Early collaborations
Adult-child and child-adult co-construction of ‘but’-clauses
The present study examines the development of ‘but’-introduced clauses in adult-toddler conversations,
distinguishing between autonomous productions (I wanna stay but we need to go) and adult-child
co-constructed uses (Adult: we’re going home, Child:
but I wanna stay). Analyses
covered all adult and child aval ‘but’ uses in three longitudinal Hebrew corpora (age-range: 1;5–3;3), showing
that: (1) both adults and children mostly use aval ‘but’ in co-construction rather than autonomously; (2) adults
begin co-constructing ‘but’-clauses with children months before the children start using ‘but’, mostly by elaborating on
single-word child productions before adding the ‘but’-clause (Child:
cup
, Adult:
that’s a cup, but you don’t like juice); (3) as children start combining more clauses,
adults gradually conjoin more ‘but’-clauses directly with the children’s productions, without elaboration (Child: let’s
go. Adult:
but first put on your shoes). These patterns suggest that the main function
of ‘but’-clauses in adult-child discourse is co-constructing ideas contributed by two (or more) interlocutors. Such
co-constructions are initially scaffolded by the adults, until the children are able to contribute full-fledged propositions to
co-constructions. These findings provide further evidence of the role of adult-child interaction in introducing and familiarizing
children with new linguistic structures, and advancing their developing grammar.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Method
- 2.1Data-base
- 2.2Categories of analysis
- 2.2.1Coding of child uses
- 2.2.2Coding of adult uses
- 3.Results
- 3.1Excerpt analyses: Adult-child and child-adult contingencies
- 3.2Quantitative analyses of aval ‘but’ uses in adult-child conversations
- 3.2.1General breakdown
- 3.2.2Developments in adult-child and child-adult contingency trends
- 4.Discussion
- Acknowledgements
- Note
-
References