Children's Responses to Questions in Peer Interaction: Evidence for an Emerging Accountability

• In Event: 388 - Regular Session. The Interactional Production of Identity and Authority

Abstract

Children are unique social actors, but what about their interaction is "child-like"? This article relies on a multi-method approach to child-child interaction to address this question. We examined 2,000 questions and their responses in spontaneous conversation among child triads between 4-8 years of age to see the extent to which children adhered to norms governing question-response sequences. School-age children show a basic grasp of key norms but do not exhibit the reflexive awareness of norms that would allow them to utilize norms as communicative resources for managing relationships with interlocutors. In particular children's lack of fit between turn design and timing underpins the "child-like" features of their interaction.

Authors

• Tanya Stivers, University of California-Los Angeles

• Jack Sidnell, University of Toronto

• Clara Ann Blomgren Bergen, University of California-Los Angeles