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Part of
Language in Interaction: Studies in honor of Eve V. Clark
Edited by Inbal Arnon, Marisa Casillas, Chigusa Kurumada and Bruno Estigarribia
[Trends in Language Acquisition Research 12] 2014
► pp. 333–352

How to talk with children

| Department of Psychology, Stanford University

It is generally assumed that adults learn how to talk with children in a special style called child-directed speech. But this cannot be the whole story. Each child’s ability to speak and understand is a moving target, changing yearly, weekly, even daily. How could adults adapt to these changes? Evidence shows that in conversation both adults and children try to establish, as they go along, the mutual belief that they have understood each other well enough for current purposes. It is this process, called grounding, that allows adults to infer the child’s current abilities and to adapt their speech to that child. Adults, then, learn how to talk with children in the very act of talking with them.

Published online: 17 July 2014
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/tilar.12.24cla
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