Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-j824f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T19:38:18.475Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Fathers' and mothers' speech in early language development*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

J. A. Rondal
J. A. Rondal
Affiliation:
Laval University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Five French-speaking middle-class couples and their male only-children were tape-recorded separately at home while interacting verbally in a free-play, a story-telling, and in a family meal situation. The children's ages ranged from 1; 6 to 3; 0. The speech of the fathers, mothers, and children was transcribed and analysed for its semantic, syntactic, and language-teaching aspects. The results indicate that paternal speech displays the same simplification processes usually found in maternal speech to young children. Paternal speech, however, also contains some linguistic patterns at variance with those found in maternal speech. It is hypothesised that maternal and paternal speech may be complementary in their influence on language development in the children.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 7 , Issue 2 , June 1980 , pp. 353 - 369
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1980

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

*

Paper presented at the symposium on ‘Parent–child and sibling interaction’, First International Congress for the Study of Child Language (International Association for the Study of Child Language), Tokyo, August 1978. The research on which the paper is based was supported by the Faculty of Education of the Laval University. Appreciation is expressed to Pierrette Day, Francine Laplante, and to Huguette Gendreaux for serving as research and administrative assistants on the project, to Dr. Daniel Defays of the University of Liège, Belgium, for his assistance in statistical and computer analysis, as well as to the children and their parents for allowing the tape recordings to be made in their homes. Author's address: Dr J. A. Rondal, Laboratoire de Psychologie Expérimentale, Section Psycholinguistique, Université de Liège, 32, Bd. de la Constitution, 4020 Liège, Belgium.

References

REFERENCES

Gleason, J. Berko (1975). Fathers and other strangers: men's speech to young children. In Dato, D. (ed.), Developmental psycholinguistics: theory and applications. Washington, D.C.; Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Cross, T. (1977). Mothers' speech adjustments: the contribution of selected child listener variables. In Snow, C. & Ferguson, C. (eds), Talking to children: language input and acquisition. Cambridge: C.U.P.Google Scholar
Davis, A. & Lange, G. (1973). Parent–child communication and the development of categorization styles in preschool children. ChDev 44. 624–9.Google Scholar
Fraser, C. & Roberts, N. (1975). Mothers' speech to children of four different ages. JPsycholingRes 4. 9–16.Google ScholarPubMed
Friedlander, B. (1971). Listening, language, and the auditory environment. In Hellmuth, J. (ed.), Exceptional infant (Vol. 2). New York: Bruner/Mazel.Google Scholar
Friedlander, B., Jacobs, B., Davis, B. & Wetstone, H. (1972). Time-sampling analysis of infants' natural language environments in the home. ChDev 43. 730–40.Google ScholarPubMed
Furrow, D., Nelson, K. & Benedict, H. (1979). Mother's speech to children and syntactic development: some simple relationships. JChLang 2. 423–42.Google Scholar
Garvey, C. (1975). Requests and responses in children's speech JChLang 2. 41–63.Google Scholar
Kriedberg, G. (1975). Hail to the chief. Unpublished paper. Boston: Boston University.Google Scholar
Lamb, M. (1975). Fathers: forgotten contributors to child development. HumDev 18. 245–66.Google ScholarPubMed
Mahoney, G. & Seely, P. (1976). The role of the social agent in language acquisition: implications for language intervention. In Ellis, N. (ed.), International review of research in mental retardation (Vol. 8). New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Moerk, E. (1977). Pragmatic and semantic aspects of early language development. Baltimore, Md.: University Park Press.Google Scholar
Nelson, K. (1973). Structure and strategy in learning to talk. Monogr.Soc.Res.Ch.Devel. 38.Google Scholar
Newport, E., Gleitman, L. & Gleitman, H. (1977). Mother, I'd rather do it myself: some effects and non-effects of maternal speech style. In Snow, C. & Ferguson, C. (eds), Talking to children: language input and acquisition. Cambridge: C.U.P.Google Scholar
Rebelsky, F. (1967). Infancy in two cultures. Nederlandse Tijdschrift voor de Psychologie, 22. 379–85.Google ScholarPubMed
Rebelsky, F. & Hanks, C. (1971). Fathers' verbal interaction with infants in the first three months of life. ChDev 42. 63–8.Google ScholarPubMed
Rondal, J. A. (1978). Maternal speech to normal and Down's syndrome children matched for mean length of utterance. In Meyers, C. (ed.), Behavior in the profoundly and severely retarded: research foundation for enhancing the quality of life. Washington, D.C.: American Association on Mental Deficiency.Google Scholar
Siegel, G. (1963). Adult verbal behavior in ‘play therapy’ sessions with retarded children. JSHDMonogr 10. 34–8.Google Scholar
Siegel, G. & Harkins, J. (1963). Verbal behavior of adults in two conditions with institutionalized retarded children. JSHDMonogr 10. 39–46.Google Scholar
Snow, C. (1972). Mothers' speech to children learning language. ChDev 43. 549–65.Google Scholar
Snow, C. & Ferguson, C. (eds) (1977). Talking to children: language input and acquisition. Cambridge: C.U.P.Google Scholar
Stein, A. (1973). An analysis and comparison of mothers' and fathers' speech to children in a story-telling situation. Unpublished paper. Boston: Boston University.Google Scholar
Weist, R. & Kruppe, B. (1977). Parent and sibling comprehension of children's speech. JPsycholingRes 6. 49–58.Google ScholarPubMed
Weist, R. & Stebbins, P. (1977). Adult perception of children's speech. Psychonomic Science Journal 27. 359–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar