ERIC Number: EJ1433846
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2024-Aug
Pages: 27
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0142-7237
EISSN: EISSN-1740-2344
Communicative Function in Child Directed Speech: A Cross-Cultural Analysis
Chen Zhao; Ludovica Serratrice; Elena Lieven; Circle Steele; Nivedita Malik; Yi An; Emily Hayden; Jo Neumegen; Thea Cameron-Faulkner
First Language, v44 n4 p395-421 2024
Language development can be framed as the process of learning how to mean (Halliday, 1975). From this perspective, the role of communicative function is central to the language-learning process with development being guided by interaction with experienced others. In the current study, we present a detailed analysis of the communicative functions used in interaction with prelinguistic infants aged 10-12 months from three cultural groups living in the United Kingdom. The findings indicate that caregivers from all three groups used a wide range of communicative acts when interacting with their infants, ranging from directives to discussions of inner thoughts and feelings. In addition, we identified significant differences in the frequency with which different communicative acts were used across our three groups. The study complements the positive contributions made by pivotal studies on language socialisation by highlighting the diversity and variation of caregiver speech at the functional level.
Descriptors: Infants, Language Acquisition, Child Development, Socialization, Parent Child Relationship, Communication (Thought Transfer), Language Variation, Caregiver Child Relationship, Foreign Countries, Speech Acts, English, Chinese, Indo European Languages, Native Language, Cultural Background
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: United Kingdom
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A