Zach and the healing robot analysis

Plan:

• Possible reasons for being less fluent: Zach is being imaginative - making it up as he goes along 'Z: it got lots of hurt all the way down (.) so I puts lots of  (0.5) sellotape on it' may explain the pauses, he also often sets the agenda where as in the first transcript he is predominantly just replying to questions/interrogatives, transcript 2 declaratives
• Agenda setting : Zach sets the agenda - often back-channelling to the subject of the robot - 'H: so that's why it's a good idea to have some breakfast... 'Z: we don't need breakfast (.) it's gonna take a little time now'
• Vocabulary: Developed vocabulary wider range of sentence types mean length of utterances has increased showing development in language - compound rather than mostly simple- more of a justification/explanation 'yeah (.) it's gonna be a long time though (.) but we're not gonna have breakfast' Halliday's functions of speech- regulatory - commanding 'not gonna' 'please can you pick it up?' development of 'I' to 'I'm'
• Non-standard uses: 'gonna' 'needing' less virtuous mistakes Transcript 1: 'cutting' Transcript 2:differentiated between 'healed' and 'heal' suggests he has developed understanding of tenses
• Reliability of data: - Only one child - cannot make general conclusions, + longitudinal - can see development(year apart) possible need to look at development across more years, - relatively short transcripts

We would expect fluency of speech to improve and develop as the child grows older, despite this in the second transcript there are instances when Zach's language seems less fluent than the previous year. We could suggest various reasons as to why this is the case in relation to contextual factors such as the fact that in this trancript is playing and being imaginative and therefore a lot of what he is saying is being made up on the spot. We can see an example of this where he says 'an I'm sitting here (.) to (.) for waiting (.) to get (0.5) better (.) for it (0.5)’. In this instance we could also identify the fact the mean length of utterance is slightly greater in the second transcript, compared to more simple utterances in the first transcript which could also be an explanation for the pauses as he needs time to think about what to say next.

In the second transcript Zach  seems as if he is the dominant speaker, supporting most theories concerning language and gender, such as Zimmerman and West’s dominance theory. He is seen to set the agenda in both conversations and even uses back-channelling ‘We don’t need breakfast (.) it’s gonna take a little time now…’  to divert the conversation back to robots. This is also an example of a regulatory function of speech as ‘we don’t need breakfast’ is a command and has influenced speaker H’s behaviour.