Forced Choices - Role Play and the Problem of Disappearing Syntax

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by dhado

Forced Choices investigates why Korean elementary students in English role play produce more coherent, longer dialogue when choices are constrained to a single situation and language exponent. While initial observations link longer utterances with reduced sentence length and suggest an unpacking of grammatical complexity into discourse complexity, broader longitudinal and cross-sectional data complicate this view. Children are found to deliberately choose more elliptical, less creative expressions, indicating the issue is not a data artifact. The study theorizes a chain of constraints from instincts to habits to voluntary, environmentally oriented free will, where the child’s developing self gains sovereignty through such exercise.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages15

Reading Time38 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

A Paradox

Disappearing syntax in responses

A One-Week Miracle?

Classroom role play design

ISSN: 2325-3290 (online) Forced Choices: Role Play and the Problem of Disappearing Syntax1 David Kellogg Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Republic of Korea Abstract We begin with the observation that some Korean elementary school children in English class, confined to a single situation and even a single language exponent in a role play, appear to produce far more coherent dialogue than the previous week when they were allowed completely free choices in language. We note that at the same time as their dialogue becomes longer, their sentences become shorter (tall and thinner on the printed page), and we suggest that the grammatical complexity is consciously unpacked as discourse complexity. When we turn to a large corpus of longitudinal and cross sectional data, we see, however, that “thinner”dialogue with short utterances is not always more creative, at least not grammatically. We see that the children are deliberately and consciously choosing more elliptical and less creative expressions when they speak. We generalize from this data to show that the problem is no mere artifact of the data sample. We theorize from this generalization to show that the development of the child’s freewill in syntax is related to a long chain of such constraints, leading from instincts to habits to intelligent choices oriented toward the immediate environment to acts of free will which are genuinely voluntary and which admit no sovereign but the child’s developing self. Indeed, we shall argue that the exercise of this sovereignty is precisely how the child develops a selfin the first place. Keywords: dialogue; syntax; self David Kellogg is an associate professor at the graduate school of TESOL in Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, where he teaches research methods, thesis writing, and a class on narrative and discourse on story-telling. He is currently involved in issuing the collected works of Vygotsky in the Korean language. His publications include more than two dozen articles in academic journals, including Modern Language Journal, Applied Linguistics, Language Teaching Research, Language and Education, Language Awareness, and Psyanima Psychological Journal. His forthcoming book, on Sense Publications, is "The Great Globe and All Who it Inherit", a book on narrative, discourse and story-telling. 1 This research was made possible by a grant from the Hankuk University of Foreign Studies Research Fund, 2014. Dialogic Pedagogy: An International Online Journal | [http:dpj.pitt.edu](http:dpj.pitt.edu) [DOI: 10.5195/dpj.2014.65 | Vol. 2](DOI: 10.5195/dpj.2014.65 | Vol. 2) (2014) A1 Forced Choices: Role play and the problem of disappearing syntax David Kellogg A Paradox Our problem, even if it were not very familiar to teachers already, is easily stated in numbers. We take an English book from a Korean classroom. We divide each dialogue into “utterances”, defined, as Bakhtin would define them, as the stretches of dialogue between the moments when the speaker becomes the hearer (1986, p. 63) . We then count the number of words in each utterance, and we find that the mean length of the utterance in each lesson increases on the average .5 words per year, from 3.2 words per utterance in Third Grade to 4.0 words per utterance in Fifth Grade. Yet when we actually talk to the children, we find a curious paradox. On the one hand, they grow more and more reliant on the textbook for fixed phrases as they age. This ought to make their utterances longer and longer. But on the other, we find them growing more and more laconic in replies. In some cases, syntax disappears, and the child will say very little beyond“yes”, “no”and perhaps“fine-thanks-and-how-are-you”. In this paper, we shall explain this paradox and consider some solutions to this problem of disappearing syntax. We begin with two short extracts that show the children using“free choices” in improvising a dialogue and“forced choices”where they are constrained to

FAQs

What paradox does the paper describe about children’s dialogue length and syntax?

Utterance word length increases across grades, yet replies become increasingly laconic, with syntax sometimes disappearing so children respond with minimal words like “yes,” “no,” and “fine-thanks-and-how-are-you”.

How does the paper characterize “utterances” for analysis?

It divides each dialogue into “utterances,” defined as the stretches of dialogue between moments when the speaker becomes the hearer.

What explanation does the paper propose for the disappearing syntax problem?

The paper argues the issue is not simply more or less freedom of choice; instead, children deliberately choose more elliptical expressions, and the development of free will in syntax is linked to constraints that culminate in voluntary, self-oriented choices.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by dhado