Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T18:30:21.091Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Child-directed and overheard input from different speakers in two distinct cultures

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 October 2021

Georgia LOUKATOU ,
Camila SCAFF ,
Katherine DEMUTH ,
Alejandrina CRISTIA  and
Naomi HAVRON Open the ORCID record for Naomi HAVRON [Opens in a new window]
Georgia LOUKATOU*
Affiliation:
LSCP, Département d'études cognitives, ENS, EHESS, CNRS, PSL University, 75005 Paris, France
Camila SCAFF
Affiliation:
Human ecology group, Institute of evolutionary medicine (IEM), University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
Katherine DEMUTH
Affiliation:
Macquairie University, Australia
Alejandrina CRISTIA
Affiliation:
LSCP, Département d'études cognitives, ENS, EHESS, CNRS, PSL University, 75005 Paris, France
Naomi HAVRON
Affiliation:
University of Haifa, Israel
*
Address for correspondence: Georgia Loukatou, Laboratoire de Sciences Cognitives et Psycholinguistique Paris75005France. E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Despite the fact that in most communities interaction occurs between the child and multiple speakers, most previous research on input to children focused on input from mothers. We annotated recordings of Sesotho-learning toddlers living in non-industrial Lesotho in South Africa, and French-learning toddlers living in urban regions in France. We examined who produced the input (mothers, other children, adults), how much input was child directed, and whether and how it varied across speakers. As expected, mothers contributed most of the input in the French recordings. However, in the Sesotho recordings, input from other children was more common than input from mothers or other adults. Child-directed speech from all speakers in both cultural groups showed similar qualitative modifications. Our findings suggest that input from other children is prevalent and has similar features as child-directed from adults described in previous work, inviting cross-cultural research into the effects of input from other children.

Keywords

cross-culturallinguistic inputchild-directed speechpeer speechquantitative and qualitative analysisFrench languageSesotho languagelanguage development
Type
Article
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 49 , Issue 6 , November 2022 , pp. 1173 - 1192
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by 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.)

