An Analysis of Children’s Conversations

Citation: Maina Musa MAM (2024). An Analysis of Children’s Conversations. Yobe Journal of Language, Literature and Culture (YOJOLLAC), Vol. 12, Number 1. Department of African Languages and Linguistics, Yobe State University, Damaturu, Nigeria. ISSN 2449-0660

AN ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN’S CONVERSATIONS

By

Maina Musa MAM

Abstract

This study aims at analyzing children’s conversations. The study examines how children form and organize topics in their utterances, use repairs and frames of the conversation, and repetitions and constant change of topics. The study also looks at the sentence constructions of the conversation with reference to the functions of the sentences. The data are sourced from different children conversations using sound recorder. For the analysis, two conversations were selected and analyzed using William Labov’s narrative model. The conversations were narrated in Hausa Language. They were transcribed and translated into English language. Thus, the analysis found that children turn into new topic(s) during discussions at most cases. It is also discovered that children skip the opening and closing starters (frames) in their conversations. Generally, children used imperative and interrogative sentences than declarative sentence, and always make repetitions during speaking. The texts demonstrated that children’s conversations are truly imitation of real life (world`s experience).     

Key words: Children, Conversation, Analysis, Utterances, Topics

Introduction

Osisanwo (2008) states that, a conversation occurs when at least two people are talking. For it to be conversation each person must talk one after the other. There must be a string of at least two turns, and even if the second person does not talk, he or she must show evidence of having heard the utterance by carrying out an action such as nodding with the head, gaping or staring at the person in disbelief or winking in response. It is then a conversation has taken place. Thus, conversation may be optional form of communication depending on the participants intended ends. An interaction with a tightly focused topic or purpose is generally not considered a conversation. Therefore, conversation may be ideal when each party desire a relatively equal exchange of information or when the parties desire to build social ties.

Hutchby and Wooffitt (1998) posit that conversation analysis is the study of recorded, naturally occurring talk in interaction. They claim that it is to discover how participants understand and respond to one another in their turns at talk with a central focus being on how sequences of interaction are generated. However, conversation analysis is concerned mainly with the structure of talk that produces and reproduces patterns of social interaction.

Osisnwo 2008 clams that a discourse participant who feel abandoned or who is eager to make the point at all costs embarks on topic negotiation it is an attention catching device usually embarked upon by a participant who wants to pave way for the introduction of his topic of discourse. An exchange is formed by a set of moves. Thus, when a speaker X initiates a talk and speaker Y responds while speaker X gives a follow-up or feedback, an exchange has been achieved. For instance:

Text I

Khalil: Hi Daddy

Daddy: How are you?

Khalil: Fine thank you, and you?

Daddy: Fine, thank you

Text 2:                      

Mommy: From where? Fatima

Fatima: I went to visit Aunty Aisha.

Mommy: Ok I let us play

Fatima: To play?

Mommy: Yes!

Fatima: ok! Let play.

Conversational Analysis                                                   

Frank, (1989) views that there are two broad approaches to the study of conservation; discourse analysis and conservational analysis both of which concern on how coherence and sequential organization in discourse is provided and understood. Conversation Analysis (C.A) is concerned with the study of naturally occurring interaction. The method used in conversational analysis is inductive as it seeks for recurring patterns across many records of naturally occurring conservations. The emphasis is on the interactional and inferential consequences of choices between alternative utterances. Conversational analysis avoids analysis based on single text to find out the systematic properties of sequential organization of talk and how utterances are designed to manage such sequences. Other issues related to conversational analysis include turn-taking, turn-making/holding, adjacency pairs, starters (opening and closing), talk initiation, overall organization and pre-sequences.

     Frank (1989) identifies some of the issues which concern conversational analysis as:

i.                    Preference organization;

ii.                  Topic organization;

iii.               The use of non or quasi lexical speech objectives;

iv.               The integration of vocal and non-vocal activities;

v.                  Institutional integration; and

vi.               The analysis of long interaction sequences.

Properties of Conversational Exchanges

Conversation is the natural site of communication hence; children are highly motivated to make them understood and to understand their partners since they have intentions and meanings to exchange with their partners. In conversation, children are particularly to attend to their interlocutors’ utterances as well as to the effect that their own intentions have on them. This property fits well with the requirements of functional use approaches that consider language to be best learned in settings where adult talk about objects and events that are of interest to the children (Clark 2009). In conversation, children do not only learn the language system; its lexicon and morph syntactic rules, but also how to use linguistic resources to accomplish communicative acts in socially and culturally appropriate ways (Clark, 2009).  

