A construction based analysis of child directed speech

✍ Scribed by Thea Cameron-Faulkner; Elena Lieven; Michael Tomasello

• Publisher: Wiley (Blackwell Publishing)
• Year: 2003
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 633 KB
• Volume: 27
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0364-0213
• DOI: 10.1016/j.cogsci.2003.06.001

✦ Synopsis

The child directed speech of twelve English-speaking mothers was analyzed in terms of utterance-level constructions. First, the mothers' utterances were categorized in terms of general constructional categories such as Wh-questions, copulas and transitives. Second, mothers' utterances within these categories were further specified in terms of the initial words that framed the utterance, item-based phrases such as Are you . . . , I'll . . . , It's . . . , Let's . . . , What did . . . . The findings were: (i) overall, only about 15% of all maternal utterances had SVO form (most were questions, imperatives, copulas, and fragments); (ii) 51% of all maternal utterances began with one of 52 item-based phrases, mostly consisting of two words or morphemes (45% began with one of just 17 words); and (iii) children used many of these same item-based phrases, in some cases at a rate that correlated highly with their own mother's frequency of use. We suggest that analyses of adult-child linguistic interaction should take into account not just general constructional categories, but also the item-based constructions that adults and children use and the frequency with which they use them.