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Displacement and informativeness in child-directed talk

Université Nancy and Université Paris

Caregivers' here-and-now talk may help children to learn the meaning of words and other aspects of the language system. However, if this talk were referring only to the here-and-now, it would at the same time obscure one of the major characteristics of language, namely its displaced and informative use. Results of analysis of child-directed speech (CDS) addressed to four children learning French - followed longitudinally from the time they were between 1;3 and 1;5 to the time they were between 1;8 and 2;3 - confirm that CDS refers most often to the here-and-now. Detailed analyses show, however, that a sizeable proportion of this talk makes reference to moments and/or entities other than the immediately present ones or refer to aspects that are not given as such in the situation, suggesting that CDS, while contextually situated, preserves one of the characteristic uses of language. Moreover, displaced and informative uses of language, though present from the early period, increase with children's own developing ability to use language informatively

First Language, Vol. 21, No. 63, 323-356 (2001)
DOI: 10.1177/014272370102106306


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