Sensitivity to linguistic register in 20-month-olds: Understanding the register-listener relationship and its abstract rules

Abstract

Linguistic register reflects changes in speech that depend on the situation, especially the status of listeners and listener-speaker relationships. Following the sociolinguistic rules of register is essential in establishing and maintaining social interactions. Recent research suggests that children over 3 years of age can understand appropriate register-listener relationships as well as the fact that people change register depending on their listeners. However, given previous findings that infants under 2 years of age have already formed both social and speech categories, it may be possible that even younger children can also understand appropriate register-listener relationships. The present study used Infant-Directed Speech (IDS) and formal Adult-Directed Speech (ADS) to examine whether 20-month-old toddlers can understand register-listener relationships. In Experiment 1, we used a violation-of-expectation method to examine whether 20-month-olds understand the individual associations between linguistic registers and listeners. Results showed that the toddlers looked significantly longer at a scene in which the adult was talked to in IDS than when the infant was talked to in IDS. In contrast, there was no difference when the adult and the infant were talked to in formal ADS. In Experiments 2 and 3, we used a habituation switch paradigm to examine whether 20-month-olds understand the abstract rule that a change of register depends on listeners rather than on speakers. Results showed that the toddlers looked significantly longer at the scene where the register rule was violated. The present findings provide new evidence that even 20-month-olds already understand that people change their way of speaking based on listeners, although their understanding of individual register-listener relationships is immature.

From doggy to dog: Developmental shifts in children’s use of register-specific words

“…Variation also appears across languages, dialects, accents, and other types of registers (e.g., pedagogical, narrative, etc.). Over time, children become increasingly aware of the fact that language style is modulated by a variety of social factors, including the identities of speakers (e.g., from different social groups: Liberman, Woodward, & Kinzler, 2017) along with their addressees (e.g., young children vs. adults : Ikeda, Kobayashi, & Itakura, 2018;Soley & Sebastian-Galles, 2020). Children may therefore be able to leverage this social knowledge when learning language.…”

“…Indirect evidence for this idea comes from findings that the mutual exclusivity effect is modulated by children's experience with multiple languages (Byers-Heinlein & Werker, 2009;Houston-Price, Caloghiris, & Raviglione, 2010) as well as the social conditions under which multiple labels are introduced (e.g., by speakers of a familiar or unfamiliar race: Weatherhead et al, 2021). Further, children's modifications to their own speech when talking to infants and younger children (Sachs & Devin, 1976;Shatz & Gelman, 1973) and their awareness of socially meaningful linguistic variation (Ikeda, Kobayashi, & Itakura, 2018;Liberman, Woodward, & Kinzler, 2017;Soley & Sebastian-Galles, 2020) suggest that they may be able to recognize the importance of social context for language use from relatively early in development.…”

Sensitivity to register selection errors amongst 5- and 7-year-old children.

“…Children’s understanding of register–listener associations starts early in their development. Using the violation-of-expectation method, Ikeda, Kobayashi, and Itakura (2018) demonstrated that 20-month-olds associated IDS with infants, but not formal adult-directed speech (ADS) with adults. This suggests that even 20-month-olds could comprehend people changed their way of speaking based on listeners although their understanding was incomplete.…”