voice (exact words and emphatic way of speaking) in what
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could provisionally be called “rereported” speech. Through such DRS and affect, M can be seen
to back up her access to the children’s experiences, upgrading her epistemic authority. On another
note, this is a case of a hybrid quote (Clark & Gerrig, 1990) in that it is neither a direct nor indirect
quote. Such hybridities, primarily marked through changes in voice quality, are commonplace in
our courtroom data (see also Extract 6: lines 26–27; for DRS in mundane contexts, not framed as
quotes, see Clift, 2006, 2007; Holt, 2007).
Moreover, M presents herself as someone entrusted with the child’s own version of prob-
lematic events (“she told me,” line 18). In that way, she invokes a certain sense of proximity to
mediated events through being the one who was actually informed of these events by the party
concerned.
One specific type of reported speech, employed in backing up these reports, was that of self-
quotes, where the speaker quoted him-/herself, positioning the listener in medias res of the
unhappy incident. Such self-reported speech has been discussed by Clift (2006), who has doc-
umented its occurrence in everyday conversations as one of several ways of indexing epistemic
authority. But as far as we know, it has as yet not been discussed in courtroom contexts, an
institutional context where it would be more delicate.
A little later during the trial, F, who, unlike M, was an eyewitness to the events, was asked to
present his version of the circus incident by his attorney:

(Extract 4) F’s version (examined by his own attorney; direct examination)

1 FA: → And then- then I got scared again (1.2) and- and then I
2 → really told her off ’cause this had happened twice (.) and-
3 → and- and then I calm down (0.8) as quickly as I get angry (1.2)
4 a:nd well we were at the circus (.) and the whole show was
5 pretty much over then- (.) and we’d seen the elephants
6 → and >blah blah blah< and they thought it was great fun
7 (1.0) and suddenly C2 was just gone (1.5) and then- this is part
8 of the story then- then I went out and searched (.) and
9 because it was the final show they’d pretty much
10 taken down the whole circus (0.5)
... ((talk about the circus deleted))
22 FA: Uh hmh
23 F: → =but the show was over (0.5) and- and I- I said (.) loudly
24 that- that – it’s like this “you can’t behave like this” (0.5)
25 → and maybe I said it lou- louder than a conversational tone
26 → like because (.) my heart was in my mouth like (.) (Sw. i
 78 INGRIDS AND ARONSSON

27 halsgropen) pounding and- and I well- I’d have done

28 exactly the same thing today (.) because- ’cause (1.0) that’s
29 better than something bad happening to my child

In this set of contrasting descriptions, the two litigants talk about the same event: M reported
that F was “very very angry,” whereas F said (line 1) that he “got scared.” This is thus a set of
contrasting affect. Simultaneously, the actor-agency design (Pomerantz, 1978) of the narrative
has changed: F is here the victim of an unhappy incident, instead of its creator. Rather than acting
in a blameworthy way, he merely reacts to his child’s disappearance.
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When the circus show was almost over, the youngest girl “was just gone” (Swedish: “puts
väck,” line 7). This changes the overall meaning of M’s accusation, in particular the type of
agency involved. The girl was not “separated” (a victim of F’s negligence?) in a crowd at the
circus, but she was instead “just gone,” without telling him. This means that it was the girl who
was responsible for her disappearance. When he finally found her, he (did not yell as in M’s
version) but just told her “loudly” (line 23) not to disappear again. He had looked for her all over
and had “his heart in his mouth” (line 26), underpinning and embellishing his defense narrative
with reported affect and a formulaic expression.
There are clearly a number of transformations between M’s version and F’s. These transfor-
mations involve radical changes of reported affect. M’s rereporting of what C said about F’s
being “very very angry” is connected to her own claim about F’s being impatient. In contrast, F’s
statement that he “got scared” invokes feelings of (parental) concern. These contrasting affective
stances obviously go along with related differences in attributed moral agency and parenthood; a
concerned and “scared” parent has very different connotations from an “angry” father. F’s narra-
tive involves a transformation of agency that, in this case, also entails a change in accountability
and the temporal order of events. It is the child herself who went away, not F who lost her. It is
only in response to her running away repeatedly that he then also admits that he talked a bit
“loud” (lines 23, 25).
In many ways, F’s narrative is marked by prosodic displays (emphatic talk; e.g., line 7),
reported speech and affect, and other features of such vivid descriptions as in his self-quote:
“I- I said (.) loudly that- that- it’s like this ‘you can’t behave like this’” (line 24). It is also
notable that the litigants recurrently produced self-quotes. In this case, F does not openly contest
M’s account of his “yelling at the girls,” but he undermines her description by quoting himself
as someone who merely “said” something “loudly.” As can be seen, though, his self-quote is
exquisitely designed in that it simultaneously replaces his “yelling” in M’s version with “talking
loud.” Moreover, this alternative version of the incident provides something of a social account,
an excuse. When F invokes his strong fear and his desperate search for his daughter, his raised
voice becomes comprehensible. He can be seen to position himself as a concerned father (even if
that very word is not used), rather than as an (overly) impatient parent. Again, it can thus be seen
how his version radically transforms the actor-agency constellation.

