Children's Synchronization of Utterance in the Japanese Preschool
Takashi Itô · Hokkaido University Collection of Scholarly and Academic Papers (Hokkaido University) · 2004
This article investigates the nature of an activity observed in Japanese preschools, where children and teachers synchronize their utterances to each other.Two studies were conducted from the viewpoint that the participants' necessity for synchronization was derived from an institutional aspect of the activity.Study 1 examined how synchronized utterances were embedded in the daily life of a preschool class of 4-5 year-olds.A comparison between the daily events identified by the teacher and the time of occurrences for the synchronized utterances demonstrated that these utterances were likely to occur during specific events when all the children need to get together in the classroom.In study 2, by closely recording the speech of a single child from each 3 to 6 year-old class in a preschool, we examined the ways by which four children coordinated their voices to create overall harmony in the synchronized utterance.Sound analysis revealed that all the children did not always utter the same words, at the same time, as the other children in the class.Rather, the targeted children uttered various forms of speech, such as saying only one part of a fixed expression because they were exploring the right occasion to utter and keeping mute while the other children were talking in unison.The findings are discussed in terms of both the advantage for a newcomer in a preschool to participate in the activities easily, without being evaluated by others, and the teachers' risk of not providing educational support for the newcomer at the appropriate time.