Labov (1972) proposed a model of narrative structure. The enduring appeal of this model of natural narrative is largely because its origin is situated in everyday discourse practices of real speakers in real context structure. In view of this, the model will be useful in this study as it gives insights for hypothesis like what is this story about?, who or where the story take place?, what happened in the story? how it begins and ends? etc.

Labov’s Model of Natural Narrative

Narrative Category	Narrative Question	Narrative Function	Linguistic Form
ABSTRACT	What was this about?	Signals that the story is about to begin and draws attention from the listener	A short summarizing statement, provided before the narrative commences
ORIENTATION	Who or what are involved in the story, and when and where did it take place?	Helps the listener to identify the time, place, persons, activity and situation of the story.	Characterised by past continuous verbs; and adjuncts of time, manner and place
COMPLICATING ACTION	Then, what happened?	The core narrative category providing what happened to the element of the story.	Temporally ordered narrative clauses with a verb in the simple past or present.
RESOLUTION	What finally happened?	Recapitulates the final key event of a story	Expressed as the last of the narrative clauses that began the complicating present
EVALUATION	So what?	Functions to make the point of the story clear.	Includes: intensifiers; modal verbs; negatives; repetition; evaluative commentary; embedded speech; comparisons with unrealized events.
CODA	How does it end?	All signals that the story ended and brings listener back to the point at which s/he entered the narrative	Often a generalization statement which is “timeless” in feel.

 

Discourse Analysis

Discourse analysis started with Harris (1952), and the field can be studied from socio-linguistic approach, on one hand, discourse issues such as power relations, social class, participants’ roles, mutual right obligations etc.  The other approach to discourse analysis is from the linguistics point of view. Discourse analysis extends beyond the unit of a sentence, and deals with the organization of language above the sentence or clause with larger linguistic units such as conversational exchanges or written texts. Discourse analysts believe that coherence in conversation cannot be found at the level of linguistic expression rather at the level of speech acts or interactional moves made by uttering such expression. The analysts concern only with what language is used for rather than the formal properties of the language. A major concern of discourse analysis is the use of language in social contexts, particularly interaction in dialogue between speakers.

Frank (1985) pointed that: “generally, discourse analysis aims at describing text in a way that we say something about individual or group of texts and work towards a theory of discourse”.

Nunan (1993) believes that discourse is the interpretation of the communicative event in context.  He further states that is the situation, giving rise to the discourse, and within which the discourse is embedded. The first one is the linguistic context-the language that surrounds or accompanies the piece of discourse under analysis. The second one is the non-linguistic or experiential context within which the discourse takes place. According to Nunan (1993:8), non-linguistic contexts include the type of communicative event (for instance, speech, lecture, joke, story, greeting, conversation), the topic, the purpose of the event, the setting, including location, time of day, season of year and physical aspects of the situation, the participants and the relationship between them; and the background knowledge and assumptions underlying the communicative event. Thus, the insights provided by Nunan, (1993) on context are quite instructive for our study as context plays a vital role in determining the outcome of all forms of discourse and conservation.

Riley, (1985) examines the structure of oral discourse paying particular attention on the nature of meaning and the different modalities, by which it can be realized, transmitted and retrieved. According to him, discourse analysis is an analysis of meaning but meaning seen not in the traditional ‘semantic’ sense of isolated concepts but:

Meaning as a construct ‘either’ of an individual collaborating with one or more other individuals in the creation of a unified discourse (multi – source discourse) or of an individual interpreting a text produced by another individual and to which he does not or  cannot make any formal contribution (single-source discourse).

Children’s Conversation

Walter (2018) posits that Philosophical work with children takes different forms and shapes all around the world (UNESCO 2007; Kennedy & Vansieleghem 2011). Based in Brazil and more broadly South America, I have been privileged to coordinate a Philosophy in Schools Project at the State University of Rio de Janeiro (Kohan 2013), and be in touch with different practices all over the world for the past twenty years (Kohan 2016). Italy, probably due to its strong philosophical, cultural and educational traditions, is an extraordinary context where all sorts of practices take place from the more orthodox philosophy for children’s followers to creative and diverse practices from very different understandings of philosophy and of the sense of its presence among children in schools (UNESCO 2011; Bevilacqua & Casarin 2016; Cosentino 2016). In the following, I present a philosophical dialogue with children of eight years old at a public school in Bari, Italy, taking part in the project Philosophia Ludens for children based at the University of Bari. Example of children’s conversation involving a girl and a boy (6 years old & 5 years old):

Melanie: I like your Pokémon cards.

