Abstract
This study investigates language use by three-year-old children during peer interaction. The subjects were five children ranging in age from three years, three months to three years, nine months. Five episodes of their interaction were studied and analyzed. As a control, thirteen episodes of interaction among three children and their nursery school teacher were used. The results of the analysis are as follows. 1) In terms of communication skills, most of the interaction consisted of parallel use of utterances and non-linguistic action. 2) In terms of conversation rules, turn-taking was rapid, diversified, and unsettled. 3) Language functions were composed of requests for a single action and responses. There was a wider range of language functions in the control group. 4) Conversation rules for marking the end of a conversation were not used. This study suggests the need for classifying in more detail language functions from the developmental viewpoint.
