Communicative function in child directed speech: a cross-cultural analysis

Zhao, C., Serratrice, L. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5141-6186, Lieven, E., Steele, C., Malik, N., An, Y., Hayden, E., Neumegen, J. and Cameron-Faulkner, T. (2024) Communicative function in child directed speech: a cross-cultural analysis. First Language, 44 (4). pp. 395-421. ISSN 1740-2344 doi: 10.1177/01427237241259065

Abstract/Summary

Language development can be framed as the process of learning how to mean (Halliday, 1975). From this perspective, the role of communicative function is central to the language- learning process with development being guided by interaction with experienced others. In the current study, we present a detailed analysis of the communicative functions used in interaction with prelinguistic infants aged 10–12months from three cultural groups living in the United Kingdom. The findings indicate that caregivers from all three groups used a wide range of communicative acts when interacting with their infants, ranging from directives to discussions of inner thoughts and feelings. In addition, we identified significant differences in the frequency with which different communicative acts were used across our three groups. The study complements the positive contributions made by pivotal studies on language socialisation by highlighting the diversity and variation of caregiver speech at the functional level.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/120654
Identification Number/DOI	10.1177/01427237241259065
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Interdisciplinary Research Centres (IDRCs) > Centre for Literacy and Multilingualism (CeLM) Life Sciences > School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences > Department of Clinical Language Sciences
Publisher	SAGE
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