Child-directed speech

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TChnCMIH24&list=PL1A5BE0FE207FE333

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgwCWbHjJPA

What is child-directed speech?

• The academic term for the language used by adults/caregivers when addressing children.

• Is sometimes also referred to as parentese, motherese, fatherese or babytalk.

Phonology

• Separate phrases more distinctly (longer pauses).

• Speak more s-l-o-w-l-y.

• Exaggerated ‘singsong’ intonation.

• Exaggerated difference between questions, statements and commands.

• Higher and wider range of pitch.

Lexis and Semantics

• Use of concrete nouns (e.g. train, cat) and dynamic verbs (e.g. give, put).

• Adopt child’s own words for things (e.g. wickle babbit).

• Frequent use of child’s name and absence of pronouns.

Grammar

• Repeated sentence frames: ‘That’s a …’• More simple sentences.• Fewer complex sentence and passives.• Omission of past tense and inflections.

Grammar

• More command, questions and tag questions.• Use of EXPANSIONS: where the child ‘fills out’

the child’s utterance.• Use of RECASTINGS: where the child’s

vocabulary is put into a new utterance.

Pragmatics

• Lots of gesture and body language.• Stopping frequently for child to respond.• Supportive language.

Clarke-Stewart (1973)

• Children whose mothers talk to them more have larger vocabularies.

Nelson (1973)

• Holophrastic stage• Children whose mothers corrected them on

word choice and pronunciation actually advanced more slowly than those with mothers who were generally accepting.

• Children often make ‘virtuous errors’ – mistakes that show an overextension of a grammatical rule, e.g. ‘They throwed him in’

Kuhl (1992)

• Studied exaggerated vowel sounds used by parents when speaking to 6-month olds (in English, Swedish and Russian).

• Babies turn towards adults who speak in sing-song voice, ignoring regular conversation.

• Mothers in all three countries exaggerated the important vowels.

Bruner• Social interactive approach – puts forward idea that

interactions between child and carer are crucial to lang development and help children develop important abilities such as turn-taking.

• Importance of conversations, routines of social interaction,

• Must be LASS (support system) as well as LAD. Parents provide ritualised scenarios – bath, meal, getting dressed – phrases of interaction rapidly recognised and predicted

• But: not the case in all cultures – western mothers particularly concerned with children acquiring language. Africa – sitting up.

Encouraging politeness

• Parents usually teach simple forms of politeness when a child is in the very early stages of language development.

• Robin Lakoff’s research showed that women use politeness features more often than men, by:

• Giving options• Adding tag questions• Making the receiver feel good

* How do parents show and encourage politeness with young children as they develop language?

Object Permanence• Jean Piaget’s idea that children of about eight or nine months of

age develop awareness/the idea that objects continue to exist even when one cannot see them. Before this stage, as far as the infant is concerned, items that are not within eyesight range do not exist.

• Piaget developed this theory by conducting very simple tests with infants involving blankets and toys. If the child was old enough to know about object permenance than when he covered the toy with a blanket, they would still try to reach for it. If the child was not at that stage, they would move on.

• Example: Young babies who have not yet developed a sense of object permanence often seem particularly delighted by “peek-a-boo” or other games involving a “vanishing person” or object.

IMPORTANT!!!

• NOT ALL CULTURES USE CHILD-DIRECTED SPEECH.• In some (non-western) cultures babies are expected to

‘blend in’ with adult interaction and no special accommodation is made.

• These children still go through same developmental stages at roughly the same time, as long as there is EXPOSURE to language.

