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QC (in Berlin 7/29-???)
@QiaochuYuan
there's a whole lovely section of the first chapter of impro that's like this. quotes:
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May Helena Plumb
@mayhplumb
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The child was next shown a large photograph of children playing on a city street, and given careful instructions for what to do. "I want you to look at this picture on the wall. Do you see it? I want you to look at the children in this picture and I want you to see if you can tell me a story about what t he children are doing. Do you think you can do that? All right, whenever you're ready you can begin your story." We can call this a "request for display."
The children's response to this test, in general, was to say as little as possible. here is one of the most verbal responses to the main question: James: There's a girl riding a bike. Teacher: Good. Go ahead. James: A boy is playin' a ball and runnin'. And a boy ch-- is got his sleeves on his head. Teacher: Mhm. James: And the girl is--uh--playin'. James is one of the most talkative children in the group. Other said much less. Some were paralyzed into silence by the request for display.
The language used by Mays and James talking to the rabbit is far more complex than their responses to the teacher-tester. It is not uncommon to find causal arguments of considerable depth, together with comparatives which are still to complicated for linguists to analyze.
This is a PHENOMENAL little paper The general point is that tests educators were using to evaluate linguistic competency were highly artificial (e.g. ordering the child to talk), and therefore didn't capture the creativity & complexity within the children's language
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