Young children’s disputes during computer game playing at home

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Young children’s shared use of the computer can lead to conflict (Yelland, 2005) although little is known about the social organization of their disputes while using computer technology. This paper examines disputes that arose between two sisters during the playing of a computer game in their home. The children were aged four and six at the time. The recorded data was transcribed using Jefferson notation and two extended sequences selected for analysis after repeated viewing of the recording. Disputes occurred in both of these sequences. Antecedent events in disputes were either the physical action of clicking the mouse or the appearance of an on-screen image. Oppositions to these made apparent presumptions (Maynard, 1985) held by the older sister about the younger child’s ability to play the game. Specifically, she presumed that the younger child didn’t know how to play and needed to watch to learn how to play. Through oppositional turns, the younger child asserted that she did know how to play. These differences contributed to several disputes during the beginning stages of the game playing. Methods used in the design of oppositional turns included elongation of vowel sounds, stress given to words and raised pitch. It was the younger child’s accounts that lead to resolutions and closure of the disputes. That is, her accounts justified (Cobb-Moore, Danby & Farrell, 2008) her actions competently to her sister who allowed her, ultimately, to become the player of the game rather than an observer. This consideration of the interaction between the sisters and during their interactions with computer technology extends previous work on young children’s disputes; the paper explicates how the girls negotiated the local social order that sharing the computer game disrupted, and establishes how ownership of the computer mouse and observation of on-screen images were consequential in the occurrence and course of their spoken disputes.
Cobb-Moore, C., Danby, S., & Farrell, A. (2008). ‘I told you so’: Justification in disputes in
young children’s interactions in an early childhood classroom. Discourse Studies, 10, 595-614.
Maynard, D. (1985). How children start arguments. Language and Society, 14, 1-30.
Yelland, N. (2005). The future is now: A review of the literature on the use of computers in early
childhood education (1994-2004). AACE Journal, 13(2), 201-232.