Paper 3 section b

In this extract, it features a mother and her five year old daughter Raina. Raina is in the concrete operational stage which means her thinking is characterized by logical operations like conversation, reversibility or classification which allows logical reasoning. At this age, Raina should be able to form complete sentences with some logic. Throughout the extract, Raina shows her thinking and reasoning while going on the trail with her mother. 

Raina's mother is displaying caretaker speech. She simplifies her sentences to use simpler words that her five year old would understand so they can hold a conversation. Riana’s mother uses simplified phrases like “no(.) too long grass in there”. Simple phrases like this are more comprehensible for Raina and enable her to have a conversation with her mom that she can understand. Raina’s mother also uses different fluctuation and intonation in her voice which tells Raina what she should pay attention to. 

Raina picks up on the intonation of her mothers voice and directs her attention to what her mother is talking about. “ Mother: See the butterfly (upwards intonation)  [points] LOOK

Raina: where (downwards intonation)”. Raina picks up on her mothers upwards intonation and loud expression and responds with a question with an intonation opposite to her mothers. Her question is relevant to her mothers expression shows how she is able to hold a logical conversation with someone else. 

Although Raina is able to have full conversations with her mother, she consolidates some words and phrases. Her mother is again displaying caretakers speech because she is also consolidating phrases. For example, Raina says “mum I’m /gene/ skip over to the long grass over there (1) can we go in this field (downwards intonation)”. Although gonna is not an actual word and is often used when teens text, Raina is combining ’going to’ into a shorter phrase because it's easier for her to pronounce or could be easier for her to comprehend and use properly in a sentence. 

Throughout the conversation between Raina and her mother, it is evident that they use imitation and reinforcement theory. Imitation and reinforcement theory is when a child copies words that they hear and is reinforced when the repetition in the words or correction or praise from others.  Her mother clearly emphasizes the word “LOOK”. She does this by using a raised volume to stress the importance and to gain Raina's attention. Raina picks up the importance in her mother's voice and points out the butterfly. After hearing her mother use an emphasis “LOOK” several times, Raina picks up on this and starts to use it too. When Raina uses “look” and emphasizes it, her mother immediately reacts to it and gives Raina feedback similar to the feedback Raina gave her mother. 

Like the majority of little kids, Raina gets overly excited during her conversation with her mother and starts to interrupt her. Her mother interrupts Raina first when she is correcting her on a fact, “YES(.) a I (1) he can’t fly can he // i think he can” Raina says what she thinks is true about the bird and her mother cuts in and corrects her. Raina picks up on the interruption and then interrupts her mother soon after, “the blackbird // just creeps in to it // no (.) don't’ chase it (.) we’ll stick to the path (.)”. Raina interrupts her mother similar to how her mother interrupted her, then her mother interrupts Raina again. In the future, this could lead to Raina interrupting conversations all the time because she has learned it from her mother.

Throughout the extract, Raina displays one of Halliday’s seven theories, the regulatory function. This function language is used to tell others what to do. Raina displays this by saying “look” several times and by telling her mother what she wants to do. Raina insists on going a certain way and to a certain area, but her mother tells her no and Raina listens. 

“Raina: lets go this way mum (.) this way

Mother: well wait for mummy now

Raina: I want to go this way”

Raina displayed the regulatory function by insisting on what she wants to do. Instead of asking if she could do something, Raina insists instead. Her mother doesn’t seem to be bothered by this and her response is why she shouldn’t do those things.