世新大學圖書館

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 62-03, Section: A, page: 0995.

Supervisor: Nancy L. Hadaway.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--The University of Texas at Arlington, 2001.

Children acquire language early in life through internal developmental mechanisms and external environmental influences. This research examined the latter, noting that caregivers often adapt their speech when talking to young children. These adaptations, known as <italic>caregiver speech </italic>, demonstrate to the child how language is used to do things, the <italic> pragmatic</italic> nature of language. One aspect of pragmatics is the study of <italic>language functions</italic>, using language in various contexts to do things.

<italic>Naturalistic observations</italic> provided access to near-natural language usage of a single case study, parents talking to their toddler. The language data and their contextual frameworks were recorded on Dell Hymes' (1968) SPEAKING model to put language within a sociolinguistic context. One hundred thirty-two speech situations were documented over a five-week period. The data were compiled and sorted for factors on the SPEAKING model.

Four language function theories by Roman Jakobson (1960), Michael Halliday (1977), Joan Tough (1977), and Naomi Baron (1990) were used to assess the adaptations of language functions by the parents. Baron's collection of five language functions, affection, control, information, pedagogy, and social exchange, emerged as the most effective description of adaptations of language functions in the caregiver speech in this case study.

The five language functions were used in these proportions of total speech situations: control (32.6%), social exchange (26.5%), information (19.7%), pedagogy (15.2%), and affection (7.6%). The total number of minutes spent observing the father (1770) was three-fourths the time spent in observing the mother (2360).

The mother and the father used language for information, pedagogy, or social exchange fairly equally. The parents used language disproportionately in the other two language functions: the mother used control language more than two and a half times as much as the father, while the father used affection more than twice as often as the mother.

The adaptations made by the parents in this case study directed the child's attention to the important features of their language use, the language functions. Because the language environment contributes to the acquisition of pragmatic competence, this description of how parents used language to do things contributes to understanding how children acquire pragmatic competence.

School code: 2502.