Child-directed speech
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TChnCMIH24&list=PL1A5BE0FE207FE
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tg
wCWbHjJPA
What is child-directed speech?
• The academic term for the language used by
adults/caregivers when addressing children.
• Is sometimes also referred to as parentese,
motherese, fatherese or babytalk.
Phonology
• Separate phrases more
distinctly (longer pauses).
• Speak more
s-l-o-w-l-y.
• Exaggerated ‘singsong’
intonation.
• Exaggerated difference
between questions,
statements and commands.
• Higher and wider range of
pitch.
Lexis and Semantics
• Use of concrete nouns (e.g.
train, cat) and dynamic verbs
(e.g. give, put).
• Adopt child’s own words for
things (e.g. wickle babbit).
• Frequent use of child’s name
and absence of pronouns.
• Content is often more
redundant e.g. The context
makes the content highly
predictable
Grammar
•
•
•
•
Repeated sentence frames: ‘That’s a …’
More simple sentences.
Fewer complex sentence and passives.
Omission of past tense and inflections.
Grammar
• More command, questions and tag questions.
• Use of EXPANSIONS: where the adult ‘fills out’
the child’s utterance. ( also called expiations)
• Use of RECASTINGS: where the child’s
vocabulary is put into a new utterance.
Framing is where a word is repeated used in
different syntactic contexts e.g. Here’s a big
ball! Throw me the ball. Where’s the ball?
Pragmatics
• Lots of gesture and body language.
• Stopping frequently for child to respond.
• Supportive language – adults encourage
conversation
Clarke-Stewart (1973)
• Children whose mothers talk to them more
have larger vocabularies.
Nelson (1973)
• Holophrastic stage
• Children whose mothers corrected them on
word choice and pronunciation actually
advanced more slowly than those with
mothers who were generally accepting.
• Children often make ‘virtuous errors’ –
mistakes that show an overextension of a
grammatical rule, e.g. ‘They throwed him in’
Kuhl (1992)
• Studied exaggerated vowel sounds used by
parents when speaking to 6-month olds (in
English, Swedish and Russian).
• Babies turn towards adults who speak in singsong voice, ignoring regular conversation.
• Mothers in all three countries exaggerated the
important vowels.
Bruner
• Social interactive approach – puts forward idea that
interactions between child and carer are crucial to lang
development and help children develop important abilities
such as turn-taking.
• Importance of conversations, routines of social interaction,
• Must be LASS (support system) as well as LAD. Parents
provide ritualised scenarios – bath, meal, getting dressed –
phrases of interaction rapidly recognised and predicted
• But: not the case in all cultures – western mothers particularly
concerned with children acquiring language. Africa – sitting
up.
Encouraging politeness
• Parents usually teach simple forms of politeness when a child
is in the very early stages of language development.
• Robin Lakoff’s research showed that women use politeness
features more often than men, by:
• Giving options
• Adding tag questions
• Making the receiver feel good
* How do parents show and encourage politeness with young
children as they develop language?
Object Permanence
• Jean Piaget’s idea that children of about eight or nine months
of age develop awareness/the idea that objects continue to
exist even when one cannot see them. Before this stage, as far
as the infant is concerned, items that are not within eyesight
range do not exist.
• Piaget developed this theory by conducting very simple tests
with infants involving blankets and toys. If the child was old
enough to know about object permenance than when he
covered the toy with a blanket, they would still try to reach for
it. If the child was not at that stage, they would move on.
• Example: Young babies who have not yet developed a sense of
object permanence often seem particularly delighted by
“peek-a-boo” or other games involving a “vanishing person”
or object.
IMPORTANT!!!
• NOT ALL CULTURES USE CHILD-DIRECTED SPEECH.
• In some (non-western) cultures babies are expected to
‘blend in’ with adult interaction and no special
accommodation is made.
• These children still go through same developmental
stages at roughly the same time, as long as there is
EXPOSURE to language.
Soaked to the skin, aren’t you. Soaked to the skin. Yeh! Yeh!
Aren’t you... soaked to the skin. Yeh. Ooh! Smell that fart.
