Chapter 4. ‘It wouldn’t hurt if you had your child evaluated’: Advice to mothers in responses to vignettes from a US teaching context

This study examines advice-giving by students preparing to be teachers of young children. The data were drawn from vignettes, a learning tool employed in teacher training. These texts were written in English and collected at a US university. Instructors using these vignettes typically focus on pedagogical practices and concerns. In this study, in contrast, we take a linguistic approach. We explore the types of components and relational strategies employed by the participants. Our analysis indicates that the types, frequency and interplay of various components (Dunham 1995) and the evidence of essential relational work (Locher and Watts 2005) through bonding strategies reflect findings of other advice research. Linguistic analyses of vignettes such as that undertaken in this study can help teacher trainers develop their students’ understanding of relational work in advice-giving.