Halliday's Functions

Halliday's Functions:


Instrumental -
Child uses language to express their needs, usually concerned with food, drink and comfort E.G. 'want juice'


Regulatory -
Child uses language to influence the behaviour of others, persuading/commanding E.G. 'go away'


Interactional -
Child uses language to develop social relationships and ease the process of interaction E.G. 'I love you'


Personal -
Child uses language to express personal preferences and individual identity E.G. 'I am good'


Representational -
Child uses language to exchange information, concerned with requesting facts or information


Heuristic -
 Child uses language to learn of and explore the environment, this could be questions and answers  E.G. 'what is the tractor doing?'


Imaginative -
 Child uses language to tell stories and jokes, may also accompany play as children create imaginary worlds, or may arise from storytelling

Mini investigation: Evie 'all the things'

Evie mini investigation 'all the things' - 

Title:
Investigation into how the caregivers language influences Evie's linguistic development in the 'all the things' video transcript

Introduction:

• Bruner's LASS theory says that by caregivers interacting with children and encouraging them to respond, it supports their linguistic development in social situations. Vygotsky supports this and says that children take in the language used by adults and apply it to their own situations, this is referred to as scaffolding. 
• Theory would predict that in this investigation, i will find that the caregivers language helps to develop that of Evie's. I will therefore expect to find the caregivers language being supportive and prompting Evie for answers, as well as positive reinforcement, interrogatives,open questions, closed questions, repair and possible echoing. 

Methodology:

• For my investigation i picked the 'all the things' video transcript between Evie and her Grandmother and i analysed it, counting the amount of interrogatives, open questions, closed questions and repeats/prompts from the Grandmother. This way i could look at the caregivers language with the child and how this helps develop her linguistic skills.
• Due to not knowing Evie nor her Grandmother, it made sure that i was not biased in the investigation.
• Benefits of the investigation would be that i did not have to ask for consent when using the data and also the speech from Evie was natural
• Limitations of the investigation however would be that it is not truly representative due to only having a limited data sample, being one recording. Also since the Grandmother was recording, she was aware of what she was saying which could have resulted in demand characteristics. 

Analysis:

• In total, Evie's Grandmother asked 42 interrogatives, 19 open questions, 22 closed questions and 10 repeats/prompts.
• By asking so many interrogatives/ open questions it allows Evie to expand on her point and develop her language by speaking in more detail and depth.
• This also shows that her Grandmother initiates conversation with Evie which would help her also do the same in future conversations as she will take it on board, this is scaffolding. 

Conclusion and Evaluation:

• As i only had a small pool of data there was of course massive limitations in what i could do and also what i could find as it wasn't truly representative. 
• My findings proved my hypothesis since Evie's Grandmother did ask many interrogatives, open and closed questions and repairs/prompts which helps develop Evie's language.