Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-j824f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T23:55:52.985Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Environmental correlates of variation in lexical style: Interactional style and the structure of the input

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Julian M. Pine
Julian M. Pine*
Affiliation:
University of Nottingham
*
Department of Psychology, University of Nottingham, NottinghamNG7 2RD, United Kingdom
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Since the publication of Nelson's (1973) monograph, several studies have reported significant correlations between variation in children's early vocabulary composition and differences in the functional characteristics of mothers' child-directed speech. However, it is still not clear how these relations are actually mediated. The present study attempts to investigate thís issue by differentiating and testing two alternative explanations of the relations found in previous research on data from a study of eight mother–infant dyads between 0;11 and 1;8. Despite replicating previous findings of a relation between maternal descriptiveness and the proportion of nouns and maternal directiveness and the proportion of verbs in children's early vocabularies, the results reveal no relation between differences in mothers' interactional behavior and differences in the functional characteristics of their children's spontaneous speech. On the other hand, specific relations were found between children's referential vocabularies and maternal descriptives that included nouns and between children's verb vocabularies and maternal directives that included verbs. These findings not only raise doubts about the validity of a functional similarity account of relations between maternal speech characteristics and variation in early vocabulary composition, but also suggest that they may be better understood in terms of the interaction between processing mechanisms that are common to all children and differences in the structure of the input to which different children are actually exposed.

Type
Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 15 , Issue 3 , July 1994 , pp. 355 - 370
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

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.)

References

REFERENCES

DellaCorte, M. Corte, M., Benedict, H., & Klein, D. (1983). The relationship of pragmatic dimensions of mothers' speech to the referential–expressive distinction. Journal of Child Language, 10, 35–43.Google Scholar
Farrar, M. J. (1990). Discourse and the acquisition of grammatical morphemes. Journal of Child Language, 17, 607–624.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Furrow, D., & Nelson, K. (1984). Environmental correlates of individual differences in language acquisition. Journal of Child Language, 11, 523–534.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gentner, D. (1982). Why nouns are learned before verbs. In Kuczaj, S. (Ed.), Language development: Vol. 2. Language, thought and culture. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Hampson, J. (1989). Elements of style: maternal and child contributions to referential and expressive styles of language acquisition. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, City University of New York.Google Scholar
Hoff-Ginsberg, E. (1990). Maternal speech and the child's development of syntax: A further look. Journal of Child Language, 17, 85–99.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Klein, D. (1980). Expressive and referential communication in children's early language development: their relationship to mothers' communicative styles. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Michigan State University.Google Scholar
Lieven, E. V. M., Pine, J. M., & Dresner-Barnes, H. (1992). Individual differences in early vocabulary development: Redefining the referential–expressive distinction. Journal of Child Language, 19, 287–310.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McDonald, L., & Pien, D. (1982). Mother conversational behaviour as a function of interactional intent. Journal of Child Language, 8, 337–358.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mcshane, J. (1980). Learning to talk. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Nelson, K. (1973). Structure and strategy in learning to talk. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 38(1–2).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nelson, K. (1981). Individual differences in language development: Implications for development and language. Developmental Psychology, 17, 170–187.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pine, J. M. (1992a). The functional basis of referentiality: Evidence from children's spontaneous speech. First Language, 12, 39–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pine, J. M. (1992b). How referential are “referential” children? Relationships between maternal-report and observational measures of vocabulary composition and usage. Journal of Child Language, 19, 75–86.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pine, J. M. (1992c). Maternal style at the early one-word stage: Re-evaluating the stereotype of the directive mother. First Language, 12, 169–186CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pine, J. M. (1994a). The language of primary caregivers. In Gallaway, C. & Richards, B. J. (Eds.), Input and interaction in language acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Pine, J. M. (1994b). Referential style and maternal directiveness: Different measures yield different results. Applied Psycholinguistics, 15, 135–148.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Richards, B., & Robinson, P. (1993). Environmental correlates of child copula verb growth. Journal of Child Language, 20, 343–362.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Shatz, M. (1978). On the development of communicative understandings: An early strategy for interpreting and responding to messages. Cognitive Psychology, 10, 271–301.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tomasello, M., & Farrar, M. J. (1986). Joint attention and early language. Child Development, 57, 1454–1463CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tomasello, M., & Kruger, A. C. (1992). Joint attention on actions: Acquiring verbs in ostensive and nonostensive contexts. Journal of Child Language, 19, 311–333.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tomasello, M., & Todd, J. (1983). Joint attention and lexical acquisition style. First Language, 4, 197–212.CrossRefGoogle Scholar