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Conversational asymmetry between mothers and children*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Kenneth Kaye  and
Rosalind Charney
Kenneth Kaye
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
Rosalind Charney
Affiliation:
Cook County Hospital
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Abstract

TURNABOUTS, which both respond to and require a response from the other (either verbal or nonverbal), were produced more than twice as often by mothers as by their children at 2; 2 and 2; 6, in videotaped dialogues during semi-structured play. The 27 mothers showed stable individual differences in this aspect of their turn-taking, across situations and across time. Children tended to take a reciprocal role rather than an imitative one within the immediate situation: if a mother produced many mands, her child produced few. At 2; 10 the children were tested for language comprehension, puzzle-solving and conversational engagement with an investigator. Mothers' mands at the earlier ages appeared to have a negative effect upon these measures, even when social class differences were controlled; but causal interpretations were complicated by the fact that language production measures also predicted the 2; 10 cognitive measures.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 8 , Issue 1 , February 1981 , pp. 35 - 49
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1981

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Footnotes

[*]

This research was funded by the Spencer Foundation. We are grateful to Patricia Benda, Solveig Dahlstrom, and Richard Pearse for transcribing and coding; and to Susan Goldin-Meadow for kindly reading and discussing the manuscript. Address for correspondence: Kenneth Kaye, University of Chicago, 5835 S. Kimbark Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60637, U.S.A.

References

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