Case 3: Reported Expert Talk

Next we will examine another set of contrasting stories where vivid descriptions are interwoven
into two opposing versions. On this occasion, M employed another type of reported speech,
namely, what we will call reported expert talk.
 REPORTED SPEECH AND REPORTED AFFECT 79

In a few cases, the litigants can be seen to back up the factuality of an event, and their own
epistemic authority, by invoking reported eyewitnesses, referring to people present at the scene
of the event but who do not actually testify in court (e.g., the sister-in-law in Extract 1). In some
cases, the “eyewitness” is an expert, a reported expert, something that allows the narrator to treat
this eyewitness as a type of substitute for first-order knowledge. Such indirect upgradings of
litigants’ epistemic authority can be seen below in M’s extensive references to a nurse, an expert
who actually saw the event.

Case 3: “A red mark of abuse or just a little pinky dot?” (Extract 5 versus 6). This set
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of contrasting narratives is from a case where both litigants claimed sole custody of their only
child, a boy aged 5. The narratives concerned a red “mark” found on his neck. M allegedly noticed
it when the child returned from a stay with F and chose to stop all subsequent contact between
F and C. Preliminary contrastive analyses between the two parents’ narrative versions revealed
two incompatible descriptions of the key event, invoking divergent actor-agency relations, where
F was either implicated as the victim of false accusations (F’s version) or as the perpetrator (M’s
version):
C was harmed by F (M’s version about the red mark: Ex. 5: lines 9–11)
C scratched himself at night (F’s version: Ex. 6: lines 11–12)

(Extract 5) M’s version (direct examination by her own attorney)

1 MA: Then (0.8) C came to you

2 (1.3)
3 M: C arrived (0.9) that M- Monday uh o- or Thursday (.) the
4 18th so- so then u:h I’d asked my (.) dad to be there (.) and
5 then (1.5) we’d agreed he’d be dropped off outside my
6 door (0.5) and then he arrived in F’s (.) car that’s like
7 a van a big van- a big van (0.5) C’s sitting (.) uh (.) in the
8 front (0.6) sitting like at the same height as my head (.) and
9 I like open the door to meet him (.) and the first thing I see
10 → is this mark and >I say< “MY God what’s happened to
11 your neck!” (1.5) u:h and F walks around the car to take a
12 → suitcase out (0.5) and he says like “yea:h well he scratched
13 himself during the night like and we put some ointment on
14 → it” (0.7) “Really” I said “that’s very- ” but I didn’t say
15 more. My dad came over too so he saw it too (1.0) uh and
16 then (.) uh tried- then we were going to- (0.7) I wanted to
17 get going as quickly as possible I always want to try (.) to
18 get so- so- and we were going to drive to X-land and we
19 were busy .hhh (1.2) packing so (.) w- we (.) well went up
20 to the apartment and- and- and we were going to that visit
21 at 10.30 so we finished packing and then (1.4) Dad drove
22 to the healthcare center
23 (1.5)
24 MA: → And what did they say?
... ((lines deleted; discussion on medical visit))
 80 INGRIDS AND ARONSSON

