‘I've got a daughter now man it's clean man’: Heteroglossic and intersectional constructions of fatherhood in the spontaneous talk of a group of young southeast London men

This paper provides an insight into the heteroglossic and intersectional construction of fatherhood in the self-recorded, spontaneous talk of a group of young men from ethnically and racially mixed working-class backgrounds in southeast London. By adopting an interactional sociolinguistic approach, informed by Bakhtin’s (1981; 1984; 1986) work on dialogicality and Tannen’s (1989; 2004) notion of constructed dialogue, this paper explores the young men’s use of voices for their positioning in a range of fathering discourses which are shaped by and shape intersectional and hegemonic masculinities. Intersections of race, ethnicity and social class inform many of the young men’s positions, especially in their talk about the influences of hip hop on their children. This polyphony of voices allows the group to balance traditional discourses of fathers as providers, protectors and moral guides with contemporary models of intimate and involved fatherhood, but also competing discourses of virile masculinity and bad boy identity.