the sounds we make

In a lecture last week a student asked how it would be possible to record the talk of young children who were not speaking words but rather sounds. It was a good question (thanks Julie). Jefferson notation enables us to record some sounds. For example, in the following excerpt from a transcript the teacher is watching Cathlyn writing during and notices that she has spelled a word incorrectly, she does this:

Teacher: ((watching)) hhhhhh

The sounds used here represent the teacher's indrawing of breath which was followed by:

((all the students at the table turn to face the teacher and Cathlyn/ Wayne stands to look/ Cathlyn continues writing))

Everyone who was seated with Cathlyn responded to the sound that the teacher made. One student, Wayne, even stood up to see what was going on. Cathlyn kept writing. So the sound generated a response from students, although not the student that had prompted this utterance from the teacher. The teacher then does this:

Teacher: ((touches Cathlyn on the hand and points to the page)) it wwww

In response to Cathlyn's failure to respond to the teacher's utterance (her indrawing of breath), the teacher touches her on the hand and starts to say the words that Cathlyn has written. In this way she marks off that it is Cathlyn's work that she is commenting on.

Though this talk represents only a very short interchange it shows very interesting things. First off, the teacher doesn't necessarily use words to make her point. Her indrawing of breath was in response to Cathlyn's writing error. She doesn't say that Cathlyn has made an error but rather indicates it. The response of other students at the table shows that they hear the teacher's utterance as indicating a problem that relates to Cathlyn and her writing. They attend to it before Cathlyn does

Overall, this brief interchange illustrates many features of independent writing and of classrooom talk. Though writing independently, students are subject to the attention of the teacher and of other students. Thus, it is very much social activity, even though students are engaged in writing their own texts. During independent writing, the teacher does not directly point out errors but rather requires that students attend to their writing and find errors when she indicates that something is not right in their writing. Indications of errors might be something like the indrawing of breath, or like this ...

Teacher: owh (0.4) [you've you've gotta leave a space though

All up. A little bit of talk, even a sound tells a lot. What does "owh" tell us? And for that matter, why does the teacher tell what the problem is after making that sound? And what does "though" indicate? Something has been done by the student that is partly right?