The purpose of this study was to determine whether young children's socialized speech (their speech addressed to an auditor) is more syntactically complex than their egocentric (private) speech. 150 utterances produced by 10 4-yr.-old boys in their nursery school classroom and in an interview situation were randomly selected for analysis. 52 judges rated each utterance on a 7-point equal-appearing-interval scale of “intricacy of language usage.” No difference in intricacy was observed between the children's egocentric and socialized utterances.
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