Abstract
This study investigated family communication in the context of dinner time discourse between a 5-year old boy, his mother, and his two school-age siblings. The focus was on the child's participation in mother-sibling conversational interactions. The results showed that the child's verbalizations and mother-child-sibling interactions increased in frequency during the child's transition to school. From the perspective of pragmatics, "instruction" increased during the preschool period and the expression of "reflective commentary" increased extending over time. This suggested that not only the period of child's entry into school but also the preschool period was a time for important family communication. In such communication, the transmission of information about elementary school facilitated the child's adjustment to school. The child was not effective at first in participating in mother-sibling conversations, but became more capable during the transitional period at conversational interactions and continuing interactions on a theme. In general, sensitivity to the child's growing ability to engage in discourse was more apparent in the mother's interactions than in the siblings' interactions with the child.
