Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-k7p5g Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-13T22:16:46.541Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Noun bias in maternal speech to one-year-olds*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Beverly A. Goldfield
Beverly A. Goldfield*
Affiliation:
Rhode Island, College
*
Psychology Department, Rhode Island College, Mt. Pleasant Ave., Providence, RI 02908, USA.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This study examines the distribution of nouns and verbs in maternal speech to one-year-olds. Mothers and children were videotaped during toy play and non-toy play. Nouns and verbs in maternal speech were coded for frequency, sentence position and occurrence with grammatical inflections. maternal speech was also coded for utterances that prompted the child to produce a noun or a verb. Frequency of nouns and verbs varied with context. There were more noun types and tokens during toy play, and more verb types and tokens during non-toy play. Nouns occurred more often than verbs in shorter maternal sentences, in sentence-final position, and with fewer grammatical inflections. Mothers also more often prompted their children to produce nouns. There was a significant positive correlation between frequency of noun types and tokens during toy play, and the proportion of nouns in children's first 50 words.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , February 1993 , pp. 85 - 99
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1993

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

[*]

Some of the data reported in this paper were presented at the Seventh International Conference on Infant Studies, Montreal, Canada, April 1990. I would like to thank Donna Scally for her help with reliability coding, and the children and parents who graciously participated in the study.

References

REFERENCES

Anglin, J. (1977). Word, abject, and conceptual development. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Benedict, H. (1979). Early lexical development: comprehension and production. Journal of Child Language 6, 183–200.Google Scholar
Bridges, A. (1986). Actions and things: what adults talk about to one-year-olds. In Kuczaj, S. A. II & Barrett, M. D. (eds), The development of word meaning. New York: Springer-Verlag.Google Scholar
Clancy, P. M. (1985). The acquisition of Japanese. In Slobin, D. I. (ed.), The crosslinguistic study of language acquisition. Vol. 1: The data. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Cooper, W. & Paccia-Cooper, J. (1980). Syntax and speech. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Cross, T. G. (1977). Mothers' speech adjustments: the contributions of selected child listener variables. In Ferguson, C. & Snow, C. (eds), Talking to children: language input and acquisition. Cambridge: C.U.P.Google Scholar
Della Corte, M., Benedict, H. & Klein, D. (1983). The relationship of pragmatic dimensions of mothers' speech to the referential-expressive distinction. Journal of Child Language 10, 35–44.Google Scholar
French, N. R., Carter, C. W. & Koenig, W. (1930). The words and sounds of telephone conversations. Bell System Technical Journal 9, 290–324.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Furrow, D. & Nelson, K. (1984). Environmental correlates of individual differences in language acquisition. Journal of Child Language 11, 523–34.Google Scholar
Gentner, D. (1982). Why nouns are learned before verbs: linguistic relativity versus natural partitioning. In Kuczaj, S. A. II (ed.), Language development. Vol. 2: Language, thought, and culture. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Goldfield, B. A. (1986). Referential and expressive language: a study of two mother-child dyads. First Language 6, 119–31.Google Scholar
Goldfield, B. A. (1987). The contributions of child and caregiver to referential and expressive language. Applied Psycholinguistics 8, 267–80.Google Scholar
Gopnik, A. (1981). The development of non-nominal expressions in 12–24-month-olds. In Dale, P. & Ingram, D. (eds), Child language: an international perspective. Baltimore: University Park Press.Google Scholar
Gopnik, A. & Meltzoff, A. (1985). From people to objects: changes in the meaning of early words and their relation to cognitive development. Journal of Pragmatics 9, 495–512.Google Scholar
Huttenlocher, J. & Lui, F. (1979). The semantic organization of some simple nouns and verbs. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 18, 141–62.Google Scholar
Leonard, L. B., Schwartz, R. G., Chapman, K., Rowan, L. E., Prelock, P. A., Terrell, B., Weiss, A. & Messick, C. (1982). Early lexical acquisition in children with specific language impairment. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research 25, 554–64.Google Scholar
Markman, E. (1989). Categorization and naming in children. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Mervis, C. & Rosch, E. (1981). Categorization of naturel objects. In Rosenzweig, M. R. & Porter, L. W. (eds), Annual review of psychology. Vol. 32. Palo Alto, CA: Annual Reviews.Google Scholar
Messer, D. (1981). Nonlinguistic information which could assist the young child's interpretation of adults' speech. In Robinson, W. P. (ed.), Communication in development. London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Miller, G. A. & Johnson-Laird, P. N. (1976). Language and perception. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Nelson, K. (1973). Structure and strategy in learning to talk. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 38 (1–2), Serial no, 149.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ninio, A. & Bruner, J. (1978). The achievement and antecedents of labelling. Journal of Child Language 5, 1–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oviatt, S. (1980). The emerging ability to comprehend language: an experimental approach. Child Development 51, 97–106.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Peters, A. (1985). Language segmentation: operating principles for the perception and analysis of language, In Slobin, D. I. (ed.), The crosslinguistic study of language acquisition. Vol. 2: Theoretical issues. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Rispoli, M. (1989). Encounters with Japanese verbs: caregiver sentences and the Categorization of transitive and intransitive action verbs. First Language 9, 57–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosch, E. & Mervis, C. B. (1975). Family resemblances: studies in the internal structure of categories. Cognitive Psychology 7, 573–605.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schwartz, R. G. & Leonard, L. B. (1984). Words, objects, and actions in early lexical acquisition. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research 27, 119–27.Google Scholar
Slobin, D. I. (1973). Cognitive prerequisites for the development of grammar. In Ferguson, C. A. & Slobin, D. I. (eds), Studies of child language development. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.Google Scholar
Snow, C. E. (1972). Mothers' speech to children learning language. Child Development 43, 549–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Snow, C. E. & Goldfield, B. A. (1983). Turn the page please: situation-specific language acquisition. Journal of Child Language 10, 551–70.Google Scholar
Snyder, L. S., Bates, E. & Bretherton, I. (1981). Content and context in early lexical development. Journal of Child Language 8, 565–82.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Talmy, L. (1975). Semantics and syntax of motion. In Kimball, J. (ed.), Syntax and semantics. Vol. 4. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Tanouye, E. K. (1979). The acquisition of verbs in Japanese children. Papers and Reports on Child Language Development 17, 49–56.Google Scholar
Tomasello, M. & Kruger, A. C. (1992). Joint attention on actions: acquiring verbs in ostensive and non-ostensive contexts. Journal of Child Language 19, 311–33.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed