Newsgroups: bit.listserv.qualrs-l
Date:         Sun, 24 Jan 1993 16:25:00 EST
From:         Monika Ardelt <UMONIA@UNC.BITNET>
Subject:      Example for structural hermeneutics

To all who still care about the method of structural hermeneutics;
here is the example:

The example is taken from
       Oevermann, Ulrich (1981): Fallrekonstruktionen und
       Strukturgeneralisierung als Beitrag der objectiven
       Hermeneutik zur soziologisch-strukturheoretischen
       Analyse, Frankfurt/Main, unpublished manuscript.

I have (freely) translated and summarized the analysis.
The following interaction takes place between two persons, C and M.

C1: Mommy, when am I getting something to eat?  I'm so hungry?
    (Mutti, wann krieg ich denn endlich mal was zu essen?
    Ich hab so Hunger.)
M1: Please. Would you like to make your sandwich yourself or should
    I make it for you?
    (Bitte.  Moechst dein Brot selbst machen oder soll ich dir's
    schmieren.)
C2: I don't care.
    (Is mir egal.)
M2: OK, do it yourself.
    (Also mach's selbst.)
C3: Oh no.
    (Ach nein.)
M3: Come on Kurt.  Here is the margarine.
   (Kurt komm.  Hier ist die Margarine.)

We start the interpretation without knowing anything (or ignoring)
the context in which the interaction takes place, thereby trying
to invent as many different stories as possible that might fit the
first statement.  (We keep in mind that a statement can always be
a citation or made by an actor on stage.)

C1: Mommy, when am I getting something to eat?  I'm so hungry?

Examples for meaningful stories:
1. The speaker is a small child who asks for something to eat at a
   time when he/she normally gets something or the child has already
   asked for something to eat before without success.
2. A husband who addresses his wife with "mommy" has just gotten back
   from work and sits now at the kitchen table or in front of the T.V.
   in the living room.
3. A sick older child calls his/her mother from the bedroom.

All these "stories" have the following in common:
1. The speaker is really hungry and it is not surprising to the
   interaction partner that he/she is indeed hungry.
2. At the time when the interaction takes place C's meal is more
   than due, either because it is past breakfast/lunch/dinner time or
   M did already agree to give C something to eat.
3. C cannot be asked by M to make something for him- or herself at this
   time.  It is a part of M's duty to provide something to eat for C.

Now we confront our list of stories with the actual context in which
the interaction takes place:
C is a six-year-old boy who made the above remark after the whole family
sat down at the dinner table (Germans eat sandwiches at dinner time).
On the table were bread, sandwich meat, butter, and tomatoes.  Everybody
was free to start.

Comparing our stories with the actual context shows that none of our
meaningful stories fit the data.  So what does the statement objectively
mean?  We conclude that the statement indicates some deviation from
normality or a peculiarity of this particular case.
For example, it might be possible that the six-year-old son is not
required to make his own sandwich.  This would already characterize
this case as peculiar since six-year-old children in middle class
Germany are normally asked to make their own sandwich (the sandwiches
are less elaborate than in the U.S.).  However, previous observations
have shown that C often makes his own sandwich.
An alternative explanation might be that the boy wishes - unconsciously
or consciously - to be treated like a smaller child or that he imagines
that he actually is a smaller child.

This interpretation suggests that the boy is not clear about his own
identity and/or that he asks for more attention and affection from his
mother by behaving like a small boy.
This would mean that he asks for two things simultaneously on two
independent levels: on the context level he asks for food but on the
relationship level he asks for attention and affection.  Hence, somehow
the mother has to respond on both levels.

It should be noted that at this stage of the analysis, the
interpretation is nothing more than a possible hypothesis that fits
the data so far.  It is not meant as a description of the boy's
psychological reality.  The hypothesis needs to be tested by confronting
it with other pieces of data.

M1: Please. Would you like to make your sandwich yourself or should
    I make it for you?

The mother responds on the context level by rejecting her son's reproach
that he cannot get anything to eat.  "Please. (Everything is ready.
Take it if you want.)"  At the same time she seems to engage in
democratic parenting behavior by letting the son decide if he wants to
make his sandwich himself or not.  By doing so, however, she neither
accepts nor rejects her son's wish on the relationship level, namely to
be treated like a small child.  She just ignores it.  If she had said,
"Oh, do you want to play my little boy again who cannot make his own
sandwich" and had made him the sandwich, then she would have accepted
and fulfilled his wish and at the same time labeled it as an exception.
If she had made his sandwich without commenting on it, she would have
accepted his wish as normal.  In this case, she would have reacted as
an over-providing/over-protecting mother who hampers her son's
age-appropiate development.  Finally, if she had replied, "Really, you
are old enough to make your own sandwich" and refused to make the
sandwich for him, she would have rejected her son's wish on the
relationship level.  The son would have been forced either to adapt to
reality or to protest and to insisist that his wish should be fulfilled.
In any case, he would have been forced to confront his own
(unconscious?) wish to be treated as a smaller boy than he is.