26 M: and took that blood test and then we were sent back- she
27 came and then said that uh (.) uh (.) “I cannot directly see
28 that there is something wrong with the blood values or
29 → things like that however I’m very much concerned about
30 this mark on his neck (0.5) because this is definitely-
31 this is not a scratch mark”
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During the examination, M is invited by her attorney to tell the story of the red mark.
According to her version, C arrives at her house by car, riding in the front seat. When she opens
the door, the first thing M sees is “this mark” on her son’s neck, and she produces a self-quote, in
this case a direct quote, reflecting her affect in facing the target event, “my God! What’s happened
to your neck!” She characterizes the incident as a dramatic one, starting off with a response cry
(Goffman, 1981), a startled cry, marking anxiety and the extraordinary nature of the event. In this
way, she both marks the authenticity of the event and presents herself as a “concerned” parent who
immediately noticed what had happened. This quote is delivered in a dramatic voice. She does
not recount what the child says, but she invokes a dialogue with him, employing the Swedish pro-
noun “din” (2nd person “your”; line 11). In analyses of tales of the unexpected, Wooffitt (1992,
p. 183) similarly documents “reported dialogue,” that is, a speaker’s use of stretches of reported
dialogues between him-/herself and someone else, as a resource for backing up contested stories.
In this episode, M also reports that her father “saw it too” (line 15), implicating that the
event was (objectively) accessible to others, invoking other eyewitnesses, reported witnesses,
as a way of objectifying and authorizing (Watson, 1990) her account and, on another level, thus
also underpinning and upgrading her own credibility.
Last, and most importantly, she then quotes an “expert witness” (not appearing in court), a
nurse who allegedly showed great concern for the red mark, “this is definitely- this is not a
scratch mark!” (lines 30–31) Thus, it is the nurse who sets the stage for suspicions of F; that he
might have harmed C and lied about the mark. This use of reported speech allows M to downplay
her own suspicions of F (Galatolo, 2007). Her credibility might be questioned (in view of the
high stakes involved), but by invoking a medical expert, she can be seen to upgrade her epistemic
claims, positioning herself as an “objective” witness, as it were. In brief, reported speech allows
her to animate the suspicion of someone else; she is merely the animator (Goffman, 1981) of an
attack, not its author.
Members of the medical establishment can be considered more entitled (Potter, 1996) to diag-
nose a red mark than a parent. Their epistemic authority (Heritage, 2012) is greater. Mobilizing
expert witnesses can thus be viewed as an attempt to both back up her blame account and upgrade
the credibility of her version (and on another level, her epistemic authority). Simultaneously, M’s
recruitment of an expert displays her concern for her child (the good parent’s orientation to the
child’s best interest).
It is also notable that M’s attorney does not interrupt during this rather long sequence. In fact,
her attorney encourages her to recount what they said at the health-care center (“And what
did they say?” line 24). This shows that the quote is an interactional (sequential) product of
attorney–parent collaboration. Moreover, it indicates that the reported speech of a medical expert
is potentially important for the court.
 REPORTED SPEECH AND REPORTED AFFECT 81

During the examination of F, the same event is then illuminated from his point of view.

(Extract 6) F’s version (direct examination by his own attorney)

1 FA: Can you tell us a little about these (.) red marks on C’s
2 neck?
3 F: → Well hhh. you know hhh. it’s horrible to be that someone
4 → can insinuate that I’ve hurt my son whom I’m- love so very
5 → much I .hhh moved here to be(.) with him like and .hhh as
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6 if I’d wait uh (.) until now to come up with something

7 idiotic well they’re so (1.5) it takes a lot of ill will to make
8 up something (1.0) u:h he had a m- he had a lot of sores
9 after this impetigo, he scratched himself at
10 night, .hhh (1.0) I slept beside him, and uh (1.0) know which-
11 → I tried to move his arm or tried- “don’t scratch don’t
12 scratch!” like that (.) and he has like mild psoriasis like (.)
13 well M and her mother have so the crook of his arm
14 itches .hhh so he wears long-sleeved- .hhh (.) uh what’s it
15 called (.) I put a long-sleeved (.) shirt on him when he- so
16 he uh on him- when he’s sleeping so he usually scratches
17 himself a bit like. But he scratched his neck a lot (.) .hhh so
18 we got up and put on some ointment and then (1.2) Well
19 that’s all. It wasn’t an especially big mark it was like my
20 pinky fingernail so what’s happened after I dropped him
21 off (.) before he went to the children’s clinic I- I- I don’t
22 even want to think about it (0.4) but I- in any case uh I
23 dropped him off and drove over (0.5) uh to her (1.0) and it
24 was 9 o’clock then the day before Midsummer that I left
25 him (1.0) and C didn’t want to get out of the car he wanted
26 → to show M hundreds of things in the car and “Come and sit
27 sit down Mommy and look! And-” (.) .hhh hhh. and then-
28 → then I said “Well (.) he has a mark on his ↑neck and he’s
29 scratched himself at night so you need to check- to check
30 so I’ve used ointment and you’ll have to continue checking
31 and using ointment and make sure he doesn’t (0.7) scratch
32 himself” (1.1) eh “Well eh but now we’re in a big hurry
33 grandpa is here coz we’ll go straight to X-land and he’s
34 here to help us pack and we’ll (.) .hhh like (.) yes”

