Language of Love and Guilt

Although mother and daughter are two central female roles, they have rarely been investigated. The relationship is specific, certainly different than the mother-son or father-daughter relationships. And this difference manifests itself in sex-specific language behavior. Despite 'eternal' features of the mother-daughter relationship, its quality is affected by individual psychological and by sociocultural variables. Thus, investigations took place in two big cities with very different structures and traditions: Vienna and Los Angeles. This is the first cross-cultural study which reflects and combines multiple linguistic, socio-psycholinguistic and text linguistic categories, approaches and methods to be able to investigate such an important topic as family relationships and the 'place' of women nowadays in our societies.