This qualitative ethnographic research explores baby talk (BT) and ontology of infancy in a small, rural Indo-Fijian community via semistructured interviews with mothers about their children's language learning, mothers' narratives about their photographs of their young children engaged in everyday language, and audio- and video-recordings of…

This article explores the role of the reportative BIN in Yucatec Maya language acquisition and socialization among children aged 4 years and above, focusing on their interactions during pretend play. Building upon prior research on caregivers' strategic use of BIN, the study aims to elucidate the nuanced meanings and functions of the reportative…

This study analyzes how others engage rural and urban Mozambican infants during naturalistic observations, and how the proportion of time spent in different engagements relates to infants' language development over the second year of life. Using an extended version of Bakeman and Adamson's (1984) categorization of infant engagement, we…

In neurotypical infants, genetically-specified attachment/attention mechanisms underpin the motivation to interact, which enables the acquisition of socio-cultural norms for language and accounts for the efficacy of socialization processes (Lee et al., 2009; Schumann, 2013). In children with autism, as in second language acquisition,…

This article supports the claim that there are strong interactive links between children's language development, cognitive reasoning and their success in school achievement. These links are best facilitated within a social learning framework where children's language and talk is encouraged, accepted and respected. This talk is the most authentic…

The early noncry vocalizations of infants are salient social signals. Caregivers spontaneously respond to 30%-50% of these sounds, and their responsiveness to infants' prelinguistic noncry vocalizations facilitates the development of phonology and speech. Have infants learned that their vocalizations influence the behavior of social partners? If…

In 1999, Mary Brennan wrote "By recognising the child as, in effect, a "little linguist" we are also recognising the power and effectiveness of the child's linguistic capacity" (Brennan, 1999). The recognition of the power and effectiveness of deaf children's linguistic capacity needs to be taken a step further. Focus should be…

The present study reports preliminary findings on the elicitation strategies used by Thai and English caretakers when eliciting past event narratives from pre-schoolers. Ten Thai and ten English-speaking caretaker-child dyads were recruited from Bangkok, Thailand and from Sydney, Australia. Caretakers were asked to elicit past event narratives…

Piaget has suggested that a child's language reflects the degree to which he is able to take into account the point of view of his listener. His inability to do so results in what Piaget calls egocentric speech whereas what Piaget calls socialized speech indicates that the child actually adopts his listener's viewpoint and engages in an exchange…

An investigation was made of the role of parents in children's acquisition of pragmatic language skills (in other words, their ability to use language appropriately in social contexts). A total of 49 middle class adults completed questionnaires; 9 were parents, 15 were teachers, 9 were both teachers and parents, and 16 were neither. The first part…

Interpersonal functions of everyday caretaker speech usage are examined when addressed to toddlers, threes and fours. Results support hypotheses derived from Piagetian theory concerning early developments in ego-differentiation. (Author/RM)

Research sponsored by National Institute of Mental Health and National Science Foundation grants. Visiting Research Associate positions were awarded by the University of Nairobi, Institute of Development Studies and Instutute of African Studies. Earlier version presented to the Institute of African Studies Seminar. (VM)

The role that talk plays in socialization, social development, and possibly cognitive development is described. Research on talk is categorized as follows: studies that consider talk as a tool for investigation; studies that focus on development of grammar or language acquisition; and studies that fall between those extremes. (LB)

Research and theory on language acquisition and language socialization are examined and compared. The language acquisition perspective is that the central question is how children acquire forms and patterns of language, with syntax at the core, so early and so rapidly. From the viewpoint of language socialization, the issue is not only of…

One approach to studying the nature of diverse speech exchange systems across sociocultural groups starts from the premise that all learning is cultural learning, and that language socialization is the way individuals become members of both their primary speech community and their secondary speech communities. Researchers must recognize that the…