Cover not available
Article published In:
Interactions and Language Acquisition in Non-Family Settings
Edited by Caroline Masson
[Language, Interaction and Acquisition 15:1] 2024
► pp. 24–56

Child activity contexts and language environments

Perspective from daylong audio recordings of American English-speaking children

| University of Lille
| University of Alberta
| University of Manitoba
Activity contexts are increasingly recognized as important for the variation observed in the type and quantity of speech heard by children. However, there is little data from children’s everyday experiences to properly study this role. We analyzed the quantity of target child-directed speech (TDS) and other-directed speech (ODS) according to children’s activity contexts. We used Daylong Audio Recordings of American English children aged 6–17 months old from the Bergelson Seedlings corpus. A higher quantity of ODS per minute was observed in Solitary playful and exploratory activity contexts, while a higher quantity of TDS per minute was observed in Social activity contexts in comparison to other activity contexts. However, the interindividual variation found needs to be further explored. These results highlight the link between the language environment and activity contexts, and their importance for understanding child language development.
Keywords: activity context, language environment, child-directed speech, language acquisition, Daylong Audio Recordings
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Context as an input variation factor
    • 1.2Challenges in the study of activity context
    • 1.3Three studies observing activity contexts in everyday life
    • 1.4Categorization of child activity contexts from everyday life: Further research required
    • 1.5The current study
  • 2.Method
    • 2.1Corpus description
      • 2.1.1Corpus used
      • 2.1.2Sampling: The Seedlings subsample
    • 2.2Transcription
    • 2.3Annotations
      • 2.3.1Existing annotation: Coding the addressee
      • 2.3.2Newly-introduced annotations: Coding activity contexts
        • 2.3.2.1The coding system
        • 2.3.2.2Coding system application
    • 2.4Inter-transcriber reliability
    • 2.5Data processing and analysis
      • 2.5.1Word counting
      • 2.5.2Statistical analyses
  • 3.Results
    • 3.1Overall observation on activity context duration
    • 3.2All-directed speech (ALLDS) according to activity contexts
    • 3.3Quantity of ODS according to activity contexts
    • 3.4Quantity of TDS according to activity contexts
  • 4.Discussion
    • 4.1Activity context lengths
    • 4.2All-directed speech across activity contexts
    • 4.3Other-directed speech across activity contexts
    • 4.4Target child-directed speech across activity contexts
    • 4.5Summary and target child-directed speech vs. other-directed speech
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 14 November 2024
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lia.00021.gla
References (77)
References
Akhtar, N. (2005). The robustness of learning through overhearing. Developmental Science, 8 (2), 199–209. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Akhtar, N., Jipson, J., & Callanan, M. A. (2001). Learning words through overhearing. Child Development, 72 (2), 416–430. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Aukrust, V. G. (1996). Learning to talk and keep silent about everyday routines: A study of verbal interaction between young children and their caregivers. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 40 (4), 311–324. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Barnes, S., Gutfreund, M., Satterly, D., & Wells, G. (1983). Characteristics of adult speech which predict children’s language development. Journal of Child Language, 10 (1), 65–84. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Barr, D. J., Levy, R., Scheepers, C., & Tily, H. J. (2013). Random effects structure for confirmatory hypothesis testing: Keep it maximal. Journal of Memory and Language, 68 (3), 255–278. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Barton, M. E., & Tomasello, M. (1991). Joint attention and conversation in mother-infant-sibling triads. Child Development, 62 (3), 517. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bergelson, E. (2016). Bergelson seedlings HomeBank corpus. 10.21415Google Scholar
Bergelson, E., Casillas, M., Soderstrom, M., Seidl, A., Warlaumont, A. S., & Amatuni, A. (2019). What do North American babies hear? A large-scale cross-corpus analysis. Developmental Science, 22 1, e12724. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bornstein, M. H., Haynes, M. O., & Painter, K. M. (1998). Sources of child vocabulary competence: A multivariate model. Journal of Child Language, 25 (02), 367–393. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bruner, J. S. (1981). The social context of language acquisition. Language & Communication, 1 (2–3), 155–178. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Casillas, M., Brown, P., & Levinson, S. C. (2020). Early language experience in a Tseltal Mayan village. Child Development, 91 (5), 819–1835. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2021). Early language experience in a Papuan community. Journal of Child Language, 48 (4), 792–814. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Choi, S. (2000). Caregiver input in English and Korean: Use of nouns and verbs in book-reading and toy-play contexts. Journal of Child Language, 27 (01), 69–96. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Crain-Thoreson, C., Dahlin, M. P., & Powell, T. A. (2001). Parent-child interaction in three conversational contexts: Variations in style and strategy. New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, 2001(92), 23–38. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cristia, A., Dupoux, E., Gurven, M., & Stieglitz, J. (2019). Child-directed speech is infrequent in a forager-farmer population: A time allocation study. Child Development, 90 1, 759–773. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dunn, J., & Shatz, M. (1989). Becoming a conversationalist despite (or because of ) having an older sibling. Child Development, 60 (2), 399–410. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ely, R., Gleason, J. B., MacGibbon, A., & Zaretsky, E. (2001). Attention to language: Lessons learned at the dinner table. Social Development, 10 (3), 355–373. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fernald, A., Marchman, V. A., & Weisleder, A. (2013). SES differences in language processing skill and vocabulary are evident at 18 months. Developmental Science, 16 (2), 234–248. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Floor, P., & Akhtar, N. (2006). Can 18-month-old infants learn words by listening in on conversations? Infancy, 9 (3), 327–339. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fouts, H. N., Roopnarine, J. L., Lamb, M. E., & Evans, M. (2012). Infant social interactions with multiple caregivers: The importance of ethnicity and socioeconomic status. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 43 (2), 328–348. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gampe, A., Liebal, K., & Tomasello, M. (2012). Eighteen-month-olds learn novel words through overhearing. First Language, 32 (3), 385–397. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Glas, L. (2019). Développement du lexique précoce chez des enfants français monolingues: Analyse des différences inter-individuelles via des approches complémentaires et une prise en compte des contextes de production [PhD Thesis, Lyon]. [URL]
Glas, L., & Kern, S. (2015). Early vocabulary development in French monolingual children and activity types (poster). Workshop on Infant Language Development, Stockholm.Google Scholar
Glas, L., & Rossi, C. (2014). Activity contexts and early vocabulary development: A cross linguistic study (poster). Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics, Washington D.C.Google Scholar
Glas, L., Rossi, C., Hamdi-Sultan, R., Batailler, C., & Bellemmouche, H. (2018). Activity types and child-directed speech: A comparison between French, Tunisian Arabic and English. Canadian Journal of Linguistics, 63 (4), 633–666. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gleitman, L. R., Newport, E. L., & Gleitman, H. (1984). The current status of the motherese hypothesis. Journal of Child Language, 11 (1), 43–79. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Greenwood, C. R., Thiemann-Bourque, K., Walker, D., Buzhardt, J., & Gilkerson, J. (2011). Assessing children’s home language environments using automatic speech recognition technology. Communication Disorders Quarterly, 32 (2), 83–92. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hart, B., & Risley, T. R. (1995). Meaningful differences in the everyday experience of young American children. Paul H Brookes Publishing.Google Scholar
Hartig, F., & Lohse, L. (2022). DHARMa: Residual Diagnostics for Hierarchical (Multi-Level / Mixed) Regression Models (0.4.6) [Computer software]. [URL]
Hebert-Myers, H., Guttentag, C. L., Swank, P. R., Smith, K. E., & Landry, S. H. (2006). The importance of language, social, and behavioral skills across early and later childhood as predictors of social competence with peers. Applied Developmental Science, 10 (4), 174–187. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hoff, E. (2003). The specificity of environmental influence: Socioeconomic status affects early vocabulary development via maternal speech. Child Development, 74 (5), 1368–1378. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2006). How social contexts support and shape language development. Developmental Review, 26 (1), 55–88. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hofferth, S. L. (1995). Caring for children at the poverty line. Children and Youth Services Review, 17 (1), 61–90. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hoff-Ginsberg, E. (1991). Mother-child conversation in different social classes and communicative settings. Child Development, 62 (4), 782–796. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Huttenlocher, J., Haight, W., Bryk, A., Seltzer, M., & Lyons, T. (1991). Early vocabulary growth: Relation to language input and gender. Developmental Psychology, 27 (2), 236–248. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Johnson, C. J., Beitchman, J. H., & Brownlie, E. B. (2010). Twenty-year follow-up of children with and without speech-language impairments: Family, educational, occupational, and quality of life outcomes. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 19 (1), 51–65. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kern, S. (2005). De l’universalité et des spécificités du développement langagier précoce. In J. Hombert (Ed.), Aux origines des langues et du langage (pp. 270–291). Fayard.Google Scholar
Knoeferle, P., Mishra, R. K., & Peña, M. (2022). Editorial: Socially situated? Effects of social and cultural context on language processing and learning. Frontiers in Psychology, 13 1. [URL]. DOI logo
Kuznetsova, A., Brockhoff, P. B., & Christensen, R. H. B. (2016). lmerTest: Tests in Linear Mixed Effects Models. [URL]
Lenth, R. V., Buerkner, P., Giné-Vázquez, I., Herve, M., Jung, M., Love, J., Miguez, F., Riebl, H., & Singmann, H. (2022). emmeans: Estimated Marginal Means, aka Least-Squares Means (1.8.3) [Computer software]. [URL]
Loukatou, G., Scaff, C., Demuth, K., Cristia, A., & Havron, N. (2022). Child-directed and overheard input from different speakers in two distinct cultures. Journal of Child Language, 49 (6), 1173–1192. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
MacWhinney, B. (2009). The CHILDES project: Tools for analyzing talk (Version 3, 3rd ed.). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers.Google Scholar
Masson, C. (2022). Parler à et avec les enfants en crèche: Conduites langagières et dialogiques des adultes et des enfants en situation de lecture partagée et de jeu libre. SHS Web of Conferences, 138 1, 09008. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Masur, E. F. (1987). Imitative interchanges in a social context: Mother-infant matching behavior at the beginning of the second year. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 33 (4), 453–472.Google Scholar
(1989). Individual and dyadic patterns of imitation: Cognitive and social aspects. In G. E. Speidel & K. E. Nelson (Eds.), The many faces of imitation in language learning (pp. 53–71). Springer Science+Business Media. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Masur, E. F., & Rodemaker, J. E. (1999). Mothers’ and infants’ spontaneous vocal, verbal, and action imitation during the second year. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 45 (3), 392–412.Google Scholar
Montag, J. L. (2020). New insights from daylong audio transcripts of children’s language environments (poster). Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 421, 3004–3010.Google Scholar
(2021). Temporal dynamics of words in daylong audio recordings. Reorienting the study of language learning using naturalistic data. SRCD Biennial Meeting, Online.Google Scholar
Montag, J. L., Jones, M. N., & Smith, L. B. (2018). Quantity and diversity: Simulating early word learning environments. Cognitive Science, 42 (S2), 375–412. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Newland, L. A., Roggman, L. A., & Boyce, L. K. (2001). The development of social toy play and language in infancy. Infant Behavior and Development, 24 (1), 1–25. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ochs, E. (1982). Ergativity and word order in Samoan child language. Language, 58 (3), 646–671. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Oller, D. K. (2010). All-day recordings to investigate vocabulary development: A case study of a trilingual toddler. Communication Disorders Quarterly, 31 (4), 213–222. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
R Core Team. (2018). R: A language and environment for statistical computing. Foundation for Statistical Computing. [URL]
Raikes, H., Alexander Pan, B., Luze, G., Tamis-LeMonda, C. S., Brooks-Gunn, J., Constantine, J., Banks Tarullo, L., Abigail Raikes, H., & Rodriguez, E. T. (2006). Mother–child bookreading in low-income families: Correlates and outcomes during the first three years of life. Child Development, 77 (4), 924–953. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Reese, E., & Cox, A. (1999). Quality of adult book reading affects children’s emergent literacy. Developmental Psychology, 35 (1), 20–28. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rosemberg, C. R., Alam, F., Audisio, C. P., Ramirez, M. L., Garber, L., & Migdalek, M. J. (2020). Nouns and verbs in the linguistic environment of Argentinian toddlers: Socioeconomic and context-related differences. First Language, 40 (2), 192–217. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rosemberg, C. R., Alam, F., Stein, A., Migdalek, M., Menti, A., & Ojea, G. (2015). El entorno lingüístico de niños pequeños argentinos [Language environments of young Argentinian children]. CONICET.Google Scholar
