Referring to past actions in caregiver–child interaction in Japanese

Abstract

In naturally occurring everyday caregiver–child interaction, a major part of what is hearable as storytelling or an incipient form of it is talk about participants’ (mostly children’s) past experiences. Adopting a conversation-analytic approach, this study attempts to show how explicit references to children’s past actions formulated in the form of [(X) did (Y)], where X is the young child interacting with the caregiver, can engender opportunities for participants to develop telling activities. Through the detailed analysis of talk and embodied features of telling sequences in each case, the analysis will reveal how the [(X) did (Y)]-format utterance is utilized for co-constructing the telling, and what social and interactional consequences are accomplished through the telling occasioned by such reference.