Article published in:
Australian Review of Applied Linguistics
Vol. 23:1 (2000) ► pp. 53–76

Some characteristics of fathers’ and mothers’ speech to young children

| Macquarie University
This study investigated a range of formal, conversational and functional aspects of fathers’ and mothers’ speech to children aged 2;6-3;8 in two dyadic contexts (book reading and puzzle play), and one triadic context (family mealtime). Speech situation influenced the type of speech produced, and parents’ speech changed in a similar direction across contexts. Nevertheless, there were some differences found between parents across tasks. There was little difference between parents in respect of formal characteristics of speech, but differences were evidenced at the pragmatic level.
Published online: 01 January 2000
https://doi.org/10.1075/aral.23.1.04gal
References

References

Barton, M.E. and M. Tomasello
(1994) The rest of the family: the role of fathers and siblings in early language development. In C. Gallaway and B.J. Richards (eds) Input and interaction in language acquisition. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Bellinger, D.C. and J. B. Gleason
(1982) Sex differences in parental directives to young children. Sex Roles 8: 1123–1139. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Blount, B.G. and E. J. Padgug
(1976) Mother and father speech: distribution of parental speech features in English and Spanish. Papers and Reports on Child Language Development, 12: 47–59.Google Scholar
Blum-Kulka, S.
(1990) ‘You don’t touch lettuce with your fingers’: parental politeness in family discourse. Journal of Pragmatics 14: 259–288. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Bredart-Compernol, C., J.A. Rondal and F. Peree
(1981) More about maternal and paternal speech to language learning children in various dyadic and triadic situational contexts. International Journal of Psycholinguistics 24: 149–168.Google Scholar
Caldera, Y.M., A.C. Huston and M. O’Brien
(1989) Social interactions and play patterns of parents and toddlers with feminine, masculine, and neutral toys. Child Development 60: 70–76. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Crystal, D.
(1991) A dictionary of linguistics and phonetics (3rd ed.). Oxford, Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Davidson, R.G., and C. E. Snow
(1996) Five-year-olds’ interactions with fathers versus mothers. First Language 16: 223–242. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
De Temple, J.M., and D. E. Beals
(1991) Family talk: sources of support for the development of decontextualised language skills. Journal of Research in Childhood Education 6: 11–19. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Döpke, S.
(1990) Are mothers really the main mediators of language? In M.A.K. Halliday, J. Gibbons and H. Nicholas (eds) Learning, keeping and using language Vol 1. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Engle, M.
(1980a) Family influences on the language development of young children. Women’s Studies International Quarterly 3: 259–266. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
(1980b) Language and play: a comparative analysis of parental initiatives. In H. Giles, W.P. Robinson and P. M. Smith (eds) Language: social psychological perspectives. Oxford, Pergamon Press.Google Scholar
Fash, D.S. and C. L. Madison
(1981) Parents’ language interaction with young children: a comparative study of mothers and fathers. Child Study Journal 11: 137–153.Google Scholar
Garton, A.F.
(1992) Social interaction and the development of language and cognition. Oxford, Blackwell.Google Scholar
Garvey, C.
(1977) Play. London, Fontana Paperbacks.Google Scholar
Gleason, J.B.
(1975) Fathers and other strangers: men’s speech to young children. In D. Dato (ed.) Developmental psycholinguistics: theory and applications. Washington, D.C., Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
(1987) Sex differences in parent-child interaction. In S.U. Phillips, S. Steele and C. Tanz (eds) Language, gender and sex in comparative perspective. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Gleason, J.B. and R. Y. Perlmann
(1985) Acquiring social variation in speech. In H. Giles and R.N. St. Clair (eds) Recent advances in language, communication and social psychology. London, Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Gleason, J.B. and S. Weintraub
(1978) Input language and the acquisition of communicative competence. In K. Nelson (ed.) Children’s language, Vol 1. New York, Gardner Press.Google Scholar
Golinkoff, R.M. and G. J. Ames
(1979) A comparison of fathers’ and mothers’ speech with their young children. Child Development 50: 28–32. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Greif, E.B.
(1980) Sex differences in parent-child conversations. Women’s Studies International Quarterly 3: 253–258. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Hasan, R. and C. Cloran
