Toddler and Parent Interaction: The organisation of gaze, pointing and vocalisation(192 Pragmatics & Beyond New Series)

This book provides a microanalysis of the interactions between four children and their parents starting when the children were aged 9 to 13 months and ending when they were 18 months old. It tracks development as an issue for and of interaction. In so doing, it uncovers the details of the organisation of the sequence structure of the interactions, and exposes the workings of language and social development as they unfold in everyday activities. The study begins with a description of pre-verbal children’s sequences of action and then tracks those sequences as linguistic ability increases. The analysis reveals a developing richness and complexity of the sequence structure and exposes a gap in Child Language studies that focus on the children’s and their carers’ actions in isolation from their sequential environment. By focusing on the initiating actions of both child and parent, and the response to those actions, and by capturing the details of how both verbal and nonverbal actions are organised in the larger sequences of talk, a more complete picture emerges of how adept the young child is at co-creating meaning in highly organised ways well before words start to surface. The study also uncovers pursuit of a response, and orientation to insufficiency and adequacy of response, as defining characteristics of these early interactions.

Table of Contents:
1. Acknowledgements; 2. Introduction; 3. Chapter 1. Pragmatic development; 4. Chapter 2. Conversation analysis; 5. Chapter 3. The organisation of talk in early interaction; 6. Chapter 4. Initiating talk through pointing in early interactions; 7. Chapter 5. Beyond joint attention: The organisation of pointing sequences; 8. Chapter 6. The interactional work of gesture combinations, non-vocal pointing and withholding; 9. Chapter 7. Conclusion; 10. References; 11. Appendix: Transcription notations; 12. Index

Review :
Insgesamt ist es ein sehr schönes, gut lesbares und kluges Buch, das uns Einblicke gewährt in Bereiche, in denen bisher ein eher unausgesprochenes Allgemeinwissen herrschte und die Anna Filipi in das Licht wissenschaftlicher Untersuchung gezogen hat. Erwähnenswert ist auch, dass viele Videoaufnahmen der diskutierten Gesprächsausschnitte auf der Internetseite des Verlags (John Benjamins unter http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/pbns.192.video) hinterlegt sind, von wo sie kostenlos heruntergeladen werden können. The book positions itself as speaking to researchers from both Child Language and CA backgrounds. Its contribution to the development of both lines of research makes it a valuable read for researchers from both traditions. Toddler and Parent Interaction is an impressive achievement that demonstrates the power of CA to elucidate the complexity of skills that very young children have acquired at various stages of development and develop over time. Filipi's findings confirm and elaborate upon the findings of Child Language studies, giving explicit details that are lacking in these studies. Most importantly, Filipi focuses our attention on the collaborative achievement of interaction between toddlers and their parents. This showcases the valuable additional insights that are afforded by using an interactional, microanalytic approach that examines both parent and child actions in the sequences in the naturally occurring interactions in which they occur as compared to simply examining either parent or child actions abstracted from their sequences in experimental set-ups. The work makes a thoughtful and estimable contribution to our understanding of the communicative competencies of very young children, and -- given the rigor of the analysis -- will prove valuable to students and scholars of conversation analysis, linguistics and early childhood development. Toddler and Parent Interaction: The organisation of gaze, pointing and vocalisation represents a valuable contribution to the study of child language. The emphasis on multimodality and meaning-making expression and perception beyond vocal utterances clarify the meaning potential of gazing, gesture, and silence in child language acquisition. Multimodality may be acknowledged, but it is still not achieving the attention it deserves in sociolinguistic or linguistic circles at large. For putting multimodality at the forefront in her study of the development of interactional skills in small children, Filipi deserves credit.