First, F says that he is upset and offended by the fact that “someone can insinuate” that he
has harmed his boy “whom I love so very much,” employing reported affect as a resource in
upgrading his credibility.
Notably, F is invited by his own attorney to present his version of the red marks, and he seizes
this opportunity to give an extended account, an alternative version of the event, where he (like
M did) provides a detailed and vivid description, including both reported affect and self-quotes.
In his story, he offers three types of evidence. First, he says that he slept next to his son, which
 82 INGRIDS AND ARONSSON

can be seen as an indirect claim of epistemic access (and primacy). Second, he quotes himself
trying to stop his son from scratching himself (“don’t scratch don’t scratch!”), which both shows
his concern for his son and provides a vivid description of their interaction. As in some other
cases here, it is a hybrid quote, marked interactionally (see Clift, 2006), and not prefaced by any
epistemic verb. Third, and more importantly, his claim that C has psoriasis (line 12) provides a
plausible explanation for the scratching. His defensively detailed reports (Galatolo & Drew, 2006)
about the scratching can be seen as tailored to change the court’s perception of the agent-action
constellations; perhaps the son had harmed himself (through scratching), and it had not been the
father.
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Moreover, he can be seen to downgrade the seriousness of the problem (and therefore the
credibility of M’s description) by stating that it was a very small mark and not even red (“it was
like my pinky fingernail,” lines 19–20). Through such formulaic speech, he highlights that his
version does not accord with M’s (where she at some point, not excerpted for reasons of space,
referred to a 5-cm red mark, or something that one nurse likened to a “strangulation mark?”).
Last, he embellishes his discussion of the scratching through an extended self-quote where
he shows his concern and what he said to M about it (lines 28–31). Notably, the length of this
self-quote nicely matches the extended final quote in M’s testimony, and both extended DRS
sequences occur in the final part of the storytelling.
In brief, both M and F can be seen to employ reported affect and speech as interactional
resources. Whereas F does not invoke reported experts, he still deploys reported speech, but in
the form of self-quotes. It can be noted that in both story versions, the most extensive quotes
were located in the final parts of their storytelling. This pattern is representative of the data at
large, where direct quotes primarily occurred in storytelling sequences, and more extensive direct
quotes, such as reported dialogues, would recurrently occur in the final part of the story (Extracts
1, 5, and 6). They do not appear as narrative expansions in relation to yes/no questions (see
Galatolo & Drew, 2006) but can be seen as expanded parts of courtroom stories. This is, of
course, partly an effect of the soliciting by the attorneys, as in Extract 5, where the attorney
actually encouraged M to report what they said at the health-care center (“And what did they
say?”)

CONCLUDING DISCUSSION

The aim of this article was to show how disputing parties (parents, in this case) use direct reported
speech, and the reports of affect, to help establish their epistemic authority, and thus the credibility
of their version of critical events in their children’s lives. Epistemic authority was something that
had to be established by the participants in situ, presenting or challenging alternative stories.
Our findings show that the participants could be seen to employ two main methods for doing so:
alternative versions and vivid descriptions.
One of the main contributions of this article is its systematic documentation of a series of
transformations of actor-agency constellations (Pomerantz, 1978) that were talked into being
through courtroom examinations, transforming protagonists of opposing versions from victims
into culpable parties and vice versa. Specifically, the analyses document the role of DRS (Clark
& Gerrig, 1990; Holt, 1996, 2007) in building credibility through alternative stories, rendering
opinions both more “objective” or authentic and more vivid. Moreover, reported speech provided
a unique resource for including the child’s positions in this courtroom context.
 REPORTED SPEECH AND REPORTED AFFECT 83

