Language Analysis Text A
Katamba
Francis Katamba’s findings were that parents most frequently use the definite article ‘a’, whereas children acquire this after ‘ing’ and ‘s’ endings.This is supported by the fact that in Text A the mother encourages the use of the definite article, ‘a’, by repeating it before every noun. The mother has to give the child the definite article:
• M: Its not a cot. It’s a ….
• A: bed
However there is one scenario where the child uses the definite article
• M: Not a chair (1.0) a
• A: a TABLE
But this is the only instance where the definite article is used by Anna because she has been prompted to use it. So as Katamba identified, the parent uses the definite article much more frequently than her child What is more, the child fails to use the possessive ‘s’ A: Post Pat Chair or any ‘ing’ endings
Skinner
Skinner said that language is acquired through operant conditioning. Those utterances that are rewarded/reinforced become stronger. Negative and positive reinforcements are used in this transcript:
• M: Good Girl -encourages a correct answer
• M: Not a chair –Highlights an incorrect answer
The operant conditioning provokes a correct answer from Anna on every occasion. This theory was supported also by Pavlov who believed that children learned through association.
Chomsky vs Bruner
The LAD cited by Chomsky refers to the predisposition of a child to language acquisition through a set of language learning capacities. Bruner argues that if this is the case there must also be a LASS (Language Acquisition Support System) such as parents or teachers that the child can learn from. It frames or structure the input of language and interaction in the child's LAD, in a manner to make system function. Bruner’s argument is supported in the text, following the use of questions by
• M: do you like beans
• A: I like beans
This was successful since later in the text the child announces unprompted: I like sausage. Without the mother asking, therefore the child has learnt from it’s experience of society’s support.
Vygotsky vs Piaget
Vygotsky’s ZPD ( Zone of Proximal Development) is similar to the LASS as it argues that a child can only perform language functions with the assistance of someone else. This person is the scaffolding process. He would argue that the child demonstrates the linguistic skill termed intermental learning. This is when a child can interact with the help of another person but cannot accomplish ‘decontextualisation’
Piaget argued that too much scaffolding/ teacher involvement hinders the child’s acquisition of language since it suppresses their cognitive functions. In relation to the text this is proved as the the topic management of M, prevents the child initiating or exploring her own ideas and language. M is testing the child on knowledge and recognition of nouns eg: M: Whats that? A: Post Pat chair. This is limiting the child from developing more complex syntactical structures. However, Brown and Fraser suggest that nouns are what children repeat most, as a test in 1963 demonstrated. So perhaps the mother is simply utilising this fact.
Brown - MLU
Brown uses MLU to judge the competence of a child’s use of language. Anna’s MLU is 1.6. Is this because scaffolding is hinder her expression or is Anna vocabulary simply limited by her age?
The Transcript
The child's language is very personal and egotistical ‘I like beans’. So the mother is important in teaching the child beyond this about other people in the wider world.
The child is in the telegraphic stage, and so the lack of complexity means certain parts of information are omitted. This makes the child's language very reliant upon pragmatics, that an adult caregiver is essential in interpreting, especially in the one-word utterance ‘Lunar’. If the adult was not present and perhaps, interaction was with another child, then language acquisition would be slower as the child may not understand the underlying context. The parent controls the topic management, therefore the child is grammatically only developing declarative sentences, not interrogatives.
The mother uses a similar method to teacher - scribe, but for the acquisition of spoken language. M asks what the object is and once identified, then reinforces this with the written text.
Although the child understands concepts of ‘he’ and ‘him’ when used by the mother, she does not use them herself. This suggests that the child understands the context and is likely to use pronouns in future situations, thus the adult caregiver is a source of information.
Showing posts with label Paragraph Structure. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Paragraph Structure. Show all posts
Thursday, 27 May 2010
Pol and Pax in the Salty Red Sea - Children's Book Dissection
Pol and Pax in the Salty Red Sea
Nelson ‘New Way’ Series, Orange Level
How The Text Teaches
Syntax
LINEATION
The sentences are in extended paragraphs on separate pages. There is not one line to a single page, this indicates that the children reading this type of text are at a higher reading level and place less dependence on the amount of visual contextualisation through pictures to understanding the meaning of the text.
