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Effects of familiarity on mothers' talk about nouns and verbs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 August 2006

PATRICIA L. CLEAVE  and
ELIZABETH KAY-RAINING BIRD
PATRICIA L. CLEAVE
Affiliation:
Dalhousie University
ELIZABETH KAY-RAINING BIRD
Affiliation:
Dalhousie University
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Abstract

Modifications mothers make when talking to young English-speaking children between the ages of 1;8 and 3;0 (average age=2;4) about words perceived to be familiar versus unfamiliar were investigated. Nineteen mothers and their children participated in two toy play tasks; one designed to elicit talk about familiar and unfamiliar animals and the other designed to elicit talk about familiar and unfamiliar actions. It was found that mothers' talk involving unfamiliar words differed from talk involving familiar words in a number of ways. Some modifications served to highlight the unfamiliar word which could assist in segmenting the unfamiliar word and mapping it to its referent. Compared to familiar nouns and verbs, unfamiliar nouns and verbs were produced more frequently in highly salient utterance positions and were paired more consistently with a clear nonverbal referent. Familiar nouns but, not verbs, were produced in longer utterances than unfamiliar nouns which could support the child's elaboration of the lexical representation of the familiar word.

Type
Note
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 33 , Issue 3 , August 2006 , pp. 661 - 676
Copyright
2006 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

This study was funded by a Research Development Fund grant (#R1242480) to the first author and a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada grant (#410-97-0819) to the second author. The authors would like to thank the children and their parents who participated in this research. Portions of this research were presented at the annual convention for the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, November 1997, Boston, MA; the VIIIth International Congress for the Study of Child Language, July 1999, San Sebastian-Donostia, Spain; and the annual convention for the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, November 1999, San Francisco CA.