Language styles of 10 nursery school children

Abstract

Recent studies of the language of children in nursery schools paint a bleak picture of infrequent and unimaginative interactions between adults and children and limited conversations about the here-and-now of the nursery (Thomas 1973, Tizard 1976, Wood 1980, Silva 1980). But these global portraits may mask important differences in the discourse of individual children whose language styles may be varied and distinct. Most of the studies concentrate on adult-child interactions and do not describe the conversations which take place when children play on their own. This study describes the language styles of 10 children in the same open plan nursery school by analysing discourse in terms ofAmount, Moves and Meanings. Although the broad findings are in agreement with previous descriptions of the language of children and adults in nursery schools, the results conceal some important differences in the language of individual children, of boys and girls, of children from different home backgrounds, and of conversations between children compared to adult-child interactions. Language profiles for the 10 children are quite distinct and show that there is considerable variation in who the children choose to talk to, what they talk about and how they talk. Consequently the knowledge they gain from their nursery experiences (whether about things, ideas or people) is also very different.