Hostname: page-component-7dd5485656-6kn8j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-10-30T03:51:59.012Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Young children's use of age-appropriate speech styles in social interaction and role-playing*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Jacqueline Sachs  and
Judith Devin
Jacqueline Sachs
Affiliation:
The University of Connecticut
Judith Devin
Affiliation:
The University of Connecticut
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Four children (aged 3;9 to 5;5) were recorded talking to different listeners (adult, peer, baby, and baby doll) and role-playing a ‘baby just learning how to talk’. As a measure of the children's responsiveness to situational cues, each sample was analysed for formal and functional characteristics. The children's speech was different on many of the measures when talking to a baby or doll as compared with the speech to a peer or adult. Speech to a baby doll was similar to that addressed to a real baby, indicating that feedback is not necessary for speech modifications to occur. In the role-playing situation, children changed and simplified their speech when talking as a baby.

Information

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , February 1976 , pp. 81 - 98
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1976

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

*

We gratefully acknowledge the contributions of Lorraine St. Lawrence and Susan Moeller, who helped in the transcription and analysis of the data, and of the mothers who did the recording in their homes. Thanks are also due to Jane Bisantz, who made helpful suggestions about analysis procedures. Some of these data were presented at a meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, December 1973

References

REFERENCES

Broen, P. A. (1972). The verbal environment of the language-learning child. A.S.H.A. Monogr. 17.Google Scholar
Drach, K. (1969). The language of the parent: a pilot study. Working paper, University of California, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Ferguson, C. A. (1964). Baby talk in six languages. AmA 66. 103–14.Google Scholar
Ferguson, C. A. (1974). Baby talk as a simplified register. Paper read at the SSRC Conference on Language Input and Acquisition,Boston, Mass.Google Scholar
Garnica, O. (1974). Some characteristics of prosodic input to young children. Paper read at the SSRC Conference on Language Input and Acquisition,Boston, Mass.Google Scholar
Gleason, J. B. (1973). Code switching in children's language. In Moore, T. E. (ed.), Cognitive development and the acquisition of language. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Kobashigawa, B. (1969). Repetitions in a mother's speech to her child. Working paper, University of California, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Phillips, J. (1970). Formal characteristics of speech which mothers address to their children. Doctoral dissertation, Johns Hopkins University.Google Scholar
Piaget, J. (1970). The language and thought of the child. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World.Google Scholar
Remick, H. (1972). Maternal speech to children during language acquisition. Paper read at the International Symposium on First Language Acquisition, Florence.Google Scholar
Sachs, J., Brown, R. & Salerno, R. (1972). Adults' speech to children. Paper read at the International Symposium on First Language Acquisition, Florence.Google Scholar
Shatz, M. & Gelman, R. (1973) The development of communication skills: modification in the speech of young children as a function of listener. Monogr. goc. Res. Ch. Devel. 38.Google Scholar
Snow, C. E. (1972). Mother's speech to children learning language. ChDev 43, 549–65.Google Scholar
Weeks, T. E. (1971). Speech registers in young children. ChDev 42, 1119–31.Google Scholar