Talking to Children Language Input and Acquisition

First published in 1977, this book draws together various contributions on the area of speech used by parents with their children. Numerous perspectives on the topic include the comparison of baby talk with other simplified registers by linguists, the analysis of cross-cultural differences in mother and child interaction by anthropologists, and the relation of language development to differences in styles of childcare and the child's social environment in general by psychologists. The text had its origins in a conference sponsored by the Sociolinguistics Committee of the Social Science Research Council. It will be of value to anyone with an interest in language acquisition and development.

Preface Catherine E. Snow and Charles A. Ferguson; Part I. Maternal Speech Styles: 1. Mothers' speech research: from input to interaction Catherine E. Snow; 2. The adaptive significance of linguistic input to prelinguistic infants Jacqueline Sachs; 3. Some prosodic and paralinguistic features of speech to young children Olga K. Garnica; 4. Some interactional aspects of language acquisition Ton van der Geest; 5. Mother, I'd rather do it myself: some effects and non-effects of maternal speech style Elissa L. Newport, Henry Gleitman and Lila R. Gleitman; 6. Mothers' speech adjustments: the contribution of selected child listener variables Toni G. Cross; 7. Beyond syntax: the influence of conversational constraints on speech modifications Marilyn Shatz and Rochel Gelman; 8. Talking to children: some notes on feedback Jen Berko Gleason; Part II. Baby-Talk Registers and Cross-Cultural Perspectives: 9. Baby talk as a simplified register Charles A. Ferguson; 10. Modifications of speech addressed to young children in Latvian Velta Ruke-Dravina; 11. The derivational processes relating Berber nursery words to their counterparts in normal inter-adult speech Jim Bynon; 12. Participant deixis in English and baby talk Dorothy Davis Wills; 13. Ethnography and caretaker-child interaction Ben G. Blount; 14. Aspects of social environment and first language acquisition in rural Africa Sara Harkness; Part III: 15. A sociologist's point of view Allen D. Grimshaw; 16. A psychologist's point of view Susan Ervin-Tripp; References; Annotated bibliography Elaine S. Andersen.

This 1977 book draws together various contributions on the area of speech used by parents with their children. The text had its origins in a conference sponsored by the Sociolinguistics Committee of the Social Science Research Council. It will be of value to anyone with an interest in language acquisition and development.