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Purpose – This chapter presents 5- to 12-year-old girls in their performances of persuasion and social control among peers in their inner city Neapolitan neighborhood of the Quartieri Spagnoli. It demonstrates how Quartieri Spagnoli girls employ rhetorical practices of appiccecarse (argumentation), specifically “shutdown” attacks, in attempts to advance one's social positioning and present themselves in control of a situation, while contemporaneously creating moral order among peers. In addition, this chapter elucidates how conflict can also strengthen relational bonds through the creation of alliances.Methodology/approach – The analysis is based on 16 months of linguistic anthropological fieldwork. Seven focal girls and 16 of their female peers were observed and video-recorded in the home and in neighborhood streets.Findings – Quartieri Spagnoli girls deploy a grammar of social control, including threats, directives, insults, physical attacks, wit, and intonation, to influence each other's behaviors and establish alliances and social hierarchy in their peer groups. This chapter demonstrates how those who demand control present themselves as agents who have power over other subjects and who themselves cannot be acted upon.Social implications – Girls’ rhetorical skills serve to buy them status and situational power in their peer groups, offsetting feelings of powerlessness in an environment where they are otherwise excluded from mainstream peer groups and society.Originality/value of chapter – This chapter offers a window onto young girls’ verbal prowess in establishing respect on inner city streets, a topic that has been almost exclusively reserved for males.
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