SENTENCE TYPES
There is a mixture of long and short sentences with varying complexity. As a child would now be familiar with short simple sentences there are examples of both compound and complex syntax.
There is a mixture of both present and past sentences to familiarise children with grammatical structures and to introduce them to more complicated verbs.
Future: We’ll have to look in our sea and river atlas.”
Past: “He had caught a small shark.”
Compound: “They eat a slice of brain food every day and this makes them as clever as they need to be”
Complex: “They wanted to see which of them could catch the strangest fish”
There are interrogatives: “Can you please tell me how I can get to the salty red seas”
Declaratives: “We only east brain food.”
and Imperatives: “Please go and get it.”
SUBJECT/VERB POSITION
“They wanted to see which of them could catch the strangest fish”
In the sentence above the phrase ‘which of them’ is the object of the first clause and the subject of the second. This is a far more complicated order than younger texts and so develops their understanding.
The text however still avoids passive sentences, as this ellipsis can confuse children at this age. (orange level is ages 5-6).
Nelson ‘New Way’ Series, Orange Level
How The Text Teaches
Syntax
LINEATION
The sentences are in extended paragraphs on separate pages. There is not one line to a single page, this indicates that the children reading this type of text are at a higher reading level and place less dependence on the amount of visual contextualisation through pictures to understanding the meaning of the text.
SENTENCE TYPES
There is a mixture of long and short sentences with varying complexity. As a child would now be familiar with short simple sentences there are examples of both compound and complex syntax.
There is a mixture of both present and past sentences to familiarise children with grammatical structures and to introduce them to more complicated verbs.
Future: We’ll have to look in our sea and river atlas.”
Past: “He had caught a small shark.”
Compound: “They eat a slice of brain food every day and this makes them as clever as they need to be”
Complex: “They wanted to see which of them could catch the strangest fish”
There are interrogatives: “Can you please tell me how I can get to the salty red seas”
Declaratives: “We only east brain food.”
and Imperatives: “Please go and get it.”
SUBJECT/VERB POSITION
“They wanted to see which of them could catch the strangest fish”
In the sentence above the phrase ‘which of them’ is the object of the first clause and the subject of the second. This is a far more complicated order than younger texts and so develops their understanding.
The text however still avoids passive sentences, as this ellipsis can confuse children at this age. (orange level is ages 5-6).
Sunday, 16 May 2010
Exam Essay January 2004 AQA Spec B - Model Answer
A model answer taken from
*Caveat - Please be aware this is a MODEL answer*
.
The transcript has been set in both a domestic and a child’s play context, and the fact that the speakers involved are of a completely different linguistic capability due to age, makes the interactions all the more interesting. Although the playgroup assistant tries to address the children at the same level, using the same register, there are pragmatic connotations of patronisation because he/she is involved at a much deeper intellectual level. The way in which the caregivers interact with the children says a lot about their preferred methods of language acquisition, and there is clear evidence of Piaget’s theory of egocentric speech. The children, particularly Victoria are clearly using language to explore the environment around them, and attempt to include the adults in their own imaginary world. This also links in with Michael Halliday’s taxonomy which states that labelling is one of the fundamental aspects of language. The children feel a need to use declaratives and exclamations to state what is happening around them and what they are doing to try and help others understand them and try to understand themselves.
In terms of initiation of conversation, the caregivers are usually responsible, because although they are clearly looking down on them in terms of register and cannot really address them at their same level, they are trying to develop the topic, encourage socialisation and get the children into the habit of giving reasons for their actions, and appreciating the larger picture. For example, when Sophie is talking about how she is making her cake with playdoh, the Playground Assistant cleverly responds with two cleverly placed interrogatives: “you rolled it out did you Sophie? (2.0) who helps mummy bake?”. Here, she is re-capping what has happened and encouraging Sophie to think at a deeper level by making the connection between her child’s play and real baking at home. At an even deeper pragmatic level, the assistant is hinting at Sophie’s capability as a cook and suggesting that she should help her elders. Sophie plays along, and the conversation develops as she gives a piece of her “cake” to the playgroup assistant, perhaps because it gives her a feeling of superiority and motherliness. The assistant rewards this development by rewarding her with positive reinforcement.
