The role of child-directed speech in first language acquisition

Sonja Eisenbeiss

seisen@essex.ac.uk

http://essex.academia.edu/SonjaEisenbeiss/ http://languagegamesforall.wordpress.com/ @LanguageGames4a

Child-Directed Speech: Other Terms

Baby talk

Motherese

Parentese

Caretaker speech

Infant-directed speech

Some Common Myths about Child-Directed Speech

When talking to children adults mostly label objects and describe ongoing events for children.

Spoken speech contains many speech errors and incomplete utterances – especially when you have to manage difficult situations with a child.

Parents systematically correct their children’s errors.

“Motherese” is instinctive and does not differ much across cultures.

And the reality ???

Is more complex….

Types of Utterances in Child-Directed Speech

Cameron et al. 2003 Wells 1981

Descriptions and Naming

39% 38%

Questions 32% 21%

Fragments 20% 27%

Imperatives 9% 14%

Correctness of Child-Directed Speech

Children’s input does not contain as many speech errors and incomplete utterances as one might think.

For instance, in their analysis of English-speaking parents, Newport et al. (1977) found that 99.44% of all parental utterances were grammatically correct.

Corrections in Child-Directed Speech

In their analysis of English-speaking parents, Brown and Hanlon (1970) found that

Parents comprehended about as many grammatical child questions as ungrammatical ones (ca. 45%).

The grammaticality of the child’s utterance did not determine whether parents signalled approval (e.g., That’s right or Yes) or disapproval (e.g., That’s wrong or No).

The Success of Corrections? (McNeil1 1966, p. 69)

Child: Nobody don’t like me.

Adult: No. say “nobody likes me.”

Child: Nobody don’t like me.

[Eight repetitions of this dialogue follow.]

Adult: No, now listen carefully, say “NOBODY LIKES ME.”

Child: Oh! Nobody don’t likes me.

And in Germany? (Eisenbeiss 2003)

F: Wem gehört der Löffel? Simone: *ich. Whom does the spoon belong to? I.F: Wem gehört der Löffel? S: * ich. ja. Whom does the spoon belong to? I. YesF: Wem gehört der Löffel? S: * ich. Whom does the spoon belong to? I. F: Mir. Wem gehört der Löffel? S: mir. To me. Whom does the spoon belong to? To me.F: Wem gehört der Löffel? S: mir. Whom does the spoon belong to? To me.F: Mir. Und das bist Du. ne? S: ja. gehört mir.(...) To me. And that is you, huh? Yes. Belongs to me.F: Wem gehört der Löffel? S: * ich. Whom does the spoon belong to? I. …...

Reformulations instead of Corrections

In their analysis of English and French child-directed

speech, Chouinard & Clark (2003) showed that:

Adults often reformulate children's non-target-like utterances; e.g. Child: I want more car! Parent: Do you really need more cars?.

Adults produce this type of feedback significantly more often than they repeat target-like utterances such as I want more cars! .

Effects of Reformulations

Reformulations contrast children’s non-target-like forms with the target form for the intended meaning and thus suggest that the child’s form is inappropriate.

Experimental studies have demonstrated that learners can benefit from such input (Saxton 1997, Saxton et al. 1998, 2005, Valian and Casey 2003).

However, it is unclear how universal reformulations are across cultures and languages.

Cross-Cultural Differences

the amount of feedback provided

views on the need of explicit language teaching

time children spent interacting with adults vs. other children

the role of fathers

(Gallaway/Richards 1994 , Ochs/Schieffelin 1984)

Some Universals of Child-Directed Speech

short, but mostly correct and complete utterances

slow, with longer pauses than adult-directed speech

high, varied pitch, exaggerated intonation and stress

=> identification of word and phrase boundaries

restricted vocabularyreference mostly restricted to here and now=> word learninghigh proportion of imperative and questionsmore repetitions than in adult-adult speech=> sentence structure and grammar

Variation Sets

Variation sets are series of adult utterances with

a common theme and a constant intention,

but variation in form:

•adding or deleting a word or phrase,

•replacing one word with another,

•changing the word order, etc.

(Eisenbeiss 2003, Küntay/Slobin 1996, Slobin et al. 2010)

English Variation Set (Slobin et al. 2010)

VERB OBJECT GOAL1 let’s put J’s bottles in the refrigerator2 want to put them in the refrigerator with me3 let’s put J’s bottles in the refrigerator4 we’ll put it in the refrigerator5 let’s put it in the refrigerator6 we’ll put it in the refrigerator7 you can put it in8 I’ll let you put it in yourself9 you put it right in10 you put it in there11 put it right in the refrigerator

How could Variation Sets support Learning?