References

Adi-Bensaid, L., Ben-David, A., & Tubul-Lavy, G. (2015). Content words in Hebrew child-directed speech. Infant Behavior and Development, 40, 231–241. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infbeh.2015.06.012CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Akhtar, N. (2005). The robustness of learning through overhearing. Developmental Science, 8(2), 199–209. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2005.00406.xCrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Akhtar, N., Jipson, J., & Callanan, M. A. (2001). Learning words through overhearing. Child Development, 72, 416–430.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Allen, S., & Crago, M. B. (1997). Linguistic and cultural aspects of simplicity and complexity in Inuktitut child directed speech. In Hughes, E., Hughes, M., & Greenhill, A. (eds.) Proceedings of the 21st annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (pp. 91–102). Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar
Barry, H., & Paxson, L. M. (1971). Infancy and early childhood: cross-cultural codes 2. Ethnology, 10(4), 466–508. https://doi.org/10.2307/3773177Google Scholar
Barton, M. E., & Tomasello, M. (1991). Joint attention and conversation in mother-infant-sibling triads. Child Development, 62(3), 517–529. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.1991.tb01548.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brent, M. R., & Siskind, J. M. (2001). The role of exposure to isolated words in early vocabulary development. Cognition, 81(2), B33–B44. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0010-0277(01)00122-6CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Broesch, T. L., & Bryant, G. A. (2015). Prosody in infant-directed speech is similar across western and traditional cultures. Journal of Cognition and Development, 16(1), 31–43. https://doi.org/10.1080/15248372.2013.833923CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Broesch, T., & Bryant, G. A. (2018). Fathers' infant-directed speech in a small-scale society. Child Development, 89(2), e29-e41. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12768CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Broesch, T., Crittenden, A. N., Beheim, B. A., Blackwell, A. D., Bunce, J. A., Colleran, H, Hagel, K., Kline, M., McElreath, R., Nelson, R. G., Pisor, A. C., Prall, S., Pretelli, I., Purzycki, B., Quinn, E. A., Ross, C., Scelza, B., Starkweather, K., Stieglitz, J., & Mulder, M. B. (2020). Navigating cross-cultural research: methodological and ethical considerations. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 287(1935), 20201245. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2020.1245CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Brown, P., & Gaskins, S. (2014). Language acquisition and language socialization. In Enfield, N. J., Kockelman, P. & Sidnell, J. (eds.), The Cambridge handbook of linguistic anthropology (pp. 187–226). Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bunce, J., Soderstrom, M., Bergelson, E., Rosemberg, C., Stein, A., Migdalek, M., & Casillas, M. (2020). A cross-cultural examination of young children's everyday language experiences. Preprint https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/723prGoogle Scholar
Burch, T. K. (1979). Household and family demography: a bibliographic essay. Population Index, 45(2), 173–195. https://doi.org/10.2307/2735726CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Casillas, M., Brown, P., & Levinson, S. C. (2019). Early language experience in a Tseltal Mayan village. Child Development. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.13349Google Scholar
Connelly, M. (1984). Basotho children's acquisition of noun morphology [Doctoral dissertation, University of Essex].Google Scholar
Cristia, A., Dupoux, E., Gurven, M., & Stieglitz, J. (2019). Child-directed speech is infrequent in a forager-farmer population: A time allocation study. Child Development, 90(3), 759–773. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12974CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Demuth, K. (1986). Prompting routines in the language socialization of Basotho children. In Schieffelin, B. B. & Ochs, E. (eds.), Language Socialization Across Cultures, (pp. 51–79). Cambridge: Cambridge University PressGoogle Scholar
Demuth, K. (1992). The acquisition of Sesotho. In Slobin, D. (ed.), The cross-linguistic study of language acquisition (Vol 3, pp. 557–638). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Demuth, K., & Tremblay, A. (2008). Prosodically-conditioned variability in children's production of French determiners. Journal of Child Language, 35(1), 99–127. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305000907008276CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dixon, R. M., & Aikhenvald, A. Y. (2002). Word: A typological framework. In: Word: A cross-linguistic typology, ed. Dixon, R. M. W. & Aikhenvald, A. Y., pp. 1–41. Cambridge University PressGoogle Scholar
Dunn, J., & Kendrick, C. (1982). The speech of two- and three-year-olds to infant siblings: ‘baby talk’ and the context of communication. Journal of Child Language, 9, 579–595. https://doi.org/10.1017/S030500090000492XCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fernald, A., & Morikawa, H. (1993). Common themes and cultural variations in Japanese and American mothers’ speech to infants. Child Development, 64(3), 637–656. https://doi.org/10.2307/1131208CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fernald, A., Taeschner, T., Dunn, J., Papousek, M., de Boysson-Bardies, B., & Fukui, I. (1989). A cross-language study of prosodic modifications in mothers’ and fathers’ speech to preverbal infants. Journal of Child Language, 16(03), 477–501. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305000900010679CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fouts, H. N., Roopnarine, J. L., Lamb, M. E., & Evans, M. (2012). Infant social interactions with multiple caregivers: The importance of ethnicity and socioeconomic status. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 43(2), 328–348. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022022110388564CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gallimore, R., Boggs, J., & Jordan, C. (1974). Culture, behavior and education: A study of Hawaiian Americans. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Geertz, H. (1989). The Javanese family: A study of kinship and socialization. Prospect Heights, Illinois: Waveland Press.Google Scholar
