Discourse Patterns in First Language Use at Hcme and Second Language Learning at School: an Ethnographic Approach

Interpretation / 157

ЗО  X     what?                                         <1 1 4 41 0 0 0)

31  Child it’s ten                                      <2 1 6 81 O O 2)

32  X     isn’t this twenty?                           <1 5 4 11 1 1 O)

33  X     it isn’t tea, it is twenty, this.             <1 5 9 72 O O O)

This example shows how in tutorial events initiated by an adult, the
child is confined to the role of respondent, does not sake requests in
his Keply Xove, does not challenge dominance and generally does not
contribute much to the interaction, and as a result of this the adult
finds it difficult to use strategies for topic incorporation. It is to be
noted that, while the motivation of the child to Ieam the value of coins
at that particular moment might have been low, nonetheless the tutoring
event was very well keyed in with the on-going activity, a feature of
home learning which is often praised <Tizard,1984, Veils,1981).

Focusing now on how children give information and explanation, the
analysis of home conversation shows that about a third of the children's
talk consists of utterances providing information and explanations: they
account for more than three quarters of all the 'give' acts (see Annex
5.3>. Children give information mostly as a response to an adult's
request, (see Table 5.12) and therefore the function frequency follows
that of the adults' requests (cfr. Table 5.9 and 5.13), but in about a
quarter of the cases, children 'offer' information without it being
elicited.

Table 5.12

Children's Offers of Information and Explanation In the Dynamic of CS

Io.

799     100.0

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