Edward: I like them too.

Melanie: I like your bedroom because you have a bunk bed and I’ve got a bunk bed. We are really like each other.

Edward: I like my bunk bed better.

Melanie: Yeah. You sleep up there and Jesse sleeps down there, but you switch every night.

But, Edward, I really like your bunk bed better. It is really handsome and I like your lunchbox, too.

Edward: I do, too. I like your bunk bed better.

Melanie: Thank you. I wish that we can be sisters and brothers forever. I don’t …. I ….

Um… I want you to stay with me because I just like it when you are my friend.

Edward: I am going to stay with you.

Melanie: I know, but when you’re going to be dead, I’ m going to cry, cry for you.

Edward: You’re going to be dead before me because I’m only five years.

Melanie: But you’re going to be six in October and I really, really why, there…

Edward: Uh huh.

Melania: And I really, really like… you’re, your handsome stuff that I am forgetting.

Methodology and Theoretical Framework

The study focuses on how children form and construct sentences as well as organize topics in their utterances, repairs and frames of conversation, use of repetition and constant change of topics. The data are sourced from two different children conversations using tape recorder. The conversations were narrated in Hausa language. They were further transcribed and translated into English language. Thus, a Labov’s narrative model is used for the analysis of the conversations. William Labov’s (1972), identified six model of natural narrative; abstract, orientation, complicating action, resolution, evaluation and coda.

Presentation, Analyses and Discussion

Text A:                                                     

Turn	Speaker	Description	Text
1	A	Request	To kawo kudin. Ba shi na ce ba. Na ce kayan miya: maggi, attaruhu da yaji da albasa da irin wannan. (Ok, bring the money: I said not this one, I said food ingredients: seasoning, pepper and onion and this one).
2	B	Command	Dana, ka je ka sayar mana kayan. (My son, go and sell the goods).
3	C	Advertising	A sayi Xan wake. (Buy Xan wake).
4	D	Request	Kawo! Ajiye to. (Bring it here! Ok keep it).
5	C	Response	To! (Ok!).
6	D	Sell request	Nawa-nawa ne? (How much?).
7	C	Price declaration	Xari biyar-biyar. Na nawa za ka saya? (Five hundred naira each. For how much do you want?).
8	D	Demand/Response	Na xari shida. (For six hundred naira).
9	C	Response	Ga na xari shida. (This is for six hundred naira).
10	D	Question	Haka ne na xari shida? (Is this for six hundred naira?).
10 (cont.)	C	Response	Eh! Idan kana son na xari ga shi. (Yes! If you want for one hundred naira, take this).
11	B	Command	Na ce maka ka je, ka je ka sayar mana. Wannan mutumin ya zo zai kwashe mana. Ni zan je bulaguro. Idan ba za ka sayar ba ka zauna. (I said go and sell it. This man has come to take it from us. I will travel. If you will not sell it, leave it).
12	C	Response	To! (Ok!).
13	A	Command	Yarona, ka zo ka dafa muku wannan, yarona. (My son, come and cook this).
14	F	Response	Hm!
15	B	Command	Ungo, ka kai wa Hajiya. Ka kai wa mamarka. Na xari biyu ma ya ishe ku. Ungo, ka kai wa mamarka, Buti. (Take it to Hajiya. Take it to your mother. Two hundred naira is enough for you. Take it to your mother, Buti).
16	A	Declaration	Dare ya yi. Ni ina xaki. (It is getting late. I am inside).
17	B	Question	Kaima xana za ka ci? (Will you also eat, my son?).
18	C	Response	Silence.
19	A	Question	Ba ka ci tuwon dare ba ne? Ina ce maka ka zo ka dafa tuwo. (Didn’t you eat dinner? I told you to come and cook).
20	C	Declaration	Kai kuma za mu aiko ma. (We will send it to you).
21	E	Request	Ni ma a zuba mini na ci. (Serve me. I will also eat).
22	A	Declaration	Nan xakinmu ne fa. (This is our room, please).
23	B	Response	Tuwo za mu ci a ciki. Zo mu je mu ci namanmu. (We will eat in the room. Let’s go and eat our meat).
24	A	Response	Ni na ci tuwo! Dare yayi. (I’ve already eaten! It is getting late).
25	D	Declaration	Almajiri kawai! (A beggar!).
26	A	Command	Yarona, ka je, ka yi bacci. Ni ma ga ni nan zuwa. (My son, go and sleep! I will join you soon).
27	C	Response	To! (Ok).
28	B	Question	Kana jin bacci? Kai fa, xana? (Do you want to sleep? What about you, my son?).
30	E	Response	Ban ci abinci ba. (I did not eat).
31	B	Command	Ka je ka zuba mar! Guda biyu za ka zuba mar. (Go and serve him. Give him two, please).
32	C	Response	To! Ki je-ki je. (Ok! Go, go).
33	B	Declaration	Ba zan je ba! Ya isa, ya isa. (I will not go. It is ok, it is ok).
34	E	Response	To, Ki je-ki je! (Ok! Go, go).
35	B	Response	Ba zan je ba. Zo ka shiga daki, ka yi bacci. Yah, ka jire min kar wanda ya xauka min. Bari na qirga abina. (I will not go. Go in and sleep. Brother, keep it for me. Don’t let anyone take it. Let me count my things).
36	C	Declaration	Fatima, Umma tazo. (Fatima, Umma has arrived).
37	A	Response	A, a Aunty Sama ce. (No! It is Aunty Sama).
38	C	Declaration	Kar wanda ya tava min abina. (No one should touch my property).
39	A	Question	Kai ba za ka yi bacci ba? (Won’t you sleep?).
40	C	Reporting	Yah, ka ga mama ko. (Brother, see what mama did).
41	F	Terminating	Im-Im (Laughing).