Hamilton, A. (1981). Nature and nurture: Aboriginal child-rearing in north-central Arnhem Land. Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.Google Scholar
Harkness, S. (1977). Aspects of social environment and first language acquisition in rural Africa. In Snow, C. E. & Ferguson, C. A. (eds.), Talking to Children (pp. 309–316). Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hart, B., & Risley, T. R. (1995). Meaningful differences in the everyday experience of young American children (pp. xxiii, 268). Baltimore: Paul H Brookes Publishing.Google Scholar
Henning, A., Striano, T., & Lieven, E. V. M. (2005). Maternal speech to infants at 1 and 3 months of age. Infant Behavior and Development, 28(4), 519–536. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infbeh.2005.06.001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henrich, J., Heine, S. J., & Norenzayan, A. (2010). Most people are not WEIRD. Nature, 466(7302), 29–29. https://doi.org/10.1038/466029aCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoff, E. (2006). How social contexts support and shape language development. Developmental Review, 26(1), 55–88. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dr.2005.11.002CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoff, E., & Naigles, L. (2002). How children use input to acquire a lexicon. Child Development, 73(2), 418–433. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8624.00415CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hofferth, S. L. (1995). Caring for children at the poverty line. Children and Youth Services Review, 17(1), 61–90. https://doi.org/10.1016/0190-7409(95)00004-VCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoff-Ginsberg, E., & Krueger, W. M. (1991). Older Siblings as Conversational Partners. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly (1982-), 465–481.5Google Scholar
Huttenlocher, J., Waterfall, H., Vasilyeva, M., Vevea, J., & Hedges, L. V. (2010). Sources of variability in children's language growth. Cognitive Psychology, 61(4), 343–365. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogpsych.2010.08.002CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
INSEE. (2013). Ménages—Familles − Tableaux de l’Économie Française | Insee. Retrieved December 2, 2020 from https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/1906666?sommaire=1906743Google Scholar
Kline, M. A., Shamsudheen, R., & Broesch, T. (2018). Variation is the universal: Making cultural evolution work in developmental psychology. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 373(1743), 20170059. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2017.0059CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kral, I., & Ellis, E. M. (2008). Children, language and literacy in the Ngaanyatjarra lands. In Simpson, J. & Wigglesworth, G. (eds.), Children's language and multilingualism: Indigenous language use at home and school. London: Continuum Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Kruper, J. C., & Užgiris, I. C. (1987). Fathers’ and mothers’ speech to young infants. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 16(6), 597–614. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01067087CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lieven, E. V. M. (1994). Crosslinguistic and crosscultural aspects of language addressed to children. In Gallaway, C. and Richards, B. (eds.), Input and interaction in language acquisition (pp. 56–73). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511620690.005CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Loakes, D., Moses, K., Wigglesworth, G., Simpson, J., & Billington, R. (2013). Children's language input: A study of a remote multilingual Indigenous Australian community. Multilingua, 32(5). https://doi.org/10.1515/multi-2013-0032CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Loukatou, G., LeNormand, M.-T., & Cristia, A. (2019). Is it easier to segment words from infant- than adult-directed speech? Modeling evidence from an ecological French corpus. Proceedings of the 41st Conference of Cognitive Science Society. (pp. 2186–2192). Cognitive Science Society.Google Scholar
Lytle, S. R., Garcia-Sierra, A., & Kuhl, P. K. (2018). Two are better than one: Infant language learning from video improves in the presence of peers. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115(40), 9859–9866.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
MacWhinney, B. (2000). The CHILDES Project: The database. Psychology Press.Google Scholar
Mannle, S., Barton, M., & Tomasello, M. (1991). Two-year-olds’ conversations with their mothers and preschool-aged siblings. First Language, 12, 57–71. https://doi.org/10.1177/014272379201203404CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martini, M., & Kirkpatrick, J. (1992). Parenting in Polynesia: A view from the Marquesas. In Roopnarine, J. L. & Bruce, D. (eds.), Annual advances in applied developmental psychology: Vol. 5. Parent-child Socialization in Diverse Cultures (pp. 199–222). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar
McLaughlin, B., White, D., McDevitt, T., & Raskin, R. (1983). Mothers’ and fathers’ speech to their young children: Similar or different? Journal of Child Language, 10(1), 245–252. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305000900005286CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Morgenstern, A., & Parisse, C. (2012). The Paris Corpus. Journal of French Language Studies, 22(1), 7–12. https://doi.org/10.1017/S095926951100055XCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moser, C. J., Lee-Rubin, H., Bainbridge, C. M., Atwood, S., Simson, J., Knox, D., Glowacki, L., Galbarczyk, A., Jasienska, G., Ross, C. T., Neff, M. B., Martin, A., Cirelli, L. K., Trehub, S. E., Song, J., Kim, M., Schachner, A., Vardy, T. A., Atkinson, Q. D., Antfolk, J., Madhivanan, P., Siddaiah, A., Placek, C. D., Salali, G. D., Keestra, S., Singh, M., Collins, S. A., Patton, J. Q., Scaff, C., Stieglitz, J., Moya, C., Sagar, R. R., Wood, B. M., Krasnow, M. M., & Mehr, S. A. (2020). Acoustic regularities in infant-directed vocalizations across cultures. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.09.032995v1Google Scholar
