Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-g4j75 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-10T13:38:17.553Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Talk about talk with young children: pragmatic socialization in two communities in Norway and the US

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 February 2004

VIBEKE GRØVER AUKRUST
VIBEKE GRØVER AUKRUST
Affiliation:
University of Oslo
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Recent studies have suggested that cultures vary in subtle ways in the talk about talk that children hear and learn to produce. Twenty-two three-year-old children and their families in respectively Oslo, Norway and Cambridge, Massachusetts were observed during mealtime with the aim of identifying talk-focused talk. The analysis distinguished talk about (a) language per se, (b) discourse management, and (c) former conversations and use of reported speech. No category of talk-focused talk appeared exclusively in either community, and the frequency of such talk was similar across these. The Oslo families talked more often about language per se and their talk-focused conversations typically had a question–answer form. Talk about talk appeared more often within narratives in Oslo and within explanations in Cambridge. A second analysis compared talk-focused talk at home with such talk at school, suggesting that talk about language per se appeared more often at school across the two communities.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 31 , Issue 1 , February 2004 , pp. 177 - 201
Copyright
2004 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

This research was supported by a grant from the Norwegian Research Council. I thank the Home-School Study of Language and Literacy Development at the Harvard Graduate School of Education for supporting mealtime data. I am grateful to the children, parents and teachers in Oslo and Cambridge who contributed their time and conversations to this study.