With respect to epistemic authority, the child’s reported speech was recurrently deliv-
ered in marked ways, highlighting its special status in these trials. Direct quotes embel-
lished alternative narrative versions and were embedded in repeats, exaggerations, extended
utterances, formulaic expressions, and at times even reported dialogues (Extracts 5 and 6).
Direct quotes could be seen as important interactional resources for validating both authen-
ticity and epistemic authority (the parent heard what happened) and animating the absent
party, putting the listener in the child’s place through vivid descriptions. In courtroom con-
texts (as in more mundane contexts), DRS can be seen as a persuasive device (Watson,
1990). But since the litigants are known to have quite a lot at stake in the examinations
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(the future custody of the child is contested), self-quotes can be seen as less persua-
sive (low-level reports) if other factors are constant. Yet they are not uncommon in the
present data or mundane conversations (Clift, 2006, 2007; Holt, 1996, 2007). An impor-
tant explanation is, of course, the role of self-quotes in showing that someone actually
had epistemic access to target events. Our data indicate that there is something of a local
hierarchy of epistemic claims, where reported child or expert talk can be seen as more
persuasive than self-quotes. There are at least sequential patterns that gradually build up
to “higher” types of reported speech: Self-quotes or reported talk by third parties might
lead up to direct reported child talk or reported expert talk (see Extracts 1, 5, and 6).
Perhaps more importantly, the narratives would gradually go from being IRS to DRS (see,
for instance, Extract 1, where indirect reports about C’s speech were gradually built up into
DRS).
Direct reported speech was thus a particularly powerful device in the creation of alternative
versions with upgraded epistemic claims. What we have called reported affect was another discur-
sive device for creating vivid descriptions. Unlike Besnier (1992), who primarily discussed affect
as parts of reported speech, our use of reported affect is somewhat broader in that it also covers
assessments of the affects of self and others. All things being equal, reported affect could similarly
be seen to involve upgradings of the speaker’s epistemic authority and credibility. The parent not
only heard what the child said, but, as a concerned parent, s/he had also registered and recalled
the child’s feelings. Accordingly, reported affect was a recurrent feature of the litigants’ story
versions, underpinning and upgrading the credibility of same-side stories. Conversely, reported
affect would undermine the opponent’s version.
In sum, the subtle and complex interactional work of building vivid descriptions, including
both reported speech and affect, shows that the design of contrasting versions involves systematic
transformations of actor-agency constellations (Goodwin, 2007; Pomerantz, 1978). The partic-
ipants themselves apparently oriented to the persuasive qualities of reported speech and affect.
This could be seen sequentially in the very production of alternative versions and how these ver-
sions gradually were built up to upgraded epistemic claims. The result is a pattern of telling that
established and protected the litigant’s authority—a crucial support in the highly charged custody
battle over a child’s future.

FUNDING

This work was supported by the Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and
Welfare.
 84 INGRIDS AND ARONSSON

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APPENDIX

Swedish Originals

(1) Mother’s version

1 MA: På försommaren (.) 0X e det väl vi tänker på då ((harklar

2 sig)) blir det sen ytterligare accentuerat med konflikterna
3 (0.6) det e (.) innan du flyttar till X-stad då (.) eh (1.2)
4 stridigheter då >så att säga< där C >så att säga< e
5 involverad (1.5). Har du några exempel på de?
6 (1.5)
7 M: Ja: han e:h innan jag flyttade från Y-by så: (.) stod han och
8 putttade mig å slängde en vagn i trappan där på- i Y-by
9 (.) och detta fa- då fanns det min son och min svägerska
10 där å min son ställde sig mot där gick mellan honom å mig
11 → honom å mig å sa det till F (.)"du slår inte min mamma i
12 varje fall inte när ja är här” (1.8) mm då hade han slängt en
13 sulky på mej=
14 MA: Mm
15 M: → = C skrek förtvivlat (.) han [tog en sulky
16 MA: [Mm
17 (0.5)
18 M: → ja:hh de låter ju hemskt (.) han tog en sulky >å bara
19 slängde den på mej<
20 MA: Mm
21 (1.8)
22 MA: Men har C varit involverad på sätt att (.) eh mer
23 handgripligen >så att säga< i det här sammanhanget?
24 (1.3)
25 M: Hon har gått emellan [med-
26 MA: [Mm (.) m
27 M: → Hon har ställt sig- hon har hållit mig i: benen å skrikit
28 “mamma mamma mamma mamma .hhh gör de- gör det
29 ont? Gör det ont mamma? Gör det ont?”
 86 INGRIDS AND ARONSSON