Ughh! Dirty boy. Dirty boy. Now where the devil…..Ooh! Big
Stretch! Are you going to sleep a long time
again like you did last night? I bet you won’t. It’s unlikely you’ll
do….I was most impressed by your sleeping last night darling
(indeciperhable) Weren’t you a good boy. I woke up and I
thought oh, probably only ablout eleven o’clock and I haven’t
heard Daddy come home. And I put the light on and I thought
‘Blimey! You’re asleep!’ Asleep all that time. I couldn’t believe
it. No! I couldn’t believe it. It was a big surprise. Yeh a big
surprise. (Baby makes noises) A very big surprise.. Yeh are you
going to put this on? Are we? Yeh! That’s a big smile. There
we are. Right, put your head in here. Are you going to put your
head in there? Are we? Yeh!
Tag question to
encourage turntaking
Context: topics of speech are
relevant and comment of what’s
happening now
Repetition
Soaked to the skin, aren’t you. Soaked to
the skin. Yeh! Yeh! Aren’t you... soaked
to the skin. Yeh. Ooh! Smell that fart.
Ughh! Dirty boy. Dirty boy. Now where
the devil…..Ooh! Big Stretch! Are you
going to sleep a long time
again like you did last night? I bet you
won’t. It’s unlikely you’ll do….
Simple sentences
Longer pauses
More questions
Phonology
Longer pauses
Lexis and Semantics
Concrete nouns
Dynamic verbs
Adopt child’s words
Grammar
Repeated sentence frames
More simple sentences
Fewer complex and passives
Omission of past tense
Omission of inflections
More command
More questions and tag
questions
Expansions
Recastings
I was most impressed by your sleeping last night
darling (indeciperhable) Weren’t you a good boy. I
woke up and I thought oh, probably only ablout
eleven o’clock and I haven’t heard Daddy come
home. And I put the light on and I thought ‘Blimey!
You’re asleep!’ Asleep all that time. I couldn’t
believe it. No! I couldn’t believe it.
Phonology
Longer pauses
Lexis and Semantics
Concrete nouns
Dynamic verbs
Adopt child’s words
Grammar
Repeated sentence frames
More simple sentences
Fewer complex and passives
Omission of past tense
Omission of inflections
More command
More questions and tag
questions
Expansions
Recastings
It was a big surprise. Yeh a big surprise. (Baby
makes noises) A very big surprise.. Yeh are you
going to put this on? Are we? Yeh! That’s a big
smile. There we are. Right, put your head in here.
Are you going to put your head in there? Are we?
Yeh!
Phonology
Longer pauses
Lexis and Semantics
Concrete nouns
Dynamic verbs
Adopt child’s words
Grammar
Repeated sentence frames
More simple sentences
Fewer complex and passives
Omission of past tense
Omission of inflections
More command
More questions and tag
questions
Expansions
Recastings
Turning this into a PEE paragraph...
The adult in the transcript uses child-directed speech to
distract the child while she changes his clothes. She uses tag
questions to encourage turn-taking like in an adult
conversation such as “soaked to the skin, aren’t you?” The
child responds to some of the adult’s speech with noises.
Although the baby has not developed its first words yet, the
adult is already encouraging forms of politeness by asking
questions and allowing time for the child to respond. The
questions are directly linked to the immediate context in
which the conversation is talking place. This exchange is
typical of examples of Bruner’s social activist approach in
which he emphasises the importance of routines and social
interaction – using the language acquisition support system.
Turning this into a PEE paragraph...
The adult in the transcript uses child-directed speech to
distract the child while she changes his clothes. She uses tag
questions to encourage turn-taking like in an adult
conversation such as “soaked to the skin, aren’t you?” The
child responds to some of the adult’s speech with noises.
Although the baby has not developed its first words yet, the
adult is already encouraging forms of politeness by asking
questions and allowing time for the child to respond. The
questions are directly linked to the immediate context in
which the conversation is talking place. This exchange is
typical of examples of Bruner’s social activist approach in
which he emphasises the importance of routines and social
interaction – using the language acquisition support system.
Now let’s look at how you write
about CDS in the exam...
Some general tips!
• Focus on the question. Read through the information given in
the question first, then think about what you can expect from
the data e.g.
- What stage do you expect the child / children to be at from
their ages?
- what is the relationship between the speakers?
- what is the purpose of the conversation?
• Discuss the context of the data in your introduction
• Make sure each PEE paragraph includes
- A01: analysis of the data, including at least one quotation
- A02: references to how this fits in with the general stages of
children’s language development
- A03: link back to the context where possible – what is going on
here under the surface?
Let’s look at extracts from a grade
A response from a real candidate...