Children’s switching/shifting competence in role-playing

This paper – part of a larger study on the acquisition of variation in a Moselle-Franconian village (Wittlich/Eifel) – deals with data from children’s natural peer-group interactions during salesperson–buyer role-play. While analyzing this data, a large amount of intracontextual variation was observed. This variation is explained by the fact that the children, who are between the ages of 3;11 and 6;10, have acquired specific registers, i.e. a role-play register and a peer-directed register.