Closings in young children's disputes

1
Closings in young children's disputes

• Amelia Church
• Department of Childhood Studies
• University of Wales Swansea

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Closings (conflict resolution?)

• Brief background to the research
• Three types of closings (resolution, dissipation,
  teacher intervention)
• Preference organisation
• Outcome of disputes
• Argument for studying argument (implications for
  intervention and for understanding
  talk-in-interaction)

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Why study conflict?

• Use your words (What words?)
• Intervention strategies to be informed by
  child-centred research
• Productive interaction
• pragmatic development
• social organisation
• Increasing influence on/of peers

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Why study conflict?

• Unsatisfactory accounts for resolution
• ? Emphasis on speech acts
• e.g. Brenneis Lein (1977) Eisenberg Garvey
  (1982), Genishi Di Paolo (1982), Benoit (1992)
• Argumentation, logic (e.g. Kuhn Udell, 2003)
  social identity (e.g. Goodwin, Goodwin
  Yaegor-Dror, 2002) social relationships (e.g.
  Dunn, in press)

5

• K 0 ((act knocks block off shelf)) ACTION
• A ((whines)) NO (.) YOU'RE BREAKING IT.
  CHALLENGE
• (0.2)
• K BECAUSE YOU'RE NOT PACKING UP. SUPPORTING
  ARGUMENT
• (0.6)
• A yes i am. DENIAL
• K ?no (.) you're not packing CONTRADICTION
• A YES I AM. DENIAL
• KOY walks away to collect more blocks.

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A study in conversation analysis

• Turn-taking and sequential organisation (Sacks,
  Schegloff Jefferson, 1974)
• Speakers orientation to the turns at talk is on
  display for the analyst
• Ideally suited to investigation of young
  childrens interaction given (a) insistence on
  naturally-occurring data, (b) data-driven
  analysis, and (c) emic perspective of
  conversation analysis

7
The database

• Interaction recorded during morning free play
  sessions in private day-care centres
• 60 spontaneous disputes between four-year-old
  children
• Definitions of adversative discourse (verbal
  conflict, disputes, arguments)

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Closing disputes

• The majority of disputes, however, are terminated
  without any sharp indication that either position
  has won or lost. In general, the end of an
  argument occurs when one of the two disputing
  parties does not tie his talk to the topic of the
  prior dispute, but instead produces an action
  that breaks the argument frame and his
  adversary accepts this shift. Although compromise
  is seldom reached, nor sought as a goal of the
  interaction, by shifting to noncompetitive talk
  (between former disputants), parties cooperate in
  bringing about the closure of the dispute.
  Goodwin, M. H. (1982 87-88). Processes of
  dispute management among urban black children.
  American Ethnologist, 9, 76-96.

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Types of closings

• Resolution
• Dissipation
• Teacher intervention
• The fundamental distinction between resolution
  and abandonment of disputes lies in the
  maintenance of established play partnerships.
  That is, children continue to play together once
  a dispute is resolved but do not when a dispute
  is abandoned. Alternatively, where the children
  are unable to orchestrate some sort of conclusion
  themselves, one may be imposed through teacher
  intervention.

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Resolved

• A clear conclusion of the argument is arrived at,
  one which is mutually acceptable (not necessarily
  agreeable) to all participants. Cooperative play
  continues when dispute resolved.
• Ob1.8 Ob2.4

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Abandoned (dissipation)

• Where disputes were abandoned collaborative or
  parallel play is not resumed.
• Ob1.22 Ob2.21

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Intervention

• Intervention may be sought by the children
  themselves or initiated by the teacher.
• Ob1.4 Ob2.8

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Preference organisation

• Sequential organisation of discourse adjacency
  pairs
• the first part of an adjacency pair not only
  makes one of a set of type-fitted second parts
  relevant in next turn, but typically displays a
  preference for one of them (Schegloff, 1979
  36).

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An ubiquitous example of preference
organisation is found in the following pairs of
invitation and acceptance/rejection sequences
published in Atkinson and Drew (197958), where
extract (i) provides a preferred second pair part
and (ii) a dispreferred response

• (i) B Why dont you come up and see me
  sometimes
• A I would like to
• (ii) B Uh if youd care to come over and visit a
  little while
• this morning Ill give you a cup of coffee.
• A hehh Well thats awfully sweet of you, I
  dont think I
• can make it this morning .hh uhm Im running an
  ad in the paper and and uh I have to stay near
  the phone.
• B Well all right
• A And- uh
• B Well sometime when you are free to give me a
  call
• because Im not always home.

