Talking to children in Tsotsil Mayan: Interactional formats in child-directed communication across multigenerational caregivers

Abstract

Research on the acquisition of Mayan languages has shown child-directed communication (CDC) to be low in frequency. Nevertheless, long-term linguistic-anthropological research with the Tsotsil Mayan in Southern Mexico has documented episodes in family life when children engage in interactional routines or interactional formats (IFs) with their multigenerational caregivers. These interactions are sequentially organized communicative acts (verbal and nonverbal) that call forth specific responses from the child in turn-taking episodes (e.g. muts’o la sate ‘close your eyes’, chibat, uto ‘say, good-bye’). This study analyzes IFs in four communicative events involving four children (11–17 months; M = 15) each from multigenerational families with a household average of 7.75 members. Three research questions are addressed: What types and functions of IFs characterize CDC experienced by Tsotsil children? How do IF types distribute across specific communicative events? How do IF types distribute across multigenerational caregivers? The study used both qualitative and quantitative methods. IFs were classified on the basis of their pragmatic function: directive, prompting, teasing, referential, regulatory, and evaluation. The six IF types and their relative frequencies reveal core language socialization practices among the Tsotsil Mayan of the study. Quantitative analysis makes clear a significant association between IFs and event, and IFs and caregivers’ CDC. A central finding is that non-parental input from multigenerational caregivers (i.e. grandmothers and sisters) is a more significant source of CDC than parental input.