Language as a product of dialogue∗

Abstract

Studies of adults' speech to language‐learning children indicate that children hear a language sample which is probably well suited to their developing linguistic needs. How to characterize the relationship between adult speech and child language development remains, however, an unsettled issue. This study proposes one important function for adult‐child dialogues in the developmental process. The dialogue provides the child with opportunities to participate with adults in creating linguistic relationships of which he/she would be incapable alone. This proposal is similar to the “zone of proximal development” discussed by Vygotsky and reviewed here. Data for the study come from dialogues between mothers and their children between the ages of 20 and 32 months. As a reflection of another proposal, that dialogue can only be adequately described in terms of discourse level relations, the specific area of investigation was the discourse level relation ellipsis. Dialogues were coded with categories of ellipsis and in terms of the sequential order of speakers. Results indicate that 1) Categories of ellipsis develop in an orderly manner simultaneously with the development of syntax (as measured by mean length of utterance); 2) Categories of ellipsis emerge in between‐speaker sequences; 3) Children participate in elliptical relations before they have developed syntax; 4) Mothers use all types of ellipsis in within‐speaker speech, regardless of their children's linguistic level, but their between‐speaker use of ellipsis is adjusted to child's level of language by virtue of the rules of ellipsis; and 5) The dialogue per se changes as the child develops.