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Preference organisation

• Preferred turns
• Immediate (produced without delay)
• Short
• Overt and direct

• Dispreferred turns
• Delayed
• Prefatory markers
• Accompanied by an account for non-production of
  preferred second pair part

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Preferred turn shape (Immediate)

• JAK oh (then the two of us can) do it today?
• LOU no i can do it
• LOU now (.) i know which day (0.2) and i can
  do it
• JAK i can do it too.
• MIR gimme one of them.
• (0.2)
• CAZ i am not going to.

17
Preferred turn shape (Short)

• SIM Gary (1.0) can i have a little play of
  yours?
• (0.2)
• GAR no.
• PAU 0 ((act pulls blocks apart)) (2.3)
• JIM oy.
• GAR it's just a little one
• (0.2)
• ROB hey don't!

18
Preferred turn shape (Overt and direct)

• BRI yours is yuck (.) Gary
• GAR no it isn't
• PET no i'm not
• (0.2)
• ADM yes you are
• KOY ((to TES)) see (.) you did it.
• (0.2)
• TES NO I DIDN'T.

19
Dispreferred turn shape (Delayed)

• ROB hey that's mine Gary.
• (1.2)
• GAR it's just a little one
• LUK i want to crack it.
• (2.2)
• SAM if you crack heads you'll ?die (0.3) do you
  want
• to ?die(0.3) and then your mummy will cry?
• SIM gtGary do you wanna comelt to my party?
• (0.8)
• GAR if you- (0.3) if you don't give those
  (0.4)those things to me(.) you won't come to my
  party.

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Dispreferred turn shape (Markers )

• CAZ girls wear pants.
• (0.9)
• ELI well (0.5) that's- i know that's a boy.
• PAU hey don't you'll break it like that.
• (1.2)
• MIR but i can't hear.
• LUK NO?
• (0.6)
• ADM yeah but the teacher says (0.4) "share".

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Dispreferred turn shape (Accounts)

• KOY gtwe don't want to share with yoult.
• CAZ no that's mine (i got mine) mine!
• ADM no coz that one's little tiny and (.) it's
  got .hhh little pieces (0.3) .hhh and you might
  choke on them (0.4) .hhh and it's (0.2) and
  there's a sharp thing up the back.
• LOU coz you were- (0.4) you were putting (0.3)
  your (.) hands on it.
• TOM it's not that's ten o'clock.

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Teacher intervention

• 3 HIL it's my song
• 4 TES it's my song too and it's not your song.
• (0.2)
• 5 HIL it is my song.
• 12 HIL it is my song too.
• 13 TES it's not your song too
• (0.2)
• HIL it is.
• 3 WIN i found it.
• 4 PAU no i -(.) no i had it.
• 5 WIN i found it
• 6 PAU no i had it a while ago?
• 7 WIN no.

23
Abandoned disputes

• 4 ADM yes i am.
• 5 KOY no (.) you're not packing
• 6 ADM YES I AM.
• act KOY walks away to collect more blocks.
• 4 NIG you're not allowed to go outside,
• 5 SIM yeah
• (0.3)
• 6 NIG no you're not,
• 7 SIM i am?
• act SIM opens door and goes outside.

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Resolved disputes

• 3 JON no (0.3) no you got my ?blue one.
• (0.4)
• 4 TES but we (0.3) but (0.5) but we are just
  sharing.
• (0.8)
• 5 TES that one goes in there John.
• 8 JAK it's gonna break gtit's gonna
  breaklt
• (0.3)
• 9 LOU i know but im very gentle.

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Summary of findings

• In childrens spontaneous disputes
• Preferred turn shapes function as sustaining
  moves
• Resolution can only be secured through turns
  displaying dispreferred features
• ? Markedness as organising principle

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Summary of findingsImplications for intervention

• Use your words
• Negotiation to be performed in a very particular
  way (justification of opposition)
• Children actively construct social order, an
  understanding of which must be informed by the
  agents of this order

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Summary of findingsImplications for talk-in
interaction

• Childrens conflict talk, as is true of all
  discourse, a highly rule-governed activity
• Children at the age of four attend to the
  sequential organisation of interaction
• Communicative competencies of preschool-aged
  children