The nature of conversations amongst families in zoos

Sue Dale Tunnicliffe

Institute of Education, University of London

The content of the conversations of families was similar to that of the school groups and had overall three main aspects:

1. observational and information exchange which might be just voicing a description of the specimens or other aspects of the exhibit;

2. memories and opinions of an interpretative nature;

3. social and control interactions.

Above all language is a social system.

Although management comments were used to discipline and control the group, as in the following comment that began an exchange, ‘Get your feet off please, you’re not meant to be on there.’, social comments, which may have occurred because people were together and using conversations for social bonding -such conversations are referred to in linguistics as phatic conversations- were used to acknowledge another person. The acknowledgement was through the use of their name and/or involving them in conversation. This is illustrated in the following exchange generated by members of a school group.

Adult: / Jamie! Look at this one. Look up there. Look in the branches!
Girl: / Mum, Peter pushed me.
Adult: / Oh, he didn’t mean to, did he? He’s got to see well so that he can tell his Mummy about all the wonderful things that you see.
Girl: / Sarah, Sarah, come over here and see this terrible lizard!
Girl 2: / That one’s asleep.
Boy: / That’s why.
Girl: / Darren, Darren, Darren.

The conversations reported here are focused upon the animals but the form of the dialogue may be similar, whatever type of exhibit, if it contained an object, such as a cultural artefact like food utensils from the Roman era. The following utterance, generated by a seven year old boy, illustrates the exhibit focus and the social involvement of the group ‘Look! It’s on the picture. There’s that one. Look at that one Miss!’. Utterances were employed to inform others about facts relevant to them concerning another individual, as in the following exchange:

17. Nile Crocodile

Boy: He’s got his mouth open, he is quite...Neil’s gone!

Social comments have a cultural role and were employed for sharing family information and recollections. The family, in the following exchange at the Tigers Exhibit shared a memory, the process was triggered by an aspect of the exhibits ( other exhibit category) and can equally as well occur among school groups with their class teacher:

Boy / Why have they a net over the top?
Mum / Because they are very strong jumpers and they coudl jump out couldn’t they?
Boy / Oh!
Mum / It’s like the net over the garden at home.
Boy / Uhm.
the tiger rolled on his back
Mum / He looks like Timothy at home

Social comments are used for contributing a personal experience which extends the topic. Such a statement may voice a relevant personal recollection, as the uncle did in the following exchange:

8. Tiger

Neil: The baby said ‘Tiger’! [the baby was in a neighbouring family group]

Mum: Yes! She did!

Uncle: ‘Tiger, tiger, burning bright!’

The social comments in the following conversation was used in setting the context of the specimens within the experience of the child:

Boy: / A what devil? Tasmanian? Tasmanian Wolf? I’ve never been there.
Mother: / It’s near Australia.

In the following exchange, which was about bats, an aunt and grandma contributed personal recollections about the animals being viewed, and perhaps established their social credibility. The child with them tried to manage the group:

Aunt: Look! They are upside down on the tree.

Michael: Where are they? Are they flying round?

Aunt: Yes.

Michael: Oh yes! There’s some. There’s some over there.

Aunt: Yes.

Grandma: Are these bats?

Aunt: Yes, they were flying around in Sri Lanka.

Grandma: We get bats in our garden.

Michael: Can we go on now?

In the above exchange Michael used his words for expressing his feelings and which he hoped would influence his group. Words may also express the speakers’ interest in the topic. In the following exchange, which occurred at a bat exhibit, Cilla used words to express her boredom with the exhibits. In the ‘Cilla’ exchange, management, as well as social comments, were part of the dialogue:

Mother: / Look at that Cilla!
Girl: / It’s in the tree!
Mother: / Look calm down all right? Or I won’t talk to you if you are silly. Fruit bat- look! And an Indian Flying Fox fruit bat.
Girl: / Tutti fruit bat, bat, bat. Look Mum.

The pattern of conversations alters with the age of the child. Very young children are being taught ‘labels’ for things (Bruner 1983:79-80). Older children are talked to in simpler language often using ‘baby’ words (motherese), (Wheldall and Glynn 1989: 134-142). Formal learning dialogue (Hensel 1987; McManus 1987; Sinclair and Coulthard 1975; Lemke 1990: ix). The transcripts of the conversations of families also show that the distinct forms of conversation used with children as family or as pupils and which have been identified by other researchers, e.g. Bruner (1983), Wheldall and Glynn (1989), Hensel (1987), Sinclair and Coulthard (1975) and Lemke (1990), were used by adults when talking to children of particular stages of development (Table 5.9).

Table 5. 9

Main forms of conversation used at animal exhibits by families

Level / Characteristic conversational form
Level 1 babies/toddlers / ‘LABELLING’
Mum: Do you know what that is? It’s a Kookaburra Child: Kookaburra Mum: Well done!
Level 2 pre-school / ‘MOTHERESE’
Mum: Look! a birdie!
Level 3 school aged / INVERSE TRIADIC
Prologue segment 59. Dung Beetle
Michael: What’s that? It looks like elephant pooh!
Aunt: That’s right, and there are beetles which live in it.
Michael: Ergh! / FORMAL LEARNING
Mum: Look at this guys! He’s a Yellow Head Boy: Where? Mum: It’s right there.

Most of the conversations heard in this present work were those of Level 3 (Table 5.9) because the majority of family groups contained a child who was able to converse at this level. Infants have a form of their own language use, for example one child used the word ‘Tiger’, to indulge in word play whilst at the exhibit. The transcripts contain examples of using words in sound games, as the following exchange, which occurred in the museum, illustrates:

Boy: / What’s that one?
Father: / That’s a lemming
Boy: / A lemon, a lemon, a lemon!
Father: / A lemming
Boy: / A lemon- we could eat it!

The above exchange also illustrates a noticeable feature of the transcripts which is that the children often began the exchange using a question, a technique reminiscent of the home situation where children initiated the majority of exchanges, using a question in a search for knowledge (Tizard and Hughes 1984). This child-as -questioner pattern was particularly striking within the school transcripts and, as this sequence is the inverse of that described as typical teaching dialogue by Sinclair and Coulthard (1975) and Lemke (1992: ix) it is referred to as inverse triadic dialogue. The conversations generated by children within the museum and zoo seem to be a compromise in form. School trips provide an important opportunity for children to set the focus of conversation and is one reason why they are individual.

Children, who were members of family groups, initiated exchanges through asking a question, although some of the adults did ‘tell’ the children information. On the other hand, children within school groups also initiated the exchanges at the animals, unlike the classic situation within school where teachers do so, making a statement or asking a questions (Sinclair and Coulthard 1975; Lemke 1990: ix). The museum or zoo provided a compromise or half-way house from the more normal conversational pattern for each group, possibly because the adults in each case were less familiar, with the topic and setting, and therefore less confident, during the visits and modified their own behaviour. Another study that listened to children’s talk whilst looking at live animals in the classroom (Chittenden 1990), reported a different pattern of conversational content from that of classical teaching lead by the teacher, or home based led by questions from the child. The children working in peer groups employed pronouncements as the majority of opening statements, and this style of conversation from children was apparent within the transcripts at animal exhibits. Michael for example made an opening pronouncement in segments 24, 25 and 60.

24. Snake

Michael: It’s on that ledge.

25 Chinese Alligators

Michael: They look like plastic.

60. Golden Lion Tamarins

Michael: That’s a Golden Lion Tamarin.

A number of the conversations reported above, which were generated at the panda exhibit, also started with a pronouncement from a child. For example, ‘It’s a lovely Chinese panda’; ‘Yes , there was this eater, then they shot him’; ‘It’s big!’. Asking a question, or making a statement as an opening utterance when looking at animal exhibits, provided a cue for the tone and focus of the subsequent conversation. The panda, as the focus of the attention of the group, was the choice of the first speaker. In contrast, the statements made in the classroom in Chittenden’s study were all part of an extended exchange and focused on one animal, unlike the many animals looked at and commented upon within the zoo or museum.

The results raise issues about the effectiveness of zoo education departments in aiding both school and leisure groups to realise the learning potential of live animals in captivity.