Interpretation /145
Dialogue Texts tend to Ъе short: 9 turns on average. The distribution of
the basic functions of 'Solicit' and 'Give' follows the same pattern as in
the home conversations, but the difference between adults and children Is
not so wide. Moreover, what adults solicit are actions (more than 50% of
all adults' utterances), many acknowIegments, and almost no information,
and what children give are acknowledgments and comments on their own
actions, but very little Information; they ask permission and little
information. There is not a single clarification exchange, and adults are
always the sustaining partner. The pattern of interaction is basically
'Chaining' with almost no 'Arching* (see Annexe 3.3).
All this is consistent with the fact that the texts are mainly about
situations of control where the adult is in charge. Many comments may
be made in this connection:
1- directives are useful to learn a language because they 'make
transparent the relationship between form and meaning intention'
(Veils,1985:402); they were found significantly correlated to measures
of child's progress in the Bristol study (see 2.4, page 55). The
problem in the Dialogue Texts is that the meaning of the situation
must in turn be interpreted from the illustration;
2- the patterns typical of control interactions are also used in other
situations, so the Impression one gets is that adults are always
giving orders;
3- the fact that children seldom make requests, of Clarification or other,
in their Reply Move, and that adults give many acknowledgments makes
the interaction similar to the classic classroom pattern of (teacher's)
Initiation I Reply / Follow- up. Perhaps this is because teachers were
mainly responsible for the production of materials;
4- the dialogues do not have a coherent structure, as utterances relate
more to the side illustrations than to the preceeding and following
utterance (see page 164);
5- if the texts were to be used only as reading materials, or were
exclusively a source of lexical terms to be used in controlled oral
practice, these limitations 'would not be too crucial; but they are
supposed to be the base for 'role play'. Teachers complain that
children are unable to perform the various characters, but in fact it
is the texts that are not suitable for this purpose.