(1990) A sociolinguistic interpretation of everyday talk between mothers and children. In M.A.K. Halliday, J. Gibbons and H. Nicholas (eds) Learning keeping and using language Vol 1. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Hladik, E.G. and H. T. Edwards
(1984) A comparative analysis of mother-father speech in the naturalistic home environment. Journal of Psychoiinguistic Research 11: 465–483.Google Scholar
Hoff-Ginsberg, E.
(1991) Mother-child conversation in different social classes and communicative settings. Child Development 62: 782–796. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Hummel, D.D.
(1982) Syntactic and conversational characteristics of fathers’ speech. Journal of Psychoiinguistic Research 11: 465–483. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Kavanaugh, R.D. and M. Jen
(1981) Some relationships between parental speech and language development. First Language 2:103–115.Google Scholar
Kavanaugh, R.D. and A. M. Jirkovsky
(1982) Parental speech to young children: a longitudinal analysis. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly 28:297–311.Google Scholar
Lewis, C. and S. Gregory
(1987) Parents’ talk to their children: the importance of context. First Language 7:201–216. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Lipscomb, T. and R. Coon
(1983) Parental speech modifications to young children. Journal of Genetic Psychology 143:181–187. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Lyons, J.
(1968) Introduction to theoretical linguistics. London, Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Malone, MJ. and R. F. Guy
(1982) A comparison of mothers’ and fathers’ speech to their 3 year-old sons. Journal of Psychoiinguistic Research 11:599–608. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Mannle, S. and M. Tomasello
(1987) Fathers, siblings and the bridge hypothesis. In K.E. Nelson and A. Van Kleek (eds) Children’s Language, Vol. 6 Hillsdale, N.J., Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Masur, E.F.
(1982) Cognitive content of parents’ speech to preschoolers. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly 28:471–484.Google Scholar
McLaughlin, B., C. Schutz and D. White
(1980) Parental speech to five-year-old children in a game-playing situation. Child Development 51:580–582. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
McLaughlin, B.,D. White, T. McDevitt and R. Raskin
(1983) Mothers’ and fathers’ speech to their young children: similar or different? Journal of Child Language 10:245–252. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
O’Brien, M. and K. J. Nagle
(1987) Parents’ speech to toddlers: the effect of play context. Journal of Child Language 14:269–279. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Pellegrini, A.D., G. Brody and Z. Stoneman
(1987) Children’s conversational competence with their parents. Discourse Processes 10:93–106. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Quirk, R. and S. Greenbaum
(1973) A university grammar of English. Harlow, U.K., Longman.Google Scholar
Quirk, R., S. Greenbaum, G. Leech and J. Svartvik
(1985) A comprehensive grammar of the English language. London, Longman.Google Scholar
Ratner, N.B.
(1988) Patterns of parental vocabulary selection in speech to very young children. Journal of Child Language 15:481–492. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Richards, J., J. Platt and H. Weber
(1985) Longman dictionary of applied linguistics. Harlow, U.K., Longman.Google Scholar
Rondal, J.A.
(1980) Fathers’ and mothers’ speech in early language development. Journal of Child Language 7:353–369. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Sinclair, J. McH. and R. M. Coulthard
(1975) Towards an analysis of discourse. Oxford, Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Snow, C.E.
(1984) Parent-child interaction and the development of communicative ability. In R.L. Schiefelbusch and J. Pickar (eds) The acquisition of communicative competence. Baltimore, University Park Press.Google Scholar
Snow, C.E., A. Arlman-Rupp, Y. Hassing, J. Jobse, J. Joosten, and J. Vorster
(1976) Mothers’ speech in three social classes. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 5,1: 1–20. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Stoneman, Z., and G. H. Brody
(1981) Two’s company, three makes a difference: an examination of mothers’ and fathers’ speech to their young children. Child Development 52:705–707. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Tomasello, M., G. Conti-Ramsden and B. Ewert
(1990) Young children’s conversations with their mothers and fathers: differences in breakdown andrepair. Journal of Child Language 17:115–130. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Wells, G.
(1975) Coding manual for the description of child speech (rev. ed.). Bristol, University of Bristol.Google Scholar
(1985) Language development in the preschool years. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar