6 Flashcards
What is the effect of social interaction on language development?
social interaction is central to the child’s development of language
increasing complexity of language results in…
increasing complexity of language results in greater range and subtlety in how the child interacts with others
(3) fields that suggest children’s communicative development posit a central role to the child’s social interactions with others
Psychology (eg Bates,1976)
Linguistics (eg Halliday, 1975)
Sociology/conversation analysis (eg Schegloff, 1989)
Social interaction in phylogenetic studies suggest
social interaction plays a central role in how homo sapiens as a species came to develop language and communication (language evolution)
Social interaction in ontogenetic studies suggest
social interaction plays a central role in how children come to learn language and communication
Chomsky suggested language acquisition was the result of…
language acquisition as the learning of abstract rules (particular rules of grammar i.e. Chomsky (1957, 1965
Halliday (1975) suggests what about communicative functions and language development
Developmental trajectory (3)
some communicative functions develop before language (in the form of lexical development) has developed.
There is a developmental trajectory:
- the instrumental function (‘I want’)
- imaginative function (‘let’s pretend’)
- informative function (I’ve got something to tell you’)
Bates (1976) suggests what about communicative functions and language development
Bates (1976): lexical forms emerge to express functions/meanings which are already in the child’s repertoire and have previously been expressed by other forms (e.g. gesture/non-lexical vocalisations)
Bruner (1983): suggests what about communicative functions
Bruner (1983): communicative functions are facilitated by a Language Acquisition Support System (LASS)
the interaction patterns between an adult and a child which focus on predictable formats eg games with demarcated roles (which later become reversible)
Define Interaction/social interaction:
Interaction/social interaction: any form of social interaction between 2 or more people (e.g. two infants playing silently together)
Define Conversation:
Conversation: social interaction that involves talk (this doesn’t have be an adult form of conversation)
Conversation Analysis focuses on..
analyses utterances in relation to.. (2)
focuses on naturally occurring social interaction/conversation
analyses utterances in relation to:
context
how they are responded to by others
Factors of turn-taking: (4)
talk-by-one-person is an outcome which it takes all participants to produce
Ability to listen while talking or talk while listening during overlapping talk
that people can still be ‘talking’ even if they are silent (e.g. in trying to remember a name), or have finished a sentence (e.g. in telling a story)
that talk may be interruptive if it comes before a sequence (such as making arrangements) is complete
Sidnell (2016): social accountability
social accountability: children increasingly fit in with the adult rules of conversation over time.
3 broad areas of interactional/conversational development in children:
The development of request forms in children
The use of pre-sequences by children
Repair in parent-child talk
Amy 2-3.5 years - how do request forms develop
decline of ‘I like x’ as a request form and increase in ‘Can you…?’ and ‘Shall we..?’
‘Can you’ request forms are used in what context?
‘Can you’ forms: are used in contexts where some types of imperative were previously used, and when she is aware there is no reason why she should expect the parent to be compliant with her request
‘Shall we’ request forms are used in what context? (2)
‘Shall we’ forms: used eg when child has grounds to believe the parent will comply with what is being requested.
show an understanding that both the child and the parent have a stake or interest in a positive outcome to what is being requested
‘Shall we’ are what type of request form?
‘proposals’ which function distinctively compared to other forms of request (eg they presuppose that both parties will benefit from the suggestion)
2 ways children participate with other children
Recruitments “shall we…”
explicit requests, invitations, proposals
agreement/acceptance relevant from the other child
Engagements: “look a ball” more implicit forms of invitation to make others participate and don’t make agreement/acceptance relevant from the other child
what is a ‘presequence’ (1) example (1)
Requesting the right to take the floor and become the main speaker
‘daddy’ ‘guess what’
What function to presequences have? what is the result of a presequence (3) (1)
Children appear to have limited ‘rights to speak’ when interacting with one or more adults
- Child: pre-sequence (‘daddy?’)
- Adult: go-ahead (eg ‘what?’)
- Child: opportunity – indeed obligation – to produce a turn-at-talk
or their attempt to speak may be put on hold (‘wait’…) or ignored
Define Repair
Repair: behaviours used to deal with trouble in speaking, hearing or understanding (Schegloff, 2000)
Two parts to repair (2)
Who repairs? (2)
Two parts to repair: repair initiation and the repair itself
Can be done by ‘self’ (person whose talk contains the trouble) or ‘other’ (another speaker)
‘self-initiated self-repair’
Most commonly the speaker repairs himself (‘self-initiated self-repair’) and does this in the same turn ie speaker notices a problem, and resolves it there and then
‘other-initiated self-repair’
If the recipient (‘other’) has a problem with what has just been said by the speaker he can other-initiate repair (eg ‘pardon?’) and leave it to the first speaker to self-repair (‘other-initiated self-repair’). This can happen even if the first speaker made an error
‘Other-repair’
Adult (1) and child (2)
‘Other-repair’ (i.e. correction by another speaker)
rare in adult conversation (issues of ‘face’ and competence).
Parents’ other-repairs are quite common, part of a language learning activity within conversation ie:
Parent’s turn corrects child’s error
Child tries again using parent’s correction
What age do children start self-repair?
1 year
What age: complex self-initiated self-repairs in the same turn eg re-doing the whole utterance-so-far
2years
As the child develops, a greater pattern of self-initiated self-repair is apparent ie now the child is monitoring and correcting him/herself, and moving towards the pattern of a competent adult carrying out repair