(2) Father’s version

1 MA: M nämnde någonting om att (.) du skulle ha kastat en sulky

2 (.) till exempel på henne (0.6) e det nått (.) du kan minnas?
3 F: Jag kan berätta den händelsen (.) den blev också anmäld till
4 polisen utav M (1.3) e:h ja hade gått ut satt C i bilen i bil-
5 stolen, spänt fast henne, C satt med ryggen mot trappan
6 (1.2) ja går in därinne (.) dom är tre stycken (.)
7 alltså (.) eh hennes svägerska (.) S å hon (.)
8 → står å provocerar mej (1.2) ja går in därinne dom ställer
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9 sig i vägen (.)↑ja: jag tar tag i den här sulkyn (.) å snurrar
10 den ett varv i luften (.) men den träffar ingen (.) och jag >går
11 in å hämtar mina nycklar, går ut igen< då ställer dom sig
12 sig i vägen (.) jag går ut å sätter mej i bilen och kör därifrån
13 MA: > Jo ja förstår att ni har olika uppfattni[ngar=
14 F: [Ja
15 MA: =om vad som har hänt här<

(3) Mother’s version

1 M: Så- så eh han eh lugn å han e glad (.) å behandlar

2 barnen på bästa (.) sätt (1.0) tror jag
3 MA: Tror du ja (.) ja:?
4 M: De är mina slutsatser men sen när det blir rutin (.)
5 när det blir rutin (.) eh det är så dåligt att de inte e- e bra
6 för barnen
7 MA: Hur blir det då då? Hur reagerar F då? Vad händer
8 då?
9 M: → Ja då- då (1.0) då- då finns det inge tålamod. (.) Det
10 har jag sett med egna ögon un- under den tid vi levde
11 tillsammans
12 MA: Mhm
13 (1.2)
14 M: → E:h (2.5) å flickorna pratar om att han skriker mycket (1.5)
15 → e:h (0.8) C2 är den som- som eh gråter mest å som
16 → berättar mest (.) om (.) om hur jobbigt det e eh
17 (0.5) nu så har dom varit på cirkus till exempel å då
18 hade C2 behövt gå på toaletten (0.6) >berättade hon för
19 mig< (0.5) å då satt hon på toaletten och kom från (.) kom
20 → bort från pappa å C1 (.) å då hade han blitt “väldigt väldigt
21 arg” å avbrutit hela- hela (.) utflykten (.) å:h eh åkt hem med
22 barnen istället (.) som bestraffning för att C2 (.) alltså de
23 → är just de att han inte hör sig för (.) “Varför (0.6) eh gick
24 du iväg?” (1.5) utan att han eh bestraffar (.) direkt utan att ta
25 ta reda på varför de är som de e (1.5) så hel det ro- allt det
26 roliga tog slut
 REPORTED SPEECH AND REPORTED AFFECT 87

(4) Father’s version

1 FC: → A då- då blir jag rädd igen (1.2) å- å då sa jag

2 → till på skarpen så det här hade då hänt vid två tillfällen (.) å-
3 → å jag lugnar ner mig lika snabbt som jag (0.8) hetsar upp
4 mej (1.2) å: så var vi på cirkusen (.) å hela showen var i stort
5 sett eh färdig i- då (.) å vi hade sett elefanterna
6 → å >blah blah blah< å dom tyckte det var jättekul
7 (1.0) å helt plötsligt så är C2 puts väck (1.5) å då hör det till
8 saken att då- då g- gick jag ut och så leta jag (.) å eftersom
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9 det då var sista föreställningen så hade dom i stort sett

10 rivit hela cirkusen (0.5)
... ((talk about the circus deleted))
22 FC: Mhm
23 F: → =men föreställningen var slut (0.5) å- å ja- ja sa (.) högljutt
24 att- att det är liksom- du får inte göra så här (0.5)
25 → å jag kanske sa till ö- över samtalston liksom
26 → för att (.) med hjärtat i halsgropen liksom (.)
27 så- så ja å ja hade gjort precis samma sak idag
28 (.) för att- att (1.0) hellre det än att
29 det händer mitt barn nånting

