Young children’s affective stance through embodied displays of emotion during tellings

Amanda Bateman

doi:10.1515/text-2020-2077

Article

Young children’s affective stance through embodied displays of emotion during tellings

Amanda Bateman
Amanda Bateman is currently Associate Professor Early Childhood Education at Waikato University, New Zealand. She has been Programme Director of Early Childhood Studies at Swansea University and has awards in teaching and research, leading funded projects investigating early childhood issues using conversation analysis in her approach. She has published widely including the books Conversation Analysis and Early Childhood Education: The Co-production of Knowledge and Relationships (2015, Ashgate/Routledge), and the co-edited Children and Knowledge-in-Interaction: Studies in Conversation Analysis (2017, Springer).

Published/Copyright: August 7, 2020

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From the journal Text & Talk Volume 40 Issue 5

Abstract

Storytelling provides opportunities for children to practise displays of affective stance. Children’s spontaneous tellings are noticeable as systematic and organized work, which are locally occasioned and triggered by a prior utterance where emotional responses are as significant as the tellings themselves. Affective stances are often observed in children’s tellings, encouraging children’s disposition to learn through active engagement with others, learning acceptable behaviours in meaningful social and cultural ways. This article explores how displays of heightened affect are prompted and responded to and progress the development of storylines within young children’s everyday storytelling. The data were collected in early childhood kindergartens in New Zealand and analysed using conversation analysis. The findings show that there is often elaboration/escalation of a telling, as peers respond by including additional characters within a continued topic in a display of heightened emotion shown through voice pitch and tone, as well as overt facial and bodily expression. Opportunities for practising displays of ‘correct’ emotional responses to tellings are important for young children in contributing to everyday socialising practises through real-life everyday experiences.

Keywords: early childhood education; teacher-child interaction; emotion; embodiment; story telling; affective stance; early socialization practises; ethnomethodology

Corresponding author: Amanda Bateman, Swansea University School of Education, Swansea University, First Floor, Talbot Building, Singleton Park, Swansea, SA2 8PP, Wales; and The University of Waikato, Te Kura toi Tangata—Division of Education, Private Bag 3105, Hamilton, 3240, New Zealand, E-mail: amanda.bateman@waikato.ac.nz

About the author

Amanda Bateman

Amanda Bateman is currently Associate Professor Early Childhood Education at Waikato University, New Zealand. She has been Programme Director of Early Childhood Studies at Swansea University and has awards in teaching and research, leading funded projects investigating early childhood issues using conversation analysis in her approach. She has published widely including the books Conversation Analysis and Early Childhood Education: The Co-production of Knowledge and Relationships (2015, Ashgate/Routledge), and the co-edited Children and Knowledge-in-Interaction: Studies in Conversation Analysis (2017, Springer).

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Published Online: 2020-08-07

Published in Print: 2020-09-25

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Articles in the same Issue

https://doi.org/10.1515/text-2020-2077

Keywords for this article

early childhood education; teacher-child interaction; emotion; embodiment; story telling; affective stance; early socialization practises; ethnomethodology