Blog - Paper 3 Section B

 Raina appears to be in the post-telegraphic stage. Raina is also five years old in her case. Throughout the transcript, Raina exhibits several features of the post-telegraphic stage and remnants of the telegraphic stage in her usage of language. For instance, Raina seems to be able to understand connecting words which her Mother uses like ‘if’ and ‘/kaz/’ which is supposed to be ‘because’. Children in the post-telegraphic stage between the ages of three and five are using question forms such as Raina saying “can we skip this way” or “can i go in the long grass and and chase it” which can be assumed to be questions due to the modal verb of ‘can’ at the beginning. Raina also addresses her mother as ‘mum’ which is a characteristic language feature of the stage since children use family terms. Remnants of the telegraphic stage are also present which is seen by determiners being used and inflections/suffixes to show tense and person such as ‘a’ and ‘the’ used by Raina and the use of “i’m going to” by Raina. Which goes to show how she evolved from the telegraphic stage.

The Mother in this transcription tries to use her caretaking language in an effort to distract and grab Raina’s attention. This is due to Raina not following the mother’s instructions to wait and to stay on the path that they are walking on. The Mother frequently uses the verb ‘look’ in order to grab Raina’s attention and to distract her from going too far from the Mother. The use of uppercase with the lexis ‘look’ supports this since upper case refers to words spoken with increased volume as shown in the transcription key. So if the verb ‘look’ is spoken with increased volume it further suggests that the Mother is seeking to grab her attention in order to steer her away from straying too far. It could be plausible that the Mother is trying to control her child’s learning which can be seen by the way that she tries to stop Raina from straying too far from her. Which is seen by the Mother restricting Raina’s behavior for example, “Raina:...can we go in this field Mother: no (.) too long grass in there Raina: WHY (.) WHY Mother: /kez/ there might be creepy crawlies in there” so the Mother is choosing the path that Raina takes. Vygotsky’s ideas can be applied to this transcription since for him, the social interaction and guidance that a child receives determines their thinking and learning. So the Mother’s way of caregiving determines how Raina will grow so right now the Mother is limiting social interaction and guidance which means that Raina has decreased learning and thinking.

There are instances where there is back-channeling in the transcript. For example, Raina says “mm hmm” in response to her Mother. This is a noise that is used by Raina in order to indicate that she is paying attention to her Mother who is speaking. There are also micro pauses in the transcription. Which Raina uses frequently at points in order to speak properly since it requires some thinking from her part. 

The conversation includes two discourse features which are turn-taking and topic shift. This is seen by the consistent change in speaker in the transcription for example it goes from Speaker A to Speaker B back to A then B in repeating order but instead with “Raina: and Mother:”. This shows that the conversation is cooperative with both speakers taking turns but at times the speakers overlap. This is seen four times in the transcription which is indicated by ‘//’ which means that the speech overlaps. But there is no ill intent behind the overlapping speech it can just happen. The conversation also is dynamic and spontaneous due to Raina and the Mother talking about all sorts of things they notice. This produces topic shifts in the conversation which are intentionally forced in the conversation by the Mother which is seen by “Mother: [points] LOOK Raina: what Mother: see the butterfly [points] LOOK”. 

There is heuristic language in the transcript which is seen by the questions posed by Raina and Raina’s deep desire to explore. For example, “Raina: lets go this way mum (.) this way Mother: well wait for mummy now Raina: i want go this way Mother: youre going too fast Raina: look (.) this way (.) i’m going to (.) going to (.) go over here” so in the opening moments of the transcription Raina is already showing an innate desire to learn and explore which is typical and might be unique to humans. This goes accordingly with Halliday’s functions of language, specifically the Heuristic function of language that is used to explore the world and to learn and discover. Children also use language to learn and this can be through questions and answers  or running commentary that goes with play. This can also be seen by Raina when she asks her mother questions near the end of the transcription such as “Raina:…he can’t fly can he // Mother: i think he can…Raina:...can i go in the long grass and and chase it” which goes hand in hand with the heuristic function since Raina asks questions and is being answered by her Mother (her caregiver).