The social-interactional context of maternal speech to infants: an explanation for the event-bound nature of early word use?

Abstract

Eight mother-infant pairs were videotaped in a longitudinal study. Analysis of relations between maternal speech and the contiguous nonverbal context revealed that the pattern of close correspondence between conversational topic and context, which had emerged at nine months, persisted at sixteen months, with the majority of changes in topic being in response to an action carried out by the child. A large proportion of maternal utterances continued to refer to objects and activities which were at the child's focus of attention; although, at sixteen months, mothers less often accompanied comments on the child's activity with supporting actions of their own. These findings are discussed in the light of studies of early lexical development.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Barrett, M.D. (1983a). The early acquisition and development of the meanings of action related words. In B. Seiler & W. Wannenmacher (eds), Concept Development and the Development of Word Meaning (Berlin: Springer-Verlag).

Barrett, M.D. (1983b). The course of early lexical development: a review and an interpretation Early Child Development and Care , 11, 19-32.

Bates, E. (1979). The Emergence of Symbols: Cognition and Communication (New York: Academic Press).

Bloom, L. (1973). One Word at a Time (The Hague : Mouton).

Bowerman, M. (1978). The acquisition of word meaning: an investigation of some current conflicts. In N. Waterson & C. Snow (eds), The Development of Communication (Chichester: Wiley).

Bruner, J.S. (1975). The ontogenesis of speech acts. Journal of Child Language, 2 , 1-19.

Clark, E.V. (1973). What's in a word? On the child's acquisition of semantics in his first language In T. E. Moore (ed.), Cognitive Development and the Acquisition of Language ( New York: Academic Press).

Collis, G.M. & Schaffer, H.R. (1975). Visual co-orientation and maternal speech. In H. R. Schaffer (ed.), Studies in Mother-Infant Interaction (London: Academic Press).

Dore, J. , Franklin, M.B. , Miller, R.T. & Ramer, A.L.H. (1976). Transitional phenomena in early language acquisition . Journal of Child Language, 3, 13-28.

10.

Garnica, O.K. (1978). Non-verbal concomitants of language input to children In N. Waterson & C. Snow (eds), The Development of Communication (Chichester: Wiley).

11.

Gopnik, A. (1982). Words and plans: early language and the development of intelligent action Journal of Child Language , 9, 303-318.

12.

Harris, M. , Jones, D. & Grant, J. (1983). The nonverbal context of mothers' speech to infants First Language, 4, 21-30.

13.

Messer, D.J. (1978). The integration of mothers' referential speech with joint play Child Development, 49, 781-787.

14.

Messer, D.J. (1983). The redundancy between adult speech and non-verbal interaction: a contribution to acquisition In R. M. Golinkoff (ed.), The Transition from Prelinguistic to Linguistic Communication (New Jersey: Erlbaum).

15.

Nelson, K. (1974). Concept, word and sentence: interrelations in acquisition and development Psychological Review , 81, 267-285.

16.

Schaffer, H.R. , Hepburn, A. & Collis, G.M. (1983). Verbal and nonverbal aspects of mothers' directives Journal of Child Language, 10, 337-355.

17.

Shatz, M. (1983). On mechanisms of language acquisition: can features of the communicative environment account for development? In E. Wanner & L. R. Gleitman (eds), Language Acquisition: The State of the Art (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

18.

Zukow, P.G. , Reilly, J. & Greenfield, P.M. (1982). Making the absent present: facilitating the transition from sensorimotor to linguistic communication In K. E. Nelson (ed.), Children's Language , Volume 3 (New Jersey: Erlbaum).