Patterns in verbal interaction: the effect of situational influences on the language performance of eight-year-old children

Abstract

The investigation of children’s language performance seems often to have proceeded on the assumption that a sample of verbal behaviour elicited in one type of situation is typical of the child’s language in general. Frequently, the sample has been obtained in a laboratory-type, setting and sometimes with activities that involved either no other people or only minimal participation by an adult experimenter, who may have been relatively unfamiliar to the child. Over recent years concern has been expressed by a growing number of researchers that language sampled in these ways may not give a true indication of the child’s actual language behaviour nor, of the factors that influence performance in this or that situation. The present study was designed to survey children’s language behaviour in natural settings and under different conditions. Recorded conversations, both in the home and at school, were obtained from a group of 12 eight-year-old boys and girls in a range of interaction situations. The children came from the same school, situated in a largely middle-class suburb in a provincial New Zealand city. The subjects were all caucasians, spoke English as their first language, and had been rated as average or above in oral language by class teachers. Sampling was carried out over a six-week period with the group divided in half, and tape recorders were left in the home for a week at a time, alternating between the two groups. Concurrent with the home sampling, conversations were also recorded at school. In the home setting, four samples in each of five situations were obtained (mother-child; father-child; parents-child; other adult-child; and child-child), and at school four samples in each of three situations (teacher-child; teacher-children; and children only). Adults were encouraged to talk with the children in the home setting about topics they would ordinarily discuss (e.g. family interests and local events), and at times when such conversations would normally occur (e.g. after school, before bed, in the bath). At school, teachers worked with children in situations where dyadic and small group discussions usually took place (e.g. talking about stories the children had read or written, discussing pictures). To counter-balance any practice effect in the school interactions, the order in which pupils undertook the tasks and the order in which the different tasks occurred was specified. As well as exploring the characteristics of children’s language behaviour under different sampling conditions and with different people, the study was also designed to test the wider application of a modified coding system developed initially to analyse classroom verbal interaction. From the sampling, over 40 hours of language behaviour was obtained and 2,000 pages of transcript were analysed using specially written computer programmes. The results were unequivocal. The language of these children did vary markedly from situation to situation, particularly when home and school comparisons were made. Whenever adults were involved in the interactions they tended to dominate and control the verbal exchanges, mainly through the questions they asked. This adult dominance was most extreme in the teacher-child interactions, where the child did little else but answer the teacher’s questions, which were mainly of the memory-recall, simple opinion, or comprehension types. Children showed, however, in the exchanges involving only their peers, that they were capable of using most of the various types of verbal behaviour used by the adults. Supplementary analysis indicated that verbal sequences tended to be simple, in that few moves were used and these were generally very short consisting of one or two utterances. The study provided detailed descriptions of children’s language behaviour in a range of situations and the types of happenings and events that were of personal significance to those involved. In addition, the results of the study highlighted the importance of taking due cognizance of the interpersonal factors operating in interaction situations, and the influence these appear to exert on the language which participants (particularly children) were able, and were in fact allowed by the situation, to use.