1. Dan’s Flirtations with Discourse (and Narrative)---in his approach to language acquisition • “Flirting with Discourse” • Language Acquisition Task + Turn to Discourse • as opening up space for future generations of language development research

2. The “language acquisition task” • Learning to connect: • (a) references to objects + events of experience (CONTENT) • (b) how these objects + events are related to each other AND to the discourse perspectives of the speaker (RELATION) resulting in the acquisition of grammaticised notions • A strong knowledge component • ‘cracking the code’ (child as cognitive agent) • assistance in the form of child-directed discourse (e.g., ‘variation sets’ in mother-child discursive practices) • Discourse as a‘facilitating factor’ (“connective tissue”) to acquire linguistic knowledge

3. for instance“Temporality” • In narrative discourse • refering to characters in time + space • connecting these(tense, aspect, modality) to each other • connecting them to the discursive perspective of the speaking subject • Concepts of temporality(the language-specific ways of grammaticizing ‘time’)(and in cross-linguistic comparison)

4. however… • Character, Time + Space are intrinsically and jointly ordered and inter-connectedby the discursive perspective of the speaking subject • but what IS ‘the discursive perspective’ of the speaking subject? • a ‘cognitive’ orientation system OR something that is constantly negotiated and renegotiated in discourse - finding its way into ‘the child’s mind’ AND into ‘language structure’ (as ‘emerging’ and as ‘process’)? • Turn from ‘the mind of the child’ to the ‘interpersonal communicative processes’ that shape languages in their peculiar ways of expressing and connecting content and relation

5. “flirting with discourse” • Where was language acquisition in the sixties (70’s)? • Space available for students of language development then and today? …so what is wrong with flirting?

6. Opening up space for next generations • Temporality in discursive contexts (first in a more generaal ‘narrative context) (later in the context of different evaluative speaker-positions) • Viewing language activities (in local contexts) as closer related to speaker positions - doing relational work between speakers and the establishment of speaker identities… • Moving language development closer to identity development (and integrating language development theories into theories of human development)