ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that problematized the idea that children interacting with each other are invariably engaged in 'play', as well as challenging the notion that 'play' is necessarily frivolous. If the idea of 'child labour' is disturbing, the idea that children's unsupervised activities are 'play' is perhaps comforting to adults. The chapter, the small corpus of informal conversation was used to illustrate how both adults and children use directives and requests in pursuit of personal and shared goals. The interactions recorded illustrate the existence, maintenance and negotiation of differential status and relationships through choices from the linguistic resources available, although these are not usually made at an explicit and conscious level. Even without recourse to quantitative evidence, it is possible to observe in the extracts of transcribed talk presented here the realization of probabilistic patterns in the children's use of language which confirm other studies of how differential status and degrees of intimacy are indicated in situated activity.
