Recent Developments in Speech to Children: We’ve Come a Long Way, Baby-talk  

Oleh:

Bohannon III, John Neil ; Leubecker, Amye Warren

Jenis: Article from Journal - ilmiah internasional
Dalam koleksi: Language Sciences (Full Text) vol. 10 no. 1 (1988), page 89-110.
Fulltext: 10_01_Bohannon.pdf (1.43MB)

Isi artikel

Children do not acquire language in a void; their hypothesized language learning devices typically operate within conversations with more mature language users. These sources provide children with the primary linguistic data for incorporation in their own speech. Despite the fact that many studies have reported the features which distinguish speech to children (child directed speech or CDS), from speech between adults, the study of why CDS is so prevalent across languages seems to have been largely neglected. However, in this paper we offer a model that allows children to control the complexity of the speech they hear within conversations on a moment-to-moment basis. Experimental and observational data are presented that clearly delineate the reciprocal nature of how speakers “fine-tune” their speech to listeners. Regardless of the mechanism that results in a simplified CDS register, a second and more important question pertaining to the role of CDS in language acquisition remains. Recent reports on longitudinal predictions of language gains from early maternal CDS measures are reviewed. The studies are analyzed separately for the adequacy of their conceptual and statistical constructs. Most of the negative findings may be attributed and inappropriate matching of conceptual relations with simple linear regression models. A new model incorporating the reciprocal, non-linear relations is proposed for a possible test of the effects of CDS on language development. Lastly, new data on the possible existence of negative evidence is reviewed. Adults clearly react differentially to children’s well- and ill-formed utterances within conversations. The ramifications of both CDS and the existence of negative evidence for learnability theory are discussed.

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