4- ja 7-vuotiaan lapsen miksi-kysymykset aikuisen ja lapsen välisessä vuorovaikutuksessa

• Katri Lehtovaara

Avainsanat: keskusteluntutkimus, kysymys, lapsenkieli

Abstrakti

»Why?» questions of a child at age 4 and 7 years in adult and child interaction (englanti)

1/2002 (106)

WHY? QUESTIONS OF A CHILD AT AGE 4 AND 7 YEARS IN ADULT AND CHILD INTERACTION

The article examines the Why? questions addressed by a child at age four and seven years to her mother. The research method is conversation analysis and the object of the analysis is the interaction between adult and child. The material consists of recordings of family discussions totalling 3 hours 40 minutes.

The Why? question was very common in the speech of the young girl studied. In the material recorded when she was four, the Why? question accounted for 46 % (50) of all questions; the corresponding figure in the material recorded at age 7 was 22 % (32).

At four years old, the child uses the question to obtain information about the world around her, the question thus serving to organise her world. The questions may also function merely as questions for maintaining the conversation or they may themselves be informative. The latter means the childs question alerts her mother's attention to something new to the mother, which may be connected with the child's own experiences or other events about which the mother is unaware. The four-year-old's question also appears as a check on whether permission exists and as a check on her rights to do certain things. The modal verb saada is commonly used in these questions.

The Why? questions of the seven-year-old are mainly either to check the rules or are accusational. These types of question typically feature the pattern Why should x do something? The pattern is characterised by repetition and is easily triggered by affective circumstances. The accusations appearing in the material concern either the child's mother or the actions of her little sister. In accusing her little sister of something, she refers to her with the 3rd person pronoun se or using a proper name, regardless of whether or not the sister is present. The questions therefore also challenge the participation framework.

The questions demonstrate the child's developmental progress and socialisation as a member of a community. The seven-year-old's questions have a very adult-like function, whereas the four-year-old seeks to use the questions to organise a world that to her is still unclear. The seven-year-old shows that she has learnt conventionalised structures and practices from adult language, including the use of questions in an accusational capacity. The four-year-old's questions reveal a childish perspective on the organisation of the conversation. This confirms the assumption that mastering conversational conventions is something that can be learnt and is an important part of a child's socialisation.

Katri Lehtovaara

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Kielenainekset

miksi (kieli: suomi, sivulla: 35)
pitää (kieli: suomi, sivulla: 44)
saada (kieli: suomi, sivulla: 44)
voida (kieli: suomi, sivulla: 44)