 

In the above text titled A, it is discovers that children used interrogative and imperative sentences than declarative sentences in their conversations. They often used repetitions much in their utterances, and the speakers constantly repeated the words “to-to” (“and-and”), while listening food items in turn 16, the speaker repeated the statements more than three times. In turn 33, the speaker continuously repeated the statement “to, Ki je-ki je” ya isa, ya isa” (ok! Go-go, and It is ok, it is ok). As children make conversations, they used to turn into new topic (s) (Inter change the topic of the discussion). In exchange 1 and 3, the speaker talked on different topics, exchange I is on business issue and exchange verbal tactics in their conversations as the dialogue paused in turn 18 with a non-verbal signal. It is also discovers that children skipped the opening and closing starters (frames) in their conversations. 

Text B

Turn	Speaker	Description	Text
1	A	Question	Ina abun? (Where is the thing?)
2	B	Response	A’a, babu (No! it is not here.)
3	C	Question	Tukunyar na guna ne? (Is the pot with me?)
4	B	Command	Ki ajiye min abuna. (Do not take my property.)
5	D	Response	Ga abunka nan. Ka ce min wannan (Here is your property, you said this.)
6	E	Declaration	Ga murhun! Ga murhun nan. (Here is gas cooker. This is gas cooker.)
7	B	Request	Ki ba mu! Abdulkarim to ka ce ta ba mu tukunyarmu. (Give it to us. Abdulkarim, tell her to give us our pot.)
8	D	Declaration	Ga kujerarku nan, ku zauna (Here is your chair, sit.)
9	B	Command	A’a Fatima (karama) idan ba ki ba mu abunmu ba ko! Kai Abdulkarim ga tukunya. To Abdulkarim ina abun. (No, Fatima (junior), if you did not give us our things! You, Abdulkarim, here is the pot, so where is the thing?)

In text B, the children initiated their turns using interrogative sentence in which speaker “A” expressed” Ina abun?. Generally, the speakers used imperative and interrogative sentences than declarative sentences especially children. The children suddenly make repetitions when speaking. In turn 7, the speaker repeated the statement “Abdulkarim, to kace tabamu to tukunyarmu”. Normally, Children terminate a conversation with change of topic as in the turn 1-5 and turn 6-9 (on another topic). Thus, text A and B demonstrate that children’s conversations are truly imitation of adult and real happening. The conversations are centered on representation of real life in which the children imitated the world`s experience. 

In conclusion, a conversation occurs when at least two persons are talking, and each person must talk one after the other. In conversation, there must be a string of two turns at least. Thus, the analysis demonstrates that children’s conversation is transactional which the participants maintain to interact with each other as analyzed in the study. Consequently, children’s conversations meet the target features of discourse such as turn and turn-taking, speaker change, talk initiation, adjacency pairs, change of topic, discourse participants to mention among others.

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