This 10-chapter monograph explores the range of influences parents have on their children's linguistic development and in the process attempts to understand why parents adopt the language styles they do in addressing children. The discussion focuses on the following three themes that are interwoven throughout the book: (1) the social nature of…

The five essays in this collection examine the ways in which language functions in the lives of children, particularly in contexts outside the classroom. The first essay attempts to relate the actual language of children and adolescents to the rather different language characteristic of teachers and schools. The second essay examines the language…

The interaction of children and stories is examined in this book, with particular attention to the way in which children's language usage indicates the development of their concept of story. The first two chapters of the book discuss the topic from a broad perspective, seeking a theoretical framework for organizing children's language usage.…

An ongoing longitudinal study, 15 years old at the time of publication, is reported. It is a sociolinguistic, developmental study of the acquisition of two languages, Spanish and English, by a boy from birth, with data drawn from direct observation and occasional tape recordings of speech. An introductory chapter outlines the objectives and method…