Reports on a study indicating children's dependency in oral persuasion on the cooperative nature of dialog and nonverbal vocalizations and their dependence in written persuasion on persuasive strategies found in speech that can be transferred to writing and, concomitantly, their relatively infrequent use of persuasive strategies specific to…

Describes a study of preschool children's utterances and their context, intended to provide evidence of children's argumentative capacities. Shows how children, though perhaps not consciously, use language to intervene upon reality in order to modify a state of things by sensibly arguing their case. (SED)

Describes the structure and emergence of extended argument sequences produced by preschool children. Provides a system for analyzing turns that initiate, elaborate, and terminate argument sequences. Draws conclusions regarding the development of proficiency in producing argument and interaction. (PD)

Ethnographic classroom research shows culturally different children follow non-congruent patterns in arguments with their peers. Protests by two first grade boys from different cultures are examined, and some ways in which their protesting styles differ are indicated. A Black American child pursues final protests using successively more aggravated…

A study identified discourse patterns in potential disputes, deflected disputes, incomplete, and completed disputes from a one-hour conversation involving two 3-year-old female children and one female adult. These varied dispute episodes were identified, coded, and analyzed using a pragmatic model of adult argumentation focusing on the structures,…

Examines the use of gender-distinctive language in preschool sibling conversations, focusing on mitigation in directives and related forms used during pretend play. Findings indicate that gender-distinctive patterns of language use are sensitive to variations in situation and interaction partner. (19 references) (CK)

Explores role of discourse functions in children's use of "because" ("perche" in Italian). Disputes of 172 preschoolers were analyzed in terms of interactive move, argumentative strategies, and communicative acts. Results showed causal connective tends to co-occur with justification acts and may work as device introducing new information and…

Studied talk in early childhood contexts and the formative influences of adults' gendered language interaction. The types of discourse studied include children's conversations during pretend play construction and role play, parent and child reports of past speech, parent and child reminiscences of past events, and children's persuasive…