Maternal Speech to 4-month-old Infants in Two Cultures: Wolof and French

Abstract

The infant-directed speech of Wolof-speaking Senegalese mothers and French-speaking mothers living in Paris were compared to relate infantdirected communicative acts to the value system of the society to which the speaker belongs, and to describe the child's place in those societies. Motherinfant linguistic interactions with 4-month-old infants were recorded ( ve dyads in the French group and four in the Wolof group). The discourse variables of the pragmatic and semantic categories in the mothers' speech were analysed. The cross-cultural analysis included a comparison of the conventional versus shifted use of person markers by the mothers in the two cultures. The results demonstrated some features common to both groups, namely, a high percentage of expressive speech acts and the importance of affect-related statements. Some culture-speci c emphases and tendencies were also noted. Whereas the French mothers' conversation al exchanges with their infants were dyadic in organisation and centred on the immediate physical environment, the Wolof mothers frequently expanded the dyadic framework to introduce third parties as conversation al partners but talked very little about the immediate physical environment. Thus, it appears that cultural conceptions in uence not only the content of mother-infant exchanges but also their participant structure.By studying a well-speci ed social and interactional situation-"dialogues" between mothers and their babies-in two different cultural contexts

Cultural beliefs and practices related to infant health and development among Nigerian immigrant mothers in Italy

“…For example, Cote (2004a, 2004b) observed and compared mother-infant interactions in Japanese American and South American immigrant families; Harwood and her colleagues (Harwood et al, 1999 explored middle-class Anglo and Puerto Rican mothers' beliefs and practices related to infant development; Lamb and his coworkers (Fracasso et al, 1997;Lamb et al, 1998) analysed the everyday experiences of infants in Euro-American and immigrant Central American families. In the European context, Bril and her coworkers (Bril & Sabatier, 1986;Bril et al, 1989) compared the psychomotor development of French and Bambara (Mali) babies, relating this aspect to parental ethnotheories; Rabain-Jamain (1994;Rabain-Jamin & Sabeau-Jouannet, 1997) focused on childcare practices and early mother-infant interactions among West African families migrated to France; Schö lmerich and colleagues (Schö lmerich et al, 2002) analysed childrearing beliefs and practices in Turkish families migrated to Germany. However, to our knowledge there is virtually no information available on the effects of immigrant status on the cultural beliefs and practices related to infant health and development shared by mothers migrated from Nigeria.…”

Maternal speech to 1-year-old children in two Italian cultural contexts

“…Notable exceptions are studies carried out by Bornstein and his co-workers Bornstein et al, 1992), which compared different industrialized cultures and language communities (Argentina, France, Japan and US). Other exceptions are studies of language-learning environments in non-industrialized cultures and non-Indo-European languages, such as Samoan, Kaluli, Kipsigis and Wolof (see Harkness, 1977;Rabain, 1979;Ochs, 1985;Schieffelin, 1985) and studies comparing European and non-European mothers addressing their prelinguistic infants (Rabain-Jamin and Sabeau-Jouannet, 1997).…”

Polyadic language socialization strategy: The case of toddlers in senegal

“…Studies conducted in Senegal (Rabain, 1979) and Paris (Rabain-Jamin, 1989Rabain-Jamin & Sabeau-Jouannet, 1997) and work of other researchers have demonstrated that, in non-Western cultures, the interpersonal function of language takes precedence over the referential function (Bakeman, Adamson, Konner, & Barr, 1990). Western mothers' conception of CDS favors naming and describing objects, whereas Wolof mothers' communication behavior places priority on referring to individuals.…”