In fact, the behaviourist theories of Skinner are clearly evident in this transcript, as the caregivers constantly reward the children for good behaviour and speech, by thanking them and using deictic declaratives such as “that’s there” and “like that” to guide them. However, I found the techniques fairly unusual compared to research that I have carried out myself. I filmed a session at a playgroup party which my cousin of 20 months attended, and found that the language used by the carers there also used negative reinforcement and correction, and that many of the statements had an interrogative tagged on the end, such as “wow that’s very pretty, isn’t it?”, in order to constantly demand interaction and response from the children themselves.
The lexis and grammar used by the children is often non-standard as would be expected at such a crucial learning and language development stage. Perhaps the most obvious grammatical variation is the use of overgeneralization by Sophie, Victoria and Jordan (who imitates the others) when they say: “it’s ate” and “you’ve been eaten again”. Here, the children have attempted to be adventurous and use the past tense, though they clearly unaware of the fact that the past participle of the verb “to eat” is irregular, and is therefore “eaten” not “ate”. This backs up Chomsky’s idea that we have a built-in LAD (language acquisition device). This is because it is obvious that the children have been made aware of a grammatical rule and have attempted to use it, but still do not know of the contexts where the rule does not apply or where there are irregularities. Also in this example, there is some confusion as to whether to use the active or the passive voice. Perhaps they are trying to say that the cake has been eaten, and then carried the rule forward when they meant to use the possessive pronoun “yours” to say “your cake has been eaten again”. Although these key auxiliary verbs have been omitted, it is still fairly easy to understand the semantic meanings the children are trying to display. One could deduct that although the children are being minimalistic in their grammatical approach, they are able to express themselves fairly well.
In cases where the child does not know the semantic label for an object, instead of guessing (which would result in a mismatch), they tend to use an adjective to try and interpret what they mean, e.g. “look at the blue”. Although it is unclear to us as the reader what object Victoria is referring to, the other people in the situation are likely to know what she means, particularly as it is likely that this exclamation was accompanied by paralinguistic features.
The caregivers themselves sometimes use non standard grammar, which is evidence against Skinner’s ideas on imitation; because it could be argued that this non-standard grammar will have an effect on the grammar development of the impressionable children. The main example of this is when the playgroup assistant asks “Sophie gave it you?” The removal of the preposition ‘to’ is common in informal speech and many dialects but may cause confusion if the children think that indirect verbs such ‘give’ and ‘speak’ do not require the construction ‘to’ after them.
The lexis is mostly monosyllabic for simplicity reasons, and more emphasis is placed on the content of speech rather than on the lexical capacity of the children, because the transcript was written in a context of child’s play and social interaction is more important than linguistic education. There are lots of concrete nouns within the text such as ‘cake; and ‘playdoh’, and although there is a lack of abstract concepts within the lexis, there are distinct pragmatics of friendship, duty and helping one another. There are lots of verbs, as there is an emphasis on actions, and some of them are particularly dynamic such as ‘scream’, ‘break it in two’, and ‘cutting up’. This is because the environment is very active, and there is an impression that the caregivers are struggling to keep the children under control.
Phonologically speaking, there are some examples of reduplication, and although theories suggest that this is outgrown at a much younger age, it is evidence that children still like to play around with sounds and explore language by babbling. As Vygotski says, egocentric speech is something we never outgrow and we actually rely on it. Timmy takes the word ‘do’ and then experiments by making a rhythm/song by repeating this syllable.
The language of the playground assistant is not particularly lexically diverse, though he/she clearly has a greater lexical capacity than the children. Instead of using this however, he/she tends to make the instructions more visual by giving demonstrations, pointing at things and handing out objects. The caregivers use simple sentences, easily accessible syntax and lots of demonstrative pronouns to keep the children’s interest whilst also encouraging them to learn new words such as ‘floury’ and ‘elephant’.
