Extensive longitudinal data were gathered on a child's entry into the symbolically mediated modal world by examining changes in the semantics and pragmatics of her uses of modal auxiliary verbs. The data are 53 transcripts of natural conversations between a girl, Nina, and her mother recorded periodically from her 23rd month to her 39th month. The…

Recent studies have documented the importance of a variety of contextualization cues such as intonation, voice quality, volume, and pitch in conversation. The appropriate use of and response to them presupposes that one has certain kinds of linguistic and sociocultural knowledge. There remains, however, the question of how children acquire this…

A major purpose of the research reported here is to determine whether or not children of minority backgrounds possess the ability to tell stories and verbalize in narrative form at age 3 and 4. Narratives and speech play were collected over a 9-month period in two Headstart classes in Honolulu (Hawaii). The children, most of mixed backgrounds,…

Discourse and conversational analysis methods were used in a qualitative reconstruction of one aspect of the regularities in the way 61 children "do" personal reference. Of particular interest was the development of two reference forms: minimization--preference for simple (one word) forms, or recipient design--reference forms indicating…

A paper by Keenan and Klein (1975) provided evidence for the hypothesis that conversationality is present in children as young as 2 and 1/2 years of age. Results of the study indicated that before the emergence of more adult-like coherency operations, the children passed through a period in which such operations were foreshadowed by vocal play.…

Up to the present, no studies have been done in the area of child language in Mexico. The Center of Linguistic and Literary Studies of the Colegio de Mexico carried out an empirical investigation of the language of six- to seven-year-old Mexican children. This paper presents, in preliminary form, some partial results of the investigation,…

This book is designed to provide practical advice to parents and educators on the language acquisition process. Citing numerous case studies and anecdotal examples, it explains how children learn to talk and acquire language. Chapter 1 serves as an introduction to language acquisition, explaining the components, forms, and structure of language.…

This paper reviews studies on classroom talk and on mother-child interaction; it compares the latter with classroom talk and speculates on what language in the classroom could be. The discussion of language in the classroom revolves around: (1) the speech situation, that is, a situation organized in terms of some nonverbal activity; (2) the speech…

In any successful conversation, a speaker must select both what is said and how it is said on the basis of various estimates of the listener's abilities, knowledge and interests. Most research on linguistic input to children has focused on the tendency of speakers to simplify their speech for the younger listener. Little attention has been paid to…

Previous research has shown how macro-structures can affect children's verbalizations. This study focuses on whether conversational contexts of forms are learned along with syntax, on what makes syntax, and on how to predict speech. Transcripts of videotapes of young children provided a matrix of function or act against actual utterance, wherein…