Gems

[Dorit Ravid]

I support the idea of Gem diaries enthusiastically. I recorded my two older
kids and conducted "Gem" diaries for all three. It was my experience that
the moment you turned off the tape-recorder, the child would come up with
the best, most creative gem. That was when the diary came in. Some of the
examples I wrote down still intrigue me (e.g., a short period during which
word order seems to be in flux). Since most info-childes readers would not
be able to enjoy Hebrew examples such as 'ani yexole la-lexet im ha-regel'
(Itamar [boy] at 2;5), here is a gem from the same age that is less
language-specific:
Itamar: ima, ma ata kotevet?
           Mommy, what (are) you,Masc writing,Fm?
M:      ani kotevet ma'amar
          I (am) writing (a) paper.
Itamar: al tihyi kotevet ma'amar!
           Don't be writing (a) paper!

Dorit Ravid

===================
Professor Dorit Ravid
The Constantiner School of Education and the Department of Communications
Disorders
Tel Aviv University

Please send mail to:
Dorit Ravid
The Constantiner School of Education
Tel Aviv University
Tel Aviv 69978, ISRAEL
Tel +972 3 5364304 (H)
      +972 3 6408626 (O)
      +972 54 4482401 (M)
Fax: +972 3 5360394, 6409477
Email: doritr at post.tau.ac.il
http://www.tau.ac.il/education/homepg/dorit-ravid.html

----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Tomasello" <tomasello at eva.mpg.de>
To: "info-childes" <info-childes at mail.talkbank.org>
Sent: Wednesday, August 04, 2004 10:32 PM
Subject: Gems


> As an erstwhile diary keeper, may I put in a plea for some quality
> control of the gems.  It's been my experience that people's memory for
> the exact formulation of utterances is shockingly poor (and there is
> even psycholinguistic evidence on this).  Granted, an especially
> interesting utterance is more memorable, but I would vote for only
> including in the gem files things that were written down immediately,
> not things remembered from many months or years ago.  At the very least,
> there should be a comment line reporting the lag between utterance and
> recording.
>
> Mike Tomasello
>
>
>  +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>  This Mail Was Scanned By Mail-seCure System
>  at the Tel-Aviv University CC.
>