Child-directed Language Research Articles

Using corpora to investigate antonym acquisition

In this study, a purpose-built corpus, containing both child-produced and child-directed speech, is used to conduct a longitudinal examination of antonym use among children from the age of two to five years old. Previous research has tended to approach antonym acquisition using either elicitation techniques or corpora of printed adult language. In contrast, this research focuses on the speech of preschool children in naturally-occurring interactions. The discourse functions of antonymy in child-produced and child-directed language are quantified and compared with those identified in adult, written English (Jones 2002). Despite its complexity, Ancillary Antonymy is found to be most common in child-produced speech, even from the age of two, perhaps because of its particular usefulness in structuring ideas and discourse. This study presents a detailed inter-corpus comparison, assesses the discourse functions of antonymy at different stages of childhood, and discusses the correlation between antonym use in child-directed and child-produced speech.

Recasts in parents’ language to their school-age children who stutter: a preliminary study

Language samples collected from 13 school-age children diagnosed as stutterers (CWS) in conversation with a parent and a similar corpus of data collected from a matched control group of 13 normally-fluent children (CWNS) were analyzed for the quality and quantity of recast usage in the parents’ language. Recasts, a frequently studied type of child-directed language (CDL) pattern hypothesized to increase the length and complexity of young children’s expressive language, have not been studied typically in older children’s conversations with parents nor have they been studied in the CDL of parents of CWS. Comparisons of these samples revealed that both groups of parents were frequent users of imitations, as well as simple and complex type recasts. Indeed, the rank order of recast types used was identical for the two groups of caregivers. When parents’ conversations with the CWS were analyzed further, it was noted that they were not more likely to focus on stuttered utterances as the utterances on which to base their recasts (i.e., “platform utterances”) than on the child’s fluently-produced utterances. These results suggest there is one additional conversation parameter for which there are evident similarities in the CDL used by parents of CWS and CWNS. Clinical implications gleaned from this preliminary study are discussed, as are suggestions for future study. Educational objectives: The reader will learn about and be able to describe (1) the role of recasts in young children’s language development; (2) the types of recasts that were observed in the conversations of parents of CWS and CWNS; and (3) the similarities observed in the recasts produced by parents of CWS and CWNS.

Responsiveness and perceived intelligence as predictors of speech addressed to cats

Speech addressed to a cat was examined to test whether the use of child-directed language (CDL) with a companion animal is related to perceived intelligence of a listener and/or listener responsiveness. Fifty-one undergraduates briefly entertained a cat using a toy, and the vast majority of these participants spoke to the animal. The language used was similar to CDL, and two aspects of this language (number of questions and attribution of thoughts to the animal) were positively related to ratings of the animal's intelligence. The cat's responsiveness, as measured by time spent in proximity of the participant during the interaction, was not strongly correlated with measures of speech use. The results suggest that speech used with companion animals follows a model in which the human first perceives a social interaction, and therefore uses speech. This speech is then modified, based on the perceived comprehension of the listener, regardless of who this listener may be.

The cradling bias in relation to pitch of maternal child‐directed language

In research on cradling, the leftward cradling bias has been observed in the context of holding infants ranging in age from birth to 18 months. Mothers’ expression of emotion and their control of infant emotion may influence cradling preference (e.g. Weiland & Sperber, 1970). Research on the pitch of child‐directed speech has found that mothers express their emotions to pre‐verbal infants by using different pitch (F0). Specifically, they use different pitch depending on whether they are conveying to their pre‐verbal infants messages encouraging attention or soothing the infant. Following these findings the present study tested the hypothesis that mothers cradling on the right in comparison with mothers cradling on the left will speak with a higher mean pitch to attract their infants’ attention. It was found that mothers (N = 13) cradling right (mean pitch = 221.11 Hz; mean amplitude = 55.78 dB) compared with mothers (N = 18) cradling left (mean pitch = 171.33 Hz; mean amplitude = 49.20 dB) spoke with a higher pitch and amplitude. Furthermore, a comparison of mean pitch and amplitude of those mothers (N = 14) who cradled both right and left showed that the same mothers spoke with a higher pitch and amplitude when cradling right (mean pitch = 234.62 Hz; mean amplitude = 53.20 dB) in comparison with cradling left (mean pitch = 179.86 Hz; mean amplitude = 48.87 dB).