Variation sets provide clues about the target language:

•adding or deleting a word or phrase => which elements can be omitted?

•replacing one word with another => which types of elements fulfill similar

functions?

•changing the word order, etc.=> which word order variations are possible?

Variation Sets across Languages and Cultures

Variation sets have been documented for:

English Turkish German Hindi Russian Tzeltal (Mayan language) …

Russian Variation Set (Slobin et al. 2010)

VERB OBJECT GOAL DEIXIS1 gather toys-ACC(USATIVE)2 put in basket-ACC3 blocks-ACC4 put in basket-ACC toys-ACC5 throw thither6 in basket-ACC must put7 put

The Frequency of Variation Sets

In the Turkish data analysed by Slobin & Küntay (1996), about 25-30% of child-directed

utterances occurred in variation sets. On average, variation sets were 3

sentences long (range 2-25).

Effects of Variation Sets

Children produce words that they have heard in variation sets more often than words they have heard in other utterances – even when frequency is controlled for (ongoing research by H.Waterfall).

Adult learners learn artificial languages more easily when their training involves variation sets (Onnis et al. 2008).

Current Research Projects Involving Students

How do parents talk to their children when they play different types of (language) games?

Do some types of games encourage parents to use more variation sets or other potentially supportive properties of child-directed speech than others?

Do some games encourage children to talk more than others?

See: https://languagegamesforall.wordpress.com/

References

Brown, R., & Hanlon, C. (1970) Derivational complexity and the order of acquisition in child speech. In: J. R. Hayes (Ed.), Cognition and the development of language (pp. 11-53). New York: Wiley.

Cameron-Faulkner, T., Lieven, E., Tomasello, M. (2003). A construction based analysis of child directed speech. Cognitive Science 27, 843–873.

Chouinard, M. M. & Clark, E. V. (2003) Adult reformulation of child errors as negative evidence. Journal of Child Language 30:637–69.

Eisenbeiss, S. 2003. Merkmalsgesteuerter Grammatikerwerb. Doctoral dissertation, University of Düsseldorf, Germany. "http://docserv.uni-duesseldorf.de/servlets/DerivateServlet/Derivate-3185/1185.pdf")

References

Gallaway, C. and Richards, B. (eds.) (1994). Input and interaction in language acquisition. London: Cambridge University Press.

Küntay, A., & Slobin, D. I. (1996). Listening to a Turkish mother: Some puzzles for acquisition. In D. I. Slobin, J. Gerhardt, A. Kyratzis, & J. Guo (Eds.), Social interaction, social context, and language: Essays in honor of Susan Ervin-Tripp (pp. 265-286). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Newport, E.L., Gleitman, H., & Gleitman, L.R. (1977). Mother, I’d rather do it myself: Some effects and non-effects of maternal speech style. In C.E. Snow & CA. Ferguson (Eds.), Talking to children: Language inpuf and acquisition (pp. 109-149). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

References

Ochs, E., & Schieffelin, B.B. (1984). Language acquisition and socialization: Three developmental stories and their implications. In R.A. Shweder & R.A. Levine (Eds.), Culture theory: Essays on mind, self and emotion. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Onnis, L., Waterfall, H.R., and Edelman, S. (2008). Learn locally, act globally: Learning language from variation set cues. Cognition 109, 423-430.

Saxton, M., Kulscar, B. Marshall and Rupra, M. (1998). Longer-term effects of corrective input: An experimental approach. Journal of Child Language 5: 701-21.

Saxton, Matthew, Backley, Phillip, Gallaway, Clare, (2005). Negative input for grammatical errors: effects after a lag of 12 weeks. Journal of Child Language 32, 643–672.

References

Saxton, M. (1997). The contrast theory of negative input. Journal of Child Language 24, 139-161.

Slobin, Dan I., Bowerman, Melissa, Brown, Penelope, Eisenbeiss, Sonja & Narasimhan, Bhuvana (2011). In: Jürgen Bohnemeyer and Eric Pederson (eds.) Event Representation, 134-165. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Valian, V. and Casey, L. (2003). Young children's acquisition of wh-questions: the role of structured input. Journal of Child Language 30, 117-143

Wells, C. G. (1981). Learning through interaction: The study of language development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.