Word searches: on the use of verbal and non-verbal resources during classroom talk

word. At this juncture, T is continuing to allocate responsibility for the choice of word
to the child who, at line 6, makes a further attempt to label the destination of the
astronaut’s journey. On this second occasion, instead of finding the word, C
substitutes the pronoun ‘that’ and repeats it. That the teacher’s participation is invited
during production of these pronouns is indicated by the child’s simultaneous gesture
at the picture and the shift of gaze from the book to the teacher’s face. The teacher
then has no hesitation in supplying a candidate noun phrase, which is accepted, with
repetition by C, in line 8.

The key verbal resources at the child’s disposal are use of the pronouns at lines 4 (‘it’)
and 6 (‘that’). Although they lack precision in terms of their reference, they supply
crucial information to T that the searched-for item is a noun. The syntactic frame of
the child’s turns also provides a further clue since an adverbial phrase proposes a
place name to be the relevant next item. Indeed, through on-line syntactic analysis of
this information the teacher is able to produce the lexical item. Furthermore, the
child’s hand gesture, which is a point at the relevant picture, cues a shared visual
resource that serves to focus the teacher’s attention and give a further clue.

Summary and conclusion

This paper offers a systematic examination of a dataset of word-finding behaviours
(pauses, repetition, filler words, silence, etc) displayed by a child who experiences
word finding difficulties. Fine-grained analysis of the design features in their
sequential contexts affords a richer interpretation of the child’s actions. First of all,
the analysis demonstrates how the child’s turns are constructed with verbal elements

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