An etholinguistic analysis of mother-child discourse at 30 months

Abstract

Ethological models of social development stress that diversity in early experience induces stylistic variation in patterns of early communication. Variation in children's speech was examined in a sample of 44 French-speaking mother-child dyads, filmed at home during semi-structured play when the children were 30 months of age. Eight speech act categories were used to describe the language of both partners. In addition, measures of the relative use of nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and pronouns, as well as child mean length of utterance were tabulated from transcribed verbal exchanges. Cluster analyses of relative frequency of speech acts revealed five sub-groups of children with distinct speech profiles. Three clusters differed on referential categories of speech and two clusters were distinguished on affective expressive dimensions. Expressive children had a more diversified lexicon. Mothers of referential children spoke most often using predominantly descriptive statements and attention requests. In contrast, mothers of expressive children asked for descriptive information more often and used more playful expressive speech. The typological analysis of individual differences in early communication provides a complement to normative assessments of developmental milestones in language acquisition. Such an approach provides the possibility of integrating psycholinguistic studies of language acquisition with ethological concerns about processes shaping early behavioral development.

Stylistic diversity in children’s communication with mothers at 30 months

“…Observers noted if the propositional content of the speech act focused on (1) the physical objects or elements of the environment, or (2) the psychological state of one or the other of the participants or on their relationship. This object/social distinction permitted comparisons with previous psycholinguistic work on stylistic dimensions of early language usually described in terms of an object-oriented referential dimension versus an expressive relational one (Bates, Bretherton, & Snyder, 1988;Blicharski, 2002).…”

“…Cohen's kappa indices were maintained above .85 through the three periods (Blicharski, 2002;Feider et al, 1989). The child attending to the mother's explaining of the rules makes utterances such as 'hmm', 'yea', 'OK' or 'sure'.…”

“…A major advantage of a typological approach to mother-child communication is that it permits a systematic consideration of groups of children who share similarities in communicative activity (Blicharski, 2002). Differentiating types of individuals requires the use of multi-dimensional classification that offers empirically based categories of local norms for particular subgroups (Strayer, Veríssimo, & Manikowska, 4 M. Veríssimo et al 1996).…”

“…Blicharski (2002), using pragmatic dimensions of early language, identified four subgroups of 30-monthold children with relatively homogeneous language styles: three referential and one truly expressive. She suggests that neither simple dichotomous distinctions, such as the expressive-referential styles, nor simple process explanations, such as mother-driven models of early discourse, are adequate in attempts to account for diversity in young children's observed speech.…”