THE FAMILY CAR AS A VEHICLE FOR CHILDRENS USE OF DISTANT TIME REFERENTS

The conversations of nine preschool-aged children (C.A. 4:0-5:2) were tape-recorded as they interacted with teachers and with peers at presc hool, as they traveled home from school with their parent in the famil y car, and as they engaged in routine home activities. The speech samp les were coded to identify the time referents the children used in the ir topics of conversation in the three settings. The study sought to e xplore suggestions that young children, although generally context-bou nd in their talk at home and school, are capable of decontextualized t alk when settings and conversational partners are familiar and support ive, and when contexts are transitional and prompt talk about other th an the here-and-now. Significant differences were found in the childre n's use of present, past and future time referents in the three settin gs. Overall, the children spoke most often about the here-and-now, mak ing frequent references to the present activities or to people in each setting. References to past and future events, however, were signific antly more frequent in the car setting than in the home or school talk . Most references to the past occurred during the first 5 min of trave l and were often prompted by the presence of a project remnant in the car or parents' questions or comments. References to future events occ urred more frequently during the latter portion of the car trip. Diffe rences in the children's proportional use of fantasy time referents we re not significant. Possible implications for teachers and parents are discussed along with suggestions for future research.