Abstract Summary
The presenter advances the position that children engage in ‘conflict talk’ exchanges through which information about the meaning, structure, and usage of language become available to the child. The presenter showcases research supporting the notion that conflict may inform language learning. Assessment strategies for examining children’s conflicts will be showcased.
Abstract :
Experts recognize that all threads of development (social, emotional, cognitive, and language) exist simultaneously and interweave (Kostelnik, Soderman, Whiren, & Rupiper, 2016). Since conflict has been suggested as an impetus for development in several developmental domains (Erickson, 1963; Piaget, 1932, 1958; Schnewly, 1994; Kohlberg & Gilligan, 1972), scholars should examine conflict as a mechanism for language learning.
In this paper, the presenter advances the position that conflict drives language development; that children engage in ‘conflict talk’ exchanges through which information about the meaning, structure, and usage of language is derived. Conflict is universal across cultures and across time, so it may be an essential building block for language learning. “Conflict is a social activity, created and conducted primarily by means of talking” (Garvey & C. U. Schantz, 1992, p. 93). It is a definable, measurable entity manifested “when one person does something to which a second person objects” (Hay, 1984. p. 2).
‘Conflict talk’ exchanges have been studied by researchers (Church, 2016; Eisenberg, 1992; Eisenberg & Garvey, 1981; Garton & Renshaw, 1988; Garvey & C. U. Shantz, 1992; Lindow, Wilkinson, & Peterson, 1985; Okrainec, 1997; Renshaw & Garton, 1986). While it has long been thought that conflict resolution requires sophisticated language skills, it may well be that conflict exchanges promote the growth of linguistic knowledge (Okrainec, 2008).
The objectives for this session are to: (a) showcase the understanding that conflict informs language development; (b) explain how developmental attainments and phenomena cast the emergent language learner into ‘conflict talk’ engagements; (c) report how scholars have been assessing ‘conflict talk’/’verbal disagreements’; and, (d) identify strands of evidence that lend credence to the notion that conflicts inform language learning. The presenter will raise questions about interventions to suppress challenging behaviors, as some challenging behaviors may be the child’s strategy for language acquisition.
