“Remember when we went to the library, into the city?‘ Temporal language in reminiscing and future talk conversations with young children.”

This study investigates how educators, mothers and children use temporal language in reminiscing and future talk conversations. Eighty-five educator-child dyads from seven long daycare centres in Sydney, Australia engaged in counterbalanced reminiscing and future talk conversations at two time points. The younger children (n = 40) were 27–36 months and the older children (n = 45) were 48–60 months. Each educator-child dyad discussed in total four
events about the past and four events about the future. To determine how conversations might vary, event temporal focus (past/future) and event novelty (novel/familiar) were manipulated. To enable comparisons between educator-child use of temporal language and mother-child use of temporal language, a subsample of mother-child dyads (n = 42) also completed the same tasks. Findings were threefold. First, educators’ temporal language differed by temporal focus (past/future) but not event novelty (novel/familiar). Second, in contrast to educators, children, particularly the younger children, used relatively few temporal points of reference. However, both younger and older children’s use of past references was associated with educator use of past references. Additionally, older children talked about their future actions in future novel conversations, and used both future action and future hypothetical references, in association with their educators, in future familiar conversations. Third, educators and mothers used temporal language differently; mothers’ use of temporal language was associated with greater instances of child use of temporal language when compared to educator-child conversations. Taken together, the findings highlight that children received different temporal language support from their different conversational partners.