The functional basis of referentiality: evidence from children's spontaneous speech

Abstract

This study examines the relationship between the functional characteristics of children's spontaneous speech and maternal-report measures of referential vocabulary at 50 and 100 words in 7 first-born middle-class children. Although evidence is found for functional differences between children which show continuity between 50 and 100 words, no relationships are found between these functional differences and corresponding measures of referential vocabulary. This suggests that the kind of differences identified in Nelson's original (1973) study may cut across rather than reflect differences in the pragmatics of children's speech, and also raises doubts about the widespread tendency to interpret variation in vocabulary composition in terms of underlying differences in language use.