“Did you just say transformers?” A Child's agency and social actions in language-focused sequences

This study aims to contribute to current understandings about young children's roles and actions in discourse about language with adults in informal contexts. Using conversation analysis, we examine how a young child (aged 3;7 to 4;2) initiated talk about aspects of language in conversations with his parents in language-focused sequences (sequences in which at least one participant oriented to a language form). The child initiated these sequences through requests for linguistic information, unelicited displays of linguistic abilities, and repairs of the parent's language. He also employed a range of interactional practices to actively pursue talk about language. In addition to analyzing the child's agency, we demonstrate that an initial focus on a language form served as a springboard for the accomplishment of a variety of social actions, including (a) the learning and teaching of linguistic knowledge, cultural values, and practical knowledge about the world as well as (b) the display and negotiation of affective, social, and epistemic stances, linguistic competence, norm-compliance/defiance, self-assertion, and identities. •A child exercised agency in initiating and pursuing language-focused sequences.•The child explicitly requested or voluntarily displayed linguistic knowledge in talk.•The child also repaired the parents’ language and held them accountable.•In talk about language, participants expressed knowledge, values, and identities.