Young children’s initial assessments in Japanese

Abstract

Over the last few decades, researchers concerned with human interaction have viewed knowledge not as residing solely in the individual mind, but as shared and produced in situated interaction. In particular, knowledge of the social world, including shared conventions, communicative norms, and social values, is first acquired by children from caregivers and others in activities and sequences of action, and is crucial for participating as a member of a community or society. An important way that humans relate and share knowledge in interaction and, in the process, construct their views of the social world, is through evaluating, or by making assessments. In this sense, assessments are not merely descriptions of the social world, but social actions and stances that are often responded to, aligned with, or contested in meaningful ways. Although there has been an increasing amount of analytical attention paid to assessments in adult interaction, there is comparatively little research focusing on young children. An analysis of children’s assessments in everyday interaction can shed light on ways in which young children use their linguistic resources, together with embodied resources, to display evaluative and emotional stances, perform social actions, constitute relationships, and co-construct knowledge with adults and other children.