Hostname: page-component-5b777bbd6c-gcwzt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-06-21T20:23:01.080Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The current status of the motherese hypothesis*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Lila R. Gleitman ,
Elissa L. Newport  and
Henry Gleitman
Lila R. Gleitman
Affiliation:
University of Pennsylvania
Elissa L. Newport
Affiliation:
University of Illinois
Henry Gleitman
Affiliation:
University of Pennsylvania
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Partially conflicting results from correlational studies of maternal speech style and its effects on child language learning motivate a comparative discussion of Newport, Gleitman & Gleitman (1977) and Furrow, Nelson & Benedict (1979), and a reanalysis of the original Newport et al. data. In the current analysis the data are from two groups of children equated for age, in response to the methodological questions raised by Furrow et al.; but, in line with the original Newport et al. analysis, linguistic differences between these age-equated children are handled by partial correlation. Under this new analysis the original results reported by Newport et al. are reproduced. In addition, however, most effects of the mother on the child's language growth are found to be restricted to a very young age group. Moreover, the new analysis suggests that increased complexity of maternal speech is positively correlated with child language growth in this age range. The findings are discussed in terms of a theoretical analysis of the Motherese Hypothesis; the conditions of both learner and environment in which ‘simplified’ data could aid a learner. Finally, the results of our past work, those of Furrow et al., and those of the present analysis, are discussed as they fit into, and add to, current theorizing about the language acquisition process.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 11 , Issue 1 , February 1984 , pp. 43 - 79
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1984

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.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

REFERENCES

Bach, E. (1970). Problominalization. LI 1. 121–2.Google Scholar
Barnes, S., Gutfreund, M., Satterly, D. & Wells, G. (1983). Characteristics of adult speech which predict children's language development. JChLang 10. 65–84.Google Scholar
Bellugi, U. (1967). The acquisition of negation. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Harvard University.Google Scholar
Benedict, H. (1976). Language comprehension in 10–16 month old infants. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Yale University.Google Scholar
Bickerton, D. (1975). Dynamics of a Creole system. New York: C.U.P.Google Scholar
Bloom, L. (1973). One word at a time. The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar
Bradley, D. C., Garrett, M. F. & Zurif, E. G. (1979). Syntactic deficits in Broca's aphasia. In Caplan., D. (ed.), Biological studies of mental processes. Cambridge, Mass.M.I.T.Google Scholar
Braine, M. D. S. (1976). Children's first word combinations. Monogr. Soc. Res. Ch. Devel. No. 164.Google Scholar
Bresnan, J. (1978). A realistic transformational grammar. In Halle, M., Bresnan, J. & Miller, G. A. (eds), Linguistic theory and psychological reality. Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T.Google Scholar
Bresnan, J. (ed.). (1982). The mental representation of grammatical relations. Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T.Google Scholar
Brown, R. & Bellugi, U. (1964). Three processes in the child's acquisition of syntax. HarvEdRev 34. 133–51.Google Scholar
Brown, R. & Hanlon, C. (1970). Derivational complexity and order of acquisition in child speech. In Hayes., J. (ed.), Cognition and the development of language. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Cazden, C. B. (1965). Environmental assistance to the child's acquisition of grammar. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Harvard University.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. (1965). Aspects of the theory of syntax. Cambridge, Mass.M.I.T.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. (1975). Reflections on language. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. (1981). Lectures on government and binding. Dordrecht: Foris Publications.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. & Halle, M. (1968). The sound pattern of English. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Cross, T. G. (1977). Mothers' speech adjustments: the contribution of selected child listener variables. In Snow, C. E. & Ferguson, C. A. (eds), Talking to children: language input and acquisition. Cambridge: C.U.P.Google Scholar
Curtiss, S. (1977). Genie: a psycholinguistic study of a modern-day 'wild child'. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Dorian, N. D. (1978). The fate of morphological complexity in language death. Lg 54. 590–609.Google Scholar
Dougherty, R. C. (1969). An interpretive theory of pronominal reference. FL 5. 488–519.Google Scholar
Feldman, C. (1971). The effects of various types of adult responses in the syntactic acquisition of two to three year-olds. Unpublished paper, University of Chicago.Google Scholar
Feldman, H., Goldin-Meadow, S. & Gleitman, L. R. (1978). Beyond Herodotus: the creation of language by linguistically deprived deaf children. In Lock., A. (ed.), Action, symbol, and gesture: the emergence of language. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Fodor, J. A., Bever, T. G. & Garrett, M. (1974). The psychology of language: an introduction to psycholinguistics and generative grammar. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Furrow, D., Nelson, K. & Benedict, H. (1979). Mothers' speech to children and syntactic development: some simple relationships. JChLang 6. 423–42.Google Scholar
Garrett, M. F. (1975). The analysis of sentence production. In Bower., G. (ed.), Psychology of learning and motivation. Vol. 9. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Gazdar, G. (1981). Unbounded dependencies and coordinate structure. LI 12. 155–84.Google Scholar
Gentner, D. (1982). Why nouns are learned before verbs: linguistic relativity vs. natural partitioning. In Kuczaj., S. (ed.), Language development: language, culture, and cognition. Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Gleitman, L. R. (1981). Maturational determinants of language growth. Cognition 10. 103–14.Google Scholar
Gleitman, L. R. & Wanner, E. (1982). Language acquisition: the state of the art. In Wanner, E. & Gleitman, L. R. (eds), Language acquisition: the state of the art. New York: C.U.P.Google Scholar
Goldin-Meadow, S. (1978). A study in human capacities. Science 200. 649–51.Google Scholar
Goldin-Meadow, S. (1982). The resilience of recursion: a study of a communication system developed without a conventional language model. In Wanner, E. & Gleitman, L. R. (eds), Language acquisition: the state of the art. New York: C.U.P.Google Scholar
Hoff-Ginsburg, E. & Shatz, M. (1982). Linguistic input and the child's acquisition of language. PsychBull.Google Scholar
Jacobs, R. A