Little Evie - All the Things, Transcript Analysis

In this transcript Evie’s pronunciation of <picture> varies:

·        picture [pɪʧɪt] – mumbling

·        a picture of [pit ɘv] – staccato, thinking about how to pronounce each syllable 

·        picture of [pɪtɘ] tigger – trying to correct her earlier pronunciation by copying her Grandmother's

Evie’s grandma uses a variety of strategies to keep the conversation moving along.  How many can you find?  Why do you think these are important?

·        Prompting questions - steering the conversation

·        Corrects/finishes Evie’s sentences

·        Getting Evie to choose things and move around to physically grab and recognise objects or characters and to seek certain items

·        Positive reinforcement – praise

In this sequence, grandma follows each of Evie’s utterances with an extended version of what she has said.  What does she add?  Why?

• Many times she extends for clarification; rephrasing her declaratives and often pairing them with tag questions, requesting Evie to clarify if that was the meaning meant in her statement
• On some occasions she simply repeats Evie's language in a form of praise; e.g 'cat', 'cat' this is Grandma's way of saying 'yes, it is a cat, well done' 

E - picture [pɪʧɪt] wolf

G - what’s it we’ll take a picture of wolf? 

E - some more

G - some more things

E  -  no put it all

G - we’ve got them all now have we?

E - yeah

Grandma uses a lot of questions in this transcript.  What proportion of her utterances are questions?  How would you classify the functions of these questions?  

Out of 51 turns that Grandma takes 33 include an interrogative - 65% 

Considering sentence moods 38% of Grandma's language was made up of declaratives, 54% from interrogatives and 9% imperatives. Inclined to believe that 8% of her language is also cloaked imperatives.

I would class the interrogatives functions under - clarification, prompting (direct questions) & leading questions (tag questions)

There are interesting switches here between real and play worlds, with toy bath and real towels.  How do you account for this?

Maybe Evie is proving she can apply her play knowledge to the real world, unimpressed with the 'play' towels she'd prefer a real one

Or the lines between play and reality may blur 

As Piaget describes conservation, that children don't appreciate scale and perspective, Evie may be too young to appreciate the scale of the bath and the towel wouldn't work, maybe she'd only appreciate this when they are directly next to each other (directly comparable)

Evie is thoroughly enjoying playing to the camera and wants to see the video straight away.  How does this awareness of the camera shape the conversation?

Evie may be affected by the 'observer's paradox' so she acts differently for the camera, for a potential audience. Or she could simply be distracted by the camera, wanting to see results immediately, wanting to play with the camera in oppose to the dolls house.

Evie appears to be using some distinctive non-standard forms here: <fings> and <a-comin’>.  Are these features of the Durham dialect? 

I think it may be influenced by dialect, especially 'a-comin'' but 'fings' is something children of that age often struggle with, the phoneme 'th' is often mispronounced by children.