Preschool educators’ use of commanding language in China and Japan: a cross-cultural comparative study

Abstract

ABSTRACT The manner in which educators use commands, a form of language that serves to guide and regulate behaviour, constitutes an essential component of children’s learning experiences in relation to language and social interactions. This study investigated nine Chinese and nine Japanese educators’ use of commanding language in educator-child free play interactions. Totally, 4296 clauses generated by the educators were analysed, drawn on systemic functional linguistic theory that classifies command based on its semantic feature. The results show that Chinese educators generally uttered more commanding language than Japanese educators. The proportion of direct & non-suggestive commands (revealing speakers’ authority) dominated in both cohorts, yet Chinese educators rated significantly higher than Japanese educators. The proportion of indirect and suggestive commands (carrying negotiation tones) in Japanese educators’ language was significantly higher than Chinese educators. The effect of child age on the educators’ commanding language was identified. Compared to the Chinese educators, Japanese educators uttered much less commands when interacting with children under four years, however, the gap was narrowed when communicating with children above four years. The findings illustrate how the educators create culturally-different language experiences for children in daily interactions, which has implications for worldwide preschool education in multicultural contexts.