Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-03T14:25:58.654Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Speech overlap in Japanese mother–child conversations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 February 2004

SACHIYO KAJIKAWA ,
SHIGEAKI AMANO  and
TADAHISA KONDO
SACHIYO KAJIKAWA
Affiliation:
NTT Communication Science Laboratories, NTT Corporation
SHIGEAKI AMANO
Affiliation:
NTT Communication Science Laboratories, NTT Corporation
TADAHISA KONDO
Affiliation:
NTT Communication Science Laboratories, NTT Corporation
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This study aimed to clarify the development of conversational style in Japanese mother–child interactions. We focused on the frequency of speech overlap as an index of Japanese conversational style, with particular attention to ne, a particle produced by the speaker, and to backchannels, such as ‘uh-huh’, produced by the listener that support sympathetic conversation. The results of longitudinal observations of two Japanese mother–child dyads from approximately 0;11 to 3;3 suggest that an adultlike conversational style with frequent overlaps emerges in Japanese child-directed speech around the two-word utterance period, and a child's development of ne use is closely related to this shift.

Type
Note
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 31 , Issue 1 , February 2004 , pp. 215 - 230
Copyright
2004 Cambridge University Press

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.)

Footnotes

The authors thank the children and mothers who participated in this study. They are also grateful to Janet F. Werker, Laurel Fais, Toshio Inui, Yasushi Terao and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments, and to Naoko Kudo and Tomoko Kawaguchi for their assistance. Part of this work was presented at the 27th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development.