This study investigated the linguistic characteristics of speech addressed to the child and the features of the verbal environment critical for learning language. The study focused on the prosodic and paralinguistic features of adult speech to the young child. Adult speech directed to children was compared to other kinds of systematic speech…

The casual conversation of six pairs of Japanese and six pairs of American colleges students was analyzed for evidence of two related aspects of conversation management: the linguistic characteristics of utterance units and back-channel strategies. Utterance units are defined as those occurring between identifiable pauses or breaks in tempo.…