Communication Between Adults And Adults Analysis

Apart from physical and mental dissimilarities, it is said that children’s learning environment is also different from that of adults. Whereas adults are likely to sit in a classroom using textbooks, children are more commonly using the language for everyday purposes during the process of language acquisition. When children acquires a language, both time and space involved in the conversation are all happening immediately for the communicators. The whole set of information is fairly concrete. For example, when a child named Gavin is holding a ball and trying to pass it to his friend Andy, saying “Andy, catch the ball!” Even if Andy did not understand the meaning of the sentence, he is able to figure out from the immediate context
For instance, parents point at a car driving by and speak to their child, “Look, there comes a car.” Children also understand their parents are talking about the vehicle passed by a moment ago. On the other hand, the conversation between adults does not always meet the same conditions. Cross (1987) has the following analysis of data relating to children’s communication.
72% meets the condition of “here and now”.
55% is a follow-up to something that happened before.
6% is simple
On the contrary, the communication between adults is complex and abstract. It includes opinions of a person or an incident, a review of a standpoint, or the telling of something that happened previously or will happen subsequently. People cannot tell what others are talking about simply by listening to their communication. If the content of the conversation is above a listener’s level, it is impossible for them to understand, which leads to an invalid input. It is invalid because it is incomprehensible. Our brain will automatically ignore such invalid content (Pienemann, 1985). That is why when adults learn a second language for years they may stop at a certain level without making further progress, which is known as the phenomenon of fossilization