Intersubjectivity and supportiveness in children's conversations with each other in pre-school settings

International audienceThis paper investigates the ways in which children’s conversations in pre-school settings embody children’s emotional and intersubjective positioning (Marwick, 2015) in relation to the intentions and feelings of other children, and the impact that this can have upon their interpersonal relationships, self-identity, and well-being of both the initiator and recipient of a conversational turn. Extracts from conversations in an early years setting are used to demonstrate that as children become fluent conversationalists over the early years, so too are they developing a more complex pragmatic understanding of the implication, impact and force of their conversational turns. It is argued that children’s conversations need to be given attention in the early years as they are a key indicator of the children’s well-being and intersubjective experience, and it is important to be aware of ways in which their intentions and feelings are supported, or not, through their conversational interactions with each other