(5) Mother’s version

1 MC: Sen kommer (0.8) C till dej?

2 (1.3)
3 M: C kom (0.9) den- m- måndag- e- eller torsdan där (.) den
4 18:e så- så e:h då hade jag bett min (.) pappa å va med (.) å
5 å då (1.5) hade vi kommit överens om att han skulle
6 lämnas utanför min port (0.5) å då kommer han i F:s (.) bil
7 bil som e sån här van- en stor van (0.5) C sitter (.) ehm
8 fram (0.6) å sitter liksom i höjd med mitt huvud (.) å jag
9 liksom öppnar för att ta emot honom (.) å det första ja ser
10 → är ju det här märket å >jag säger<”men Herregud vad
11 har hänt på halsen!” (1.5) e:h (.) å F kommer runt bilen för
12 → för att ta ut väskan (0.5) å han säger liksom “Ja: ja han har
13 klöst sig i natt liksom å vi satte på lite salva (0.7) "Jaha sa
14 → jag ”de var väldigt-” men jag sa inte så mycket mer.
15 Min pappa kom dit också så han såg ju också det här (1.0)
16 eh å sen (.) eh försök- sen skulle ju vi (0.7) ja ville komma
17 iväg så fort som möjligt jag vill alltid försöka komma så-
18 så å vi skulle åka till X-land å höll på .hhh (1.2) å packa
19 så (.) v- vi (.) gick väl upp i lägenheten och- och- och
20 vi skulle ju på det här besöket 10.30 så att vi packade
21 klart å sen (1.4) skjutsade pappa oss till
 88 INGRIDS AND ARONSSON

22 vårdcentralen
23 (1.5)
24 MA: Å va sa man där?
... ((lines deleted; discussion on medical visit))
26 M: å tog det där blodprovet å sen blev vi tillbak- kom hon
27 å så sa hon att ehm (.) eh (.) ”Jag kan inte direkt se
28 (.) att det är nåt fel på blodvärden eller såna saker men
29 → däremot så är jag oerhört bekymrad över det här märket
30 på halsen (0.5) därför att det är absolut- det är inget
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31 klösmärke”

(6) Father’s version

1 FA: Kan du berätta lite om dom hära (.) röda märkena på Cs

2 hals?
3 F: → Ja hhh. asså hhh. de är fruktansvärt att bli- eh det ska
4 → insinueras att man gjort illa min grabb som jag är- älskar
5 → så otroligt mycke ja .hhh flytta hit för att vara (.) me honom
6 liksom å .hhh att ja skulle ha vänta eh (.) till nu på att hitta
7 på å göra nån dum grej ja de e så (1.5) det ska mycket
8 illvilja till att hitta på något sånt (1.0) e:hm han hade en
9 massa märken från dom här svinkopporna, han klia sig på
10 natten, .hhh (1.0) ja låg brevid honom på natten och vet
11 → vilken- ja försökte å ta bort hans arm eller försökte-
12 ”klia inte klia inte"! å så där (.) å han har lite så här lätt
13 psoriasis som (.) ja M och hennes mamma har så att det
14 kliar sig i armvecken .hhh så att han har
15 långärmade- .hhh (.) ehm vaheterre (.) ja tar en långärmad
16 (.) tröja på han när han- så han sover så han brukar klia sig
17 lite grann liksom. Men han klia sig väldigt mycket
18 på halsen (.) .hhh så vi gick upp och vi smorde å så sen
19 (1.2) ja det var inge mer med de det var inte speciellt stort
20 märke det var som min lillfingernagel så vad som har hänt
21 efter jag lämna över honom (.) tills han kom till BVC de:
22 de- de- de vill jag inte ens tänka på (0.4) men ja- i
23 alla fall så lämna ja honom honom å körde där (0.5) ehm till
24 henne (1.0) å klockan nio då: på dan före midsommar
25 så lämna jag honom (1.0) å C ville inte ur- gå ur bilen utan
26 → han skulle visa hundra grejer till M i bilen å “kom å sätt
27 dej Mamma å- titta! Å- ” (.) .hhh hhh. också så- så- så
28 → sa jag ja: (.) han har ett märke på ↑halsen å han har kliat
29 kliat sig i natt å ni får väl hålla koll - å hålla koll så att har
30 satt salva å ni får väl fortsätta hålla koll å sätta salva å så
31 se till att han inte (0.7) kliar sig” (1.1) eh ”jo visst å
32 men nu har vi ju så väldigt bråttom morfar är här för vi
33 ska direkt till (.) X-land å han är här för att hjälpa
34 till å packa så vi ska (.) .hhh liksom (.) ja”