The negotiations and interactions of the parent is noticeably different to the methods used by the playground assistants, possibly because they have a closer and more informal relationship with their child, and they feel a lesser responsibility towards their social development at playtime. After all, the playgroup assistant is paid for this purpose and will have received relevant training. The parent prefers to use negative reinforcement: “oh my goodness me (1.0) scream the house down”, and there are heavy connotations which suggest that noise is bad, and that the child is notorious for being overly noisy and therefore an annoyance to the parent.
The playground assistant however, is constantly provoking a personal response from the children by using direct imperatives and interrogatives, never letting her attention wander, and allowing herself to be involved with the conversation at all times whilst almost distancing herself and encouraging the children to play amongst each other. He/she acts as a mediator and is clearly trying to keep the peace and do what is fair and unbiased. The caregivers try to get involved by developing the ideas of the children and trying to join them in their imaginary world, however the language they use is more phatic and realistic rather than heuristic, suggesting that they are unable to connect with the children at their level. For example, the playgroup assistant asks the children: “is it frying in the pan”. Some crying and laughter follows this suggestion, meaning that the children did not accept or follow on from this idea. The children are clearly absorbed in their play and do not appreciate such interruptions because they do not conform to their agendas.
The playground assistant is highly successful in displaying power whilst also being friendly and approachable. She makes suggestions and gives justification for most of her imperatives so she does not give an impression of being extremely strict, e.g. “you’ve got to roll it like this Jordan (2.0) so that it’s really thin”. The register is mainly very informal, but it is still obvious that the playground assistant has the most power in the room, perhaps even more than the parents, because he/she is the only one who uses imperatives and really engages with the children. He/she is the one who asks the questions and gives the children options such as “does anyone want to do an elephant shape?” In fact, one could deduce that the assistant has actually earned the power in the situation by listening in on the game and trying to involve herself with the imaginary world, whereas the parent struggles to do this and thinks only of the behaviour of his/her children. The overlapping and interruptions of the text only occur to the caregivers’ expense, suggesting that the children have the underlying power because they can create more havoc and easily outnumber the adults.
*Caveat - Please be aware this is a MODEL answer*
.
The transcript has been set in both a domestic and a child’s play context, and the fact that the speakers involved are of a completely different linguistic capability due to age, makes the interactions all the more interesting. Although the playgroup assistant tries to address the children at the same level, using the same register, there are pragmatic connotations of patronisation because he/she is involved at a much deeper intellectual level. The way in which the caregivers interact with the children says a lot about their preferred methods of language acquisition, and there is clear evidence of Piaget’s theory of egocentric speech. The children, particularly Victoria are clearly using language to explore the environment around them, and attempt to include the adults in their own imaginary world. This also links in with Michael Halliday’s taxonomy which states that labelling is one of the fundamental aspects of language. The children feel a need to use declaratives and exclamations to state what is happening around them and what they are doing to try and help others understand them and try to understand themselves.
In terms of initiation of conversation, the caregivers are usually responsible, because although they are clearly looking down on them in terms of register and cannot really address them at their same level, they are trying to develop the topic, encourage socialisation and get the children into the habit of giving reasons for their actions, and appreciating the larger picture. For example, when Sophie is talking about how she is making her cake with playdoh, the Playground Assistant cleverly responds with two cleverly placed interrogatives: “you rolled it out did you Sophie? (2.0) who helps mummy bake?”. Here, she is re-capping what has happened and encouraging Sophie to think at a deeper level by making the connection between her child’s play and real baking at home. At an even deeper pragmatic level, the assistant is hinting at Sophie’s capability as a cook and suggesting that she should help her elders. Sophie plays along, and the conversation develops as she gives a piece of her “cake” to the playgroup assistant, perhaps because it gives her a feeling of superiority and motherliness. The assistant rewards this development by rewarding her with positive reinforcement.
In fact, the behaviourist theories of Skinner are clearly evident in this transcript, as the caregivers constantly reward the children for good behaviour and speech, by thanking them and using deictic declaratives such as “that’s there” and “like that” to guide them. However, I found the techniques fairly unusual compared to research that I have carried out myself. I filmed a session at a playgroup party which my cousin of 20 months attended, and found that the language used by the carers there also used negative reinforcement and correction, and that many of the statements had an interrogative tagged on the end, such as “wow that’s very pretty, isn’t it?”, in order to constantly demand interaction and response from the children themselves.
