Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-x4r87 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T16:47:10.429Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Romāni child-directed speech and children's language among Gypsies in Hungary

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

Zita Réger  and
Jean Berko Gleason
Zita Réger
Affiliation:
Linguistics Institute, Hungarian Academy of Sciences
Jean Berko Gleason
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Boston University, 64 Cummington Street, Boston, MA 02215
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Adult–child interaction and linguistic input in relation to oral culture were investigated in 13 traditional settlements of Romāni-speaking Gypsies in Hungary. Many of the typical modifications found in the childdirected speech (CDS) register of other languages are also found in the speech addressed to children acquiring Romāni. In addition, CDS in these communities is deeply influenced by living traditions and properties of the Gypsies' oral culture. Phenomena of input language closely related to these features are, for example, a specific way of modeling dialogue to infants, the extended use of test questions, and the use of folk genres specially modified for babies and children. Early introduction of children into these ways of speaking reflects their importance for Gypsy culture and Gypsy identity. Children's games reflecting the highly creative uses of the same features of traditional oral culture are also presented. (Gypsies, Romani, child-directed speech, language acquisition, socialization, pragmatics)

Type
Articles
Information
Language in Society , Volume 20 , Issue 4 , December 1991 , pp. 601 - 617
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

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.)

References

REFERENCES

Brown, R., Cazden, C., & Bellugi, U. (1969). The child's grammar from I to III. In Hill, J. P. (ed.), Minnesota symposium on child psychology. Vol. II. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 28–73.Google Scholar
Fishman, J. A. (1967). Bilingualism with and without diglossia; diglossia with and without bilingualism. The Journal of Social Issues 2: 29–38Google Scholar
Gleason, J. Berko. (1988). Language and socialization. In Kessel, F. (ed.), The development of language and language researchers. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. 269–2Google Scholar
Hajdú, A. (1962). Le folklore tsigane. Études Tsiganes 1–2:1–33.Google Scholar
Kaplan, E. (1969). The role of intonation in the acquisition of language. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Cornell University.Google Scholar
Kemény, I. (1974). A magyarországi cigány lakosság [The Gypsy population in Hungary]. Valóság 1:63–72.Google Scholar
Kovalcsik, K. (1985). Vlach Gypsy folk songs in Slovakia. Gypsy folk music in Europe I. Budapest: Institute for Musicology of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. 27–40.Google Scholar
Kovalcsik, K., & Grabócz, G. (1988). Mihály Rostas, a Gypsy story-teller. Hungarian Gypsy studies 5. Budapest: MTA Néprajzi Kutató Csoport. 25–41.Google Scholar
Magyar Néprajzi Lexikon [Encyclopedia of Hungarian ethnography] 4. (1981). Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó. 188.Google Scholar
Masur, E., & Gleason, J. Berko. (1980). Parent-child interaction and the acquisition of lexical information during play. Developmental Psychology 16(5):404–09CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nagy, O. (1978). The persistence of archaic traits among Gypsy storytelling communities in Romania. Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society 4th ser. I(4):221–39.Google Scholar
Ochs, E. (1988). Culture and language development: Language acquisition and language socialization in a Samoan village. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ochs, E., & Schieffelin, B. B. (1984). Language acquisition and socialization. In Schweder, R. A. & LeVine, R. A. (eds.), Culture theory: Essays on mind, self, and emotion. New York: Cambridge University Press. 276–322.Google Scholar
Pye, C. (1986). Quiche Mayan speech to children. Journal of Child Language 13:85–100.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Réger, Z. (1986). Report of the research project Disadvantaged Social Background and Language Development. Unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar
Schieffelin, B. B. (1985). The acquisition of Kaluli. In Slobin, D. (ed.), The crosslinguistic study of language acquisition. Vol. 1. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. 525–93.Google Scholar
Snow, C. E., & Ferguson, C. A. (eds.) (1977). Talking to children: Language input and acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Stewart, M. (1989). ‘True speech’: Song and the moral order of a Hungarian Vlach Gypsy community. Man 24(1):79–101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thompson, S. (1955–58). Motif-index of folk-literature. 6 vols. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Várnagy, E., & Vekerdi, J. (1979). A cigánygyerekek nevelésének és oktatásának problémái [Problems in the education of Gypsy children]. Budapest: Tankonyvkiado.Google Scholar
Vekerdi, J. (1977). A magyarországi cigány nyelvjárások [Gypsy dialects in Hungary]. Unpublished academic doctoral dissertation, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest.Google Scholar
Vekerdi, J. (1985). Gypsy dialect tales from Hungary. Debrecen: KLTE.Google Scholar
Wertsch, J. (1985). Vygotsky and the social formation of mind. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar