Children's Control of Adult Speech

Abstract

BOHANNON, JOHN NEIL, III, and MARQUIS, ANGELA LYNN. Children's Control of Adult Speech. CmHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1977, 48, 1002-1008. 2 studies were done to test the hypothesis that short simple sentences (Motherese) addressed to children are the result of children signaling noncomprehension for longer, complex utterances. Study 1 observed 15 adults converse with a 32month-old child, and later 5 adults interacted with the child when he was 36 months old. The results indicated that the child differentially comprehended adult utterances of different lengths in the predicted direction and that 19 of 20 adults reduced their length of utterance following a clear signal of noncomprehension by the child. Study 2 had 20 adults tell a story under 4 conditions: (1) to an adult (A), (2) to a pretend child (AC), (3) to a child accomplice who signaled comprehension (C), and (4) to the same accomplice who signaled noncomprehension (NC). While no differences in group mean length of utterance (MLU) occurred between the A and AC conditions, all the subjects used longer sentences in the C condition than in the NC condition. Briefly, the results of study 2 were A = AC > C > NC. It was concluded that children may limit the complexity of their linguistic environment through comprehension feedback.