If the mother had reacted in any of these three ways the boy would
have either gotten the attention and affection he wanted (and maybe
desperately needs because he was previously deprived of it) or he would
have been confronted with his age-inappropriate behavior.  The real
reaction of the mother, however, ignores the relationship level of the
interaction completely and, hence, the actual desire of her son.  In
this way, she refuses to be a concrete, affective mother for him.  She
is a mother only in the sense that she fulfills the universal role
obligations and expectations of a mother (raising her son to become
independent), but she is not a concrete, non-replaceable person who
offers her son personal acceptance and affection.

This analysis of the latent structure of meaning shows that the
seemingly democratic and friendly reaction of the mother is much more
devastating to the son than would have been an on the surface more
authoritarian direct rejection of the son's wishes.
It can now be hypothesized that the mother's affective rejection of her
son is the primary cause of the boy's identity confusion.
By making himself smaller, he tries to get the lacking affection from
his mother.  The mother, however, refuses to acknowledge the affective
meaning of the interaction and behaves in a role conforming but
unpersonal manner, thereby ignoring the affective needs of her son.

The son's reply to his mother is
C2: I don't care.

On the context level, this answer clearly contradicts his first
statement.  If he really doesn't care if he or his mother makes his
sandwich, then he could not have made the first statement.
If we only look at the context level this inconsistency can be
interpreted as a sign of poor language abilities or even poor cognitive
abilities.  However, on the relationship level the answer makes
perfectly sense because it means as much as "I'm not interested in
your reply because you do not respond to my request for more affection."

M2: OK, do it yourself.

Again, the mother does not respond to the relationship level of the
interaction and to her son's request for more affection.  If the son
"doesn't care" then she might as well ask him to perform an age-
appropriate behavior.  She doesn't realize that her previous statement
(M1) is responsible for her son's inconsistency.  She might even be
annoyed that her son's behavior is so unpredictable.
The son, however, cannot do what his mother wants without admitting
that his first statement was meaningless and without contradicting
himself.  His next statement shows that he is not willing to do this.

C3: Oh no.

The son returns to his original request of having his sandwich made
for him as if he were a small child.  Thereby he denies his previous
statement (C2) but confirms his first statement (C1) that was
contradicted by C2.  On the relationship level he remains consistent
although his statements seem to contradict each other.

Again the mother refuses to deal with her son's affective needs by
completely ignoring his last statement.  Instead, the mother addresses
his brother Kurt who is two years younger than he is.

M3: Come on Kurt.  Here is the margarine.

The older son is now totally "left out in the cold."  The younger
brother, not he, gets the attention that he desires.  Not only is the
younger brother a serious competitor for the mother's affection and
attention but the mother also behaves in a way as if the younger
brother could make his own sandwich without any problems.  The last
statement of the mother also shows that our previous hypothesis that
the six-year-old son is expected to make his own sandwich is valid.
Since the mother expects that her four-year-old son will make his own
sandwich, she certainly expects the same behavior from her older son.
The younger son is now clearly the winner:  first, he got his mother's
attention at a moment when the older son desperately and unsuccessfully
asked for it; and second, he is treated as being more competent than
his older brother.  Although he is younger, he is apparently able to do
what the mother unsuccessfully asked from his older brother.  The older
son has lost completely.  Neither did he behave in an age-appropriate
manner by making his own sandwich, nor did he get his sandwich made,
nor did he get the attention and affection from his mother that he
desired.  He is neither clearly accepted nor clearly rejected; he is
nothing.  But when one is nothing then, at the same time, one is also
everything which might be the primary reason for the older son's
identity confusion.

The so far developed theory about the latent structure of this
particular case can now be tested by analyzing other interactions
between the members of this family (and especially between mother and
older son).  In particular, one should concentrate on interactions that
seem to contradict the theory.  The theory should be modified until it
sufficiently "explains" the case under investigation.

Please let me remind you that the above analysis is a summary of the
actual analysis which might take much longer by considering many more
alternative explanations.  But I hope you get the idea.

Monika Ardelt
(umonia@unc.bitnet)
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU