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The effect of conversational setting on topic continuation in mother–child dyads*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Marilyn K. Kertoy  and
Dolores Kluppel Vetter
Marilyn K. Kertoy*
Affiliation:
University of Western Ontario
Dolores Kluppel Vetter
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin-Madison
*
University of Western Ontario, Department of Communicative Disorders, 1510 Elborn College, London, Ontario, Canada, N6G 1H1.
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Abstract

Twelve children (five boys and seven girls, mean age 4;1) interacted with their mothers in two conversational settings: playing with a favourite toy and helping to prepare lunch or muffins. The percentage of two topic continuation processes – topic incorporation and collaboration – used by mothers and children was analysed. It was hypothesized that the help setting with a predetermined structure would elicit a greater percentage of topic incorporation by the dyads than the play setting. In fact, the play setting elicited a greater percentage of topic incorporation from mothers than the help setting. Children did not differ significantly in the percentage of use of topic incorporation between the two settings, but appeared to be equally proficient in incorporating topics in settings with and without a predetermined structure. The play setting also elicited more topic collaboration from the children than the help setting. While the help setting appeared to support collaborative action, the play setting permitted the dyads to be informative about the toys as well as related topics. Therefore, the two settings provided different opportunities for the dyads to continue topics.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 22 , Issue 1 , February 1995 , pp. 73 - 88
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

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Footnotes

[*]

The authors would like to thank Gerilyn Timler for her diligent coding of the topic behaviours for this study. Thanks also to the families who kindly gave their time and shared their homes to make this research project possible.

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