Soaked to the skin, aren’t you. Soaked to the skin. Yeh! Yeh! Aren’t you... soaked to the skin. Yeh. Ooh! Smell that fart. Ughh! Dirty boy. Dirty boy. Now where the devil…..Ooh! Big Stretch! Are you going to sleep a long time again like you did last night? I bet you won’t. It’s unlikely you’ll do….I was most impressed by your sleeping last night darling (indeciperhable) Weren’t you a good boy. I woke up and I thought oh, probably only ablout eleven o’clock and I haven’t heard Daddy come home. And I put the light on and I thought ‘Blimey! You’re asleep!’ Asleep all that time. I couldn’t believe it. No! I couldn’t believe it. It was a big surprise. Yeh a big surprise. (Baby makes noises) A very big surprise.. Yeh are you going to put this on? Are we? Yeh! That’s a big smile. There we are. Right, put your head in here. Are you going to put your head in there? Are we? Yeh!

Soaked to the skin, aren’t you. Soaked to the skin. Yeh! Yeh! Aren’t you... soaked to the skin. Yeh. Ooh! Smell that fart. Ughh! Dirty boy. Dirty boy. Now where the devil…..Ooh! Big Stretch! Are you going to sleep a long time again like you did last night? I bet you won’t. It’s unlikely you’ll do….

PhonologyLonger pausesLexis and SemanticsConcrete nounsDynamic verbsAdopt child’s wordsGrammarRepeated sentence framesMore simple sentencesFewer complex and passivesOmission of past tenseOmission of inflectionsMore commandMore questions and tag questionsExpansionsRecastings

PhonologyLonger pausesLexis and SemanticsConcrete nounsDynamic verbsAdopt child’s wordsGrammarRepeated sentence framesMore simple sentencesFewer complex and passivesOmission of past tenseOmission of inflectionsMore commandMore questions and tag questionsExpansionsRecastings

Tag question to encourage turn-taking

Repetition

Simple sentences

Longer pauses

More questions

Context: topics of speech are relevant and comment of what’s happening now

I was most impressed by your sleeping last night darling (indeciperhable) Weren’t you a good boy. I woke up and I thought oh, probably only ablout eleven o’clock and I haven’t heard Daddy come home. And I put the light on and I thought ‘Blimey! You’re asleep!’ Asleep all that time. I couldn’t believe it. No! I couldn’t believe it.

PhonologyLonger pausesLexis and SemanticsConcrete nounsDynamic verbsAdopt child’s wordsGrammarRepeated sentence framesMore simple sentencesFewer complex and passivesOmission of past tenseOmission of inflectionsMore commandMore questions and tag questionsExpansionsRecastings

PhonologyLonger pausesLexis and SemanticsConcrete nounsDynamic verbsAdopt child’s wordsGrammarRepeated sentence framesMore simple sentencesFewer complex and passivesOmission of past tenseOmission of inflectionsMore commandMore questions and tag questionsExpansionsRecastings

It was a big surprise. Yeh a big surprise. (Baby makes noises) A very big surprise.. Yeh are you going to put this on? Are we? Yeh! That’s a big smile. There we are. Right, put your head in here. Are you going to put your head in there? Are we? Yeh!

PhonologyLonger pausesLexis and SemanticsConcrete nounsDynamic verbsAdopt child’s wordsGrammarRepeated sentence framesMore simple sentencesFewer complex and passivesOmission of past tenseOmission of inflectionsMore commandMore questions and tag questionsExpansionsRecastings

PhonologyLonger pausesLexis and SemanticsConcrete nounsDynamic verbsAdopt child’s wordsGrammarRepeated sentence framesMore simple sentencesFewer complex and passivesOmission of past tenseOmission of inflectionsMore commandMore questions and tag questionsExpansionsRecastings

Now let’s look at how you write about CDS in the exam...

Some general tips!• Focus on the question. Read through the information given in

the question first, then think about what you can expect from the data e.g.

- What stage do you expect the child / children to be at from their ages?

- what is the relationship between the speakers? - what is the purpose of the conversation?• Discuss the context of the data in your introduction• Make sure each PEE paragraph includes - A01: analysis of the data, including at least one quotation - A02: references to how this fits in with the general stages of

children’s language development - A03: link back to the context where possible – what is going on

here under the surface?

Let’s look at extracts from a grade A response from a real candidate...