Rowe, M. L. (2008). Child-directed speech: Relation to socioeconomic status, knowledge of child development and child vocabulary skill. Journal of Child Language, 35 (1), 185–205. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Roy, B. C. (2013). The birth of a word [Thesis (PhD)]. Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Roy, B., Frank, M., & Roy, D. (2012). Relating activity contexts to early word learning in dense longitudinal data. 34th Proceedings of the Cognitive Science Society, 935–940.Google Scholar
Shneidman, L. A., Arroyo, M. E., Levine, S. C., & Goldin-Meadow, S. (2013). What counts as effective input for word learning? Journal of Child Language, 40 (3), 672–686. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Shneidman, L. A., Buresh, J. S., Shimpi, P. M., Knight-Schwarz, J., & Woodward, A. L. (2009). Social experience, social attention and word learning in an overhearing paradigm. Language Learning and Development, 5 (4), 266-281. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Shneidman, L., & Goldin-Meadow, S. (2012). Language input and acquisition in a Mayan village: How important is directed speech? Developmental Science, 15 (5), 659–673. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Snow, C. E., & Beals, D. E. (2006). Mealtime talk that supports literacy development. New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, 2006(111), 51–66. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Soderstrom, M., Casillas, M., Bergelson, E., Rosemberg, C., Alam, F., Warlaumont, A. S., & Bunce, J. (2021). Developing a cross-cultural annotation system and metacorpus for studying infants’ real world language experience. Collabra: Psychology, 7 (1), 1–13. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Soderstrom, M., Grauer, E., Dufault, B., & McDivitt, K. (2018). Influences of number of adults and adult: Child ratios on the quantity of adult language input across childcare settings. First Language, 38 (6), 563–581. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Soderstrom, M., & Wittebolle, K. (2013). When do caregivers talk? The influences of activity and time of day on caregiver speech and child vocalizations in two childcare environments. PLoS ONE, 8 (11), e80646. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Stewart, R. B., & Marvin, R. S. (1984). Sibling relations: The role of conceptual perspective-taking in the ontogeny of sibling caregiving. Child Development, 55 (4), 1322–1332. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tamis-LeMonda, C. S., Custode, S., Kuchirko, Y., Escobar, K., & Lo, T. (2019). Routine language: Speech directed to infants during home activities. Child Development, 90 1, 2135–2152. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tamis-LeMonda, C. S., & Song, L. (2012). Parent–infant communicative interactions in cultural context. In R. M. Lerner, E. Easterbrooks, & J. Mistry (Eds.), Handbook of psychology (Second Edition, Second Edition, Vol. 61, pp. 143–170). John Wiley & Sons. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tamis-LeMonda, C. S., Kuchirko, Y., Luo, R., Escobar, K., & Bornstein, M. H. (2017). Power in methods: Language to infants in structured and naturalistic contexts. Developmental Science, 20 1, e12456. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tomasello, M. (2006). First steps toward a usage-based theory of language acquisition. Cognitive Linguistics, 11 (1–2), 61–82. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tulviste, T. (2003). Contextual variability in interactions between mothers and 2-year-olds. First Language, 23 (3), 311–325. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Vanormelingen, L., & Gillis, S. (2016). The influence of socio-economic status on mothers’ volubility and responsiveness in a monolingual Dutch-speaking sample. First Language, 36 (2), 140–156. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Weisleder, A., & Fernald, A. (2013). Talking to children matters: Early language experience strengthens processing and builds vocabulary. Psychological Science, 24 (11), 2143–2152. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Weizman, Z. O., & Snow, C. E. (2001). Lexical input as related to children’s vocabulary acquisition: Effects of sophisticated exposure and support for meaning. Developmental Psychology, 37 (2), 265–279. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wittenburg, P., Brugman, H., Russel, A., Klassmann, A., & Sloetjes, H. (2006). ELAN: A professional framework for multimodality research, 1556–1559. [URL]