The lexis and grammar used by the children is often non-standard as would be expected at such a crucial learning and language development stage. Perhaps the most obvious grammatical variation is the use of overgeneralization by Sophie, Victoria and Jordan (who imitates the others) when they say: “it’s ate” and “you’ve been eaten again”. Here, the children have attempted to be adventurous and use the past tense, though they clearly unaware of the fact that the past participle of the verb “to eat” is irregular, and is therefore “eaten” not “ate”. This backs up Chomsky’s idea that we have a built-in LAD (language acquisition device). This is because it is obvious that the children have been made aware of a grammatical rule and have attempted to use it, but still do not know of the contexts where the rule does not apply or where there are irregularities. Also in this example, there is some confusion as to whether to use the active or the passive voice. Perhaps they are trying to say that the cake has been eaten, and then carried the rule forward when they meant to use the possessive pronoun “yours” to say “your cake has been eaten again”. Although these key auxiliary verbs have been omitted, it is still fairly easy to understand the semantic meanings the children are trying to display. One could deduct that although the children are being minimalistic in their grammatical approach, they are able to express themselves fairly well.
In cases where the child does not know the semantic label for an object, instead of guessing (which would result in a mismatch), they tend to use an adjective to try and interpret what they mean, e.g. “look at the blue”. Although it is unclear to us as the reader what object Victoria is referring to, the other people in the situation are likely to know what she means, particularly as it is likely that this exclamation was accompanied by paralinguistic features.
The caregivers themselves sometimes use non standard grammar, which is evidence against Skinner’s ideas on imitation; because it could be argued that this non-standard grammar will have an effect on the grammar development of the impressionable children. The main example of this is when the playgroup assistant asks “Sophie gave it you?” The removal of the preposition ‘to’ is common in informal speech and many dialects but may cause confusion if the children think that indirect verbs such ‘give’ and ‘speak’ do not require the construction ‘to’ after them.
The lexis is mostly monosyllabic for simplicity reasons, and more emphasis is placed on the content of speech rather than on the lexical capacity of the children, because the transcript was written in a context of child’s play and social interaction is more important than linguistic education. There are lots of concrete nouns within the text such as ‘cake; and ‘playdoh’, and although there is a lack of abstract concepts within the lexis, there are distinct pragmatics of friendship, duty and helping one another. There are lots of verbs, as there is an emphasis on actions, and some of them are particularly dynamic such as ‘scream’, ‘break it in two’, and ‘cutting up’. This is because the environment is very active, and there is an impression that the caregivers are struggling to keep the children under control.
Phonologically speaking, there are some examples of reduplication, and although theories suggest that this is outgrown at a much younger age, it is evidence that children still like to play around with sounds and explore language by babbling. As Vygotski says, egocentric speech is something we never outgrow and we actually rely on it. Timmy takes the word ‘do’ and then experiments by making a rhythm/song by repeating this syllable.
The language of the playground assistant is not particularly lexically diverse, though he/she clearly has a greater lexical capacity than the children. Instead of using this however, he/she tends to make the instructions more visual by giving demonstrations, pointing at things and handing out objects. The caregivers use simple sentences, easily accessible syntax and lots of demonstrative pronouns to keep the children’s interest whilst also encouraging them to learn new words such as ‘floury’ and ‘elephant’.
The negotiations and interactions of the parent is noticeably different to the methods used by the playground assistants, possibly because they have a closer and more informal relationship with their child, and they feel a lesser responsibility towards their social development at playtime. After all, the playgroup assistant is paid for this purpose and will have received relevant training. The parent prefers to use negative reinforcement: “oh my goodness me (1.0) scream the house down”, and there are heavy connotations which suggest that noise is bad, and that the child is notorious for being overly noisy and therefore an annoyance to the parent.
The playground assistant however, is constantly provoking a personal response from the children by using direct imperatives and interrogatives, never letting her attention wander, and allowing herself to be involved with the conversation at all times whilst almost distancing herself and encouraging the children to play amongst each other. He/she acts as a mediator and is clearly trying to keep the peace and do what is fair and unbiased. The caregivers try to get involved by developing the ideas of the children and trying to join them in their imaginary world, however the language they use is more phatic and realistic rather than heuristic, suggesting that they are unable to connect with the children at their level. For example, the playgroup assistant asks the children: “is it frying in the pan”. Some crying and laughter follows this suggestion, meaning that the children did not accept or follow on from this idea. The children are clearly absorbed in their play and do not appreciate such interruptions because they do not conform to their agendas.
The playground assistant is highly successful in displaying power whilst also being friendly and approachable. She makes suggestions and gives justification for most of her imperatives so she does not give an impression of being extremely strict, e.g. “you’ve got to roll it like this Jordan (2.0) so that it’s really thin”. The register is mainly very informal, but it is still obvious that the playground assistant has the most power in the room, perhaps even more than the parents, because he/she is the only one who uses imperatives and really engages with the children. He/she is the one who asks the questions and gives the children options such as “does anyone want to do an elephant shape?” In fact, one could deduce that the assistant has actually earned the power in the situation by listening in on the game and trying to involve herself with the imaginary world, whereas the parent struggles to do this and thinks only of the behaviour of his/her children. The overlapping and interruptions of the text only occur to the caregivers’ expense, suggesting that the children have the underlying power because they can create more havoc and easily outnumber the adults.
Selection of Sample Paragraphs from a Student
* It appears that Ewan becomes a bit worried that he will cause Holly to drop out of their role play game, due to his aggressive tone. He repeats the proper noun ‘Holly’ in order to grab her attention and says the verb ‘playing’ once again using a declarative where he should be using an interrogative, although this could be drawing attention to what he is doing in order to encourage Holly
* Ewan senses Holly’s disinterest in the game by his imperative “don’t go home yet Holly”. As soon as his is reassured of her interest in the game, he immediately reverts to his bossy nature again. We can see this when Holly says “that’s my money” to which he replies “no that’s my money”. He is already aware of the idea that the person with the money carries the power.
* Both children have awareness of shop role play and the structure of a transaction the structure e.g. turn taking, of the conversation used in a shop between a customer and shopkeeper; for example line 11 of text B;
Holly: How much is that
Ewan: Ten p please
Although despite Ewan’s imperatives, he still uses politeness strategies, such as “please” which is indicative of Macnamara’s theory of children being able to innately read into social situations. This is also true of Holly’s awareness of the structure of playing shop in that she uses the negative “not yet”.
* The discourse structure, is about negotiating how the game will be played. Therefore there are questions asked about what should be done and who should play what roles. Also, both children make suggestions as to what they should do in the game, however, it appears to be Holly who is setting the tone, giving the ideas and a clear grasp of the conversational structure in this context. For example, she makes a number of suggestions: "come and buy something (2) come and buy anything"
* Holly is making a helpful suggestion by saying "come and buy something (2)", but as the pause implies, she gets no response from Ewan, and hence, alters the noun "something" to "anything" in her choice of lexis. This also highlights her interest in the game compared to Ewan’s lack of at this stage; however, later on the roles appear to switch, when Ewan becomes more interested:
Holly: would you like cashback
Ewan: Do you like cashback
Holly: Yes please
* Holly is the more advanced of the two as she is using the conditional verb form in "would you" , which is quite advanced for a girl of this age. Ewan, however, does not know how to use the conditional as he uses the ungrammatical question “do you like cashback”, when he really means “would you like cashback”. Holly accepts the role of the customer without protest, despite the fact that it’s clear that they both want to be the shopkeeper.
* Holly is clearly trying to bring further imaginative dimensions to the play. The sentence ‘now you say, would you like cashback’ shows her further knowledge and attempt to apply it to play to give herself more power – also seeming to understand the connotations and actions behind the noun “cashback”. However Ewan does not comply with her instructions, saying instead, ‘do you like cashback?’ and also says this out of turn, which could be seen as imitating Holly’s knowledge of “cashback” and adjusting it to his own statement.
* When they discuss holiday destinations it becomes a competition over who’s been on the most prestigious holiday. Ewan encourages Holly to ‘go Blackpool’ with the train ticket to which Holly replies, ‘Blackpool is a horrible place’, and ‘Magalluf is a much nicer place’, using declarative to draw attention to herself and make a judgment. Ewan insists but ‘but my Blackpool is nice’ using the possessive pronoun of “my” either to emphasise his preferment or to defend the place to Holly. It is obvious that Holly’s holiday sounds more exotic and expensive, thus she wins in the battle of prestige.
* Clearly the conversation opens with Ewan protesting that he wants to take the role of being the shopkeeper. He clearly feels that the role of being the shopkeeper is of greater prestige and importance than being the customer, and hence, assigns the role to himself. This is a imperative statement in the guise of a declarative, but comes across in this form due to his lack of grammatical knowledge. He telegraphs the phrase “I want to be the shopkeeper” into “me shopkeeper”. This is a phase of language development that all children go through, however, on occasions he does have more carefully structured statements.
* Ewan senses Holly’s disinterest in the game by his imperative “don’t go home yet Holly”. As soon as his is reassured of her interest in the game, he immediately reverts to his bossy nature again. We can see this when Holly says “that’s my money” to which he replies “no that’s my money”. He is already aware of the idea that the person with the money carries the power.
* Both children have awareness of shop role play and the structure of a transaction the structure e.g. turn taking, of the conversation used in a shop between a customer and shopkeeper; for example line 11 of text B;
Holly: How much is that
Ewan: Ten p please
Although despite Ewan’s imperatives, he still uses politeness strategies, such as “please” which is indicative of Macnamara’s theory of children being able to innately read into social situations. This is also true of Holly’s awareness of the structure of playing shop in that she uses the negative “not yet”.
* The discourse structure, is about negotiating how the game will be played. Therefore there are questions asked about what should be done and who should play what roles. Also, both children make suggestions as to what they should do in the game, however, it appears to be Holly who is setting the tone, giving the ideas and a clear grasp of the conversational structure in this context. For example, she makes a number of suggestions: "come and buy something (2) come and buy anything"
* Holly is making a helpful suggestion by saying "come and buy something (2)", but as the pause implies, she gets no response from Ewan, and hence, alters the noun "something" to "anything" in her choice of lexis. This also highlights her interest in the game compared to Ewan’s lack of at this stage; however, later on the roles appear to switch, when Ewan becomes more interested:
Holly: would you like cashback
Ewan: Do you like cashback
Holly: Yes please
* Holly is the more advanced of the two as she is using the conditional verb form in "would you" , which is quite advanced for a girl of this age. Ewan, however, does not know how to use the conditional as he uses the ungrammatical question “do you like cashback”, when he really means “would you like cashback”. Holly accepts the role of the customer without protest, despite the fact that it’s clear that they both want to be the shopkeeper.
* Holly is clearly trying to bring further imaginative dimensions to the play. The sentence ‘now you say, would you like cashback’ shows her further knowledge and attempt to apply it to play to give herself more power – also seeming to understand the connotations and actions behind the noun “cashback”. However Ewan does not comply with her instructions, saying instead, ‘do you like cashback?’ and also says this out of turn, which could be seen as imitating Holly’s knowledge of “cashback” and adjusting it to his own statement.
* When they discuss holiday destinations it becomes a competition over who’s been on the most prestigious holiday. Ewan encourages Holly to ‘go Blackpool’ with the train ticket to which Holly replies, ‘Blackpool is a horrible place’, and ‘Magalluf is a much nicer place’, using declarative to draw attention to herself and make a judgment. Ewan insists but ‘but my Blackpool is nice’ using the possessive pronoun of “my” either to emphasise his preferment or to defend the place to Holly. It is obvious that Holly’s holiday sounds more exotic and expensive, thus she wins in the battle of prestige.
* Clearly the conversation opens with Ewan protesting that he wants to take the role of being the shopkeeper. He clearly feels that the role of being the shopkeeper is of greater prestige and importance than being the customer, and hence, assigns the role to himself. This is a imperative statement in the guise of a declarative, but comes across in this form due to his lack of grammatical knowledge. He telegraphs the phrase “I want to be the shopkeeper” into “me shopkeeper”. This is a phase of language development that all children go through, however, on occasions he does have more carefully structured statements.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
