Permalink : http://hdl.handle.net/2115/28226

This short essay will discuss the necessity of postulating multiparty conversation as a model in the research on language development. Studies that examine the conversations involving more than three persons including children have been accumulated. Multiparty conversations may be a naturalistic linguistic environment for children. However, the fact that they are held in the natural environment is not the critical reason why researchers need to focus on such conversations. With regard to the model of multiparty conversation, a possible question that is raised concerns how children participate in conversations by acquiring some interactional role. It was argued that revealing the process by which children learn the role allocation system through participating in conversations may be one of problems to be dealt with in the study of language development.