Nielsen, M., Haun, D., Kärtner, J., & Legare, C. (2017). The persistent sampling bias in developmental psychology: A call to action. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 162, 31–38. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2017.04.017CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ochs, E., & Schieffelin, B. B. (1994). Language socialization and its consequences for language development. In Handbook of Child Language (pp. 73–94). London:Blackwell.Google Scholar
Oshima-Takane, Y., & Robbins, M. (2003). Linguistic environment of secondborn children. First Language, 23(1), 21–40. https://doi.org/10.1177/0142723703023001002CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pan, B. A., Rowe, M. L., Singer, J. D., & Snow, C. E. (2005). Maternal correlates of growth in toddler vocabulary production in low-income families. Child Development, 76(4), 763–782. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8624.00498-i1Google ScholarPubMed
Pancsofar, N., & Vernon-Feagans, L. (2006). Mother and father language input to young children: Contributions to later language development. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 27(6), 571–587. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appdev.2006.08.003CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rogoff, B. (1981). Adults and peers as agents of socialization: A highland Guatemalan profile. Ethos, 9(1), 18–36. https://doi.org/10.1525/eth.1981.9.1.02a00030CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rogoff, B. (2003). The cultural nature of human development. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Rondal, J. A. (1980). Fathers’ and mothers’ speech in early language development. Journal of Child Language, 7(2), 353–369. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305000900002671CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roopnarine, J. L., Fouts, H. N., Lamb, M. E., & Lewis-Elligan, T. Y. (2005). Mothers’ and fathers’ behaviors toward their 3- to 4-month-old infants in lower, middle, and upper socioeconomic African American families. Developmental Psychology, 41(5), 723–732. https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.41.5.723CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Shi, R., Morgan, J. L., & Allopenna, P. (1998). Phonological and acoustic bases for earliest grammatical category assignment: A cross-linguistic perspective. Journal of Child Language, 25(1), 169–201. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305000997003395CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Shneidman, L. A., & Goldin-Meadow, S. (2012). Language input and acquisition in a Mayan village: How important is directed speech? Developmental Science, 15(5), 659–673. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2012.01168.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shute, B., & Wheldall, K. (1999). Fundamental frequency and temporal modifications in the speech of British fathers to their children. Educational Psychology, 19(2), 221–233. https://doi.org/10.1080/0144341990190208CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simmons, T., & Dye, J. L. (2003). Grandparents living with grandchildren: 2000. Census 2000 Brief. Retrieved December 2, 2020 from https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED482412Google Scholar
Smith-Hefner, N. J. (1988). The linguistic socialization of Javanese children in two communities. Anthropological Linguistics, 30(2), 166–198.Google Scholar
Snow, C., & Ferguson, C. (1979). Talking to children: language input and acquisition. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sperry, D. E., Sperry, L. L., & Miller, P. J. (2019). Language does matter: But there is more to language than vocabulary and directed speech. Child Development, 90(3), 993–997. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.13125CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Stewart, R. B., & Marvin, R. S. (1984). Sibling relations: the role of conceptual perspective-taking in the ontogeny of sibling caregiving. Child Development, 55(4), 1322–1332. https://doi.org/10.2307/1130002CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tamis-LeMonda, C. S., Kuchirko, Y., & Song, L. (2014). Why is infant language learning facilitated by parental responsiveness?. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 23(2), 121–126. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721414522813CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thupayagale-Tshweneagae, G. (2008). Psychosocial effects experienced by grandmothers as primary caregivers in rural Botswana. Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing, 15(5), 351–356. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2850.2007.01232.xCrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Veneziano, E., & Parisse, C. (2010). The acquisition of early verbs in French: Assessing the role of conversation and of child-directed speech. First Language, 30(3–4), 287–311. https://doi.org/10.1177/0142723710379785CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weisner, T. S., Gallimore, R., Bacon, M. K., Barry, H., Bell, C., Novaes, S. C., Edwards, C. P., Goswami, B. B., Minturn, L., Nerlove, S. B., Koel, A., Ritchie, J. E., Rosenblatt, P. C., Singh, T. R., Sutton-Smith, B., Whiting, B. B., Wilder, W. D., & Williams, T. R. (1977). My brother's keeper: child and sibling caretaking. Current Anthropology, 18(2), 169–190. https://doi.org/10.1086/201883CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weppelman, T. L., Bostow, A., Schiffer, R., Elbert-Perez, E., & Newman, R. S. (2003). Children's use of the prosodic characteristics of infant-directed speech. Language & Communication, 23(1), 63–80. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0271-5309(01)00023-4CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whiting, J. W. M. (1941). Becoming a Kwoma: teaching and learning in a New Guinea tribe. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Zukow-Goldring, P. (2002). Sibling caregiving. In Bornstein, M. H. (ed.), Handbook of parenting: Being and becoming a parent, Vol. 3 (pp. 253–286). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Loukatou et al. supplementary material

Loukatou et al. supplementary material

Download Loukatou et al. supplementary material(File)
File 157.1 KB