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The Development of Prosody in First Language Acquisition
Edited by Pilar Prieto and Núria Esteve-Gibert
[Trends in Language Acquisition Research 23] 2018
► pp. 227–246

Chapter 12
Early development of the prosody-meaning interface

| Aix Marseille Université, CNRS, LPL UMR 7309 | Universitat de Barcelona
| Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats (ICREA) | Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Department of Translation and Language Sciences

This chapter reviews evidence on how infants up to 18 months of age develop the ability to use prosody as a sign of the expression of pragmatic meanings, from both a comprehension and a production point of view. Developmental research reveals that pre-lexical infants use prosodic information not only to comprehend emotions in the speech of their communicative partners, the intentional value of the partners’ speech, and their speech act motivation, but also to express these same pragmatic meanings when they communicate with others. In essence, before the emergence of lexical and grammatical skills, infants use prosody to communicate intentionally with the world around them.

Article outline
  • Introduction
  • The prosody-meaning interface in infancy: Comprehension
    • Infants’ early understanding of others’ emotional states through prosody
    • Early understanding of prosody as a marker of intentional communication
    • Early understanding of prosody as a marker of speech act information
  • The prosody-meaning interface in infancy: Production
    • Infants’ early use of prosody to mark their emotional status in speech
    • Early production of prosody as a marker of intentional communication
    • Early production of prosody as a marker of speech act information
  • Conclusions and future directions
  • References
Published online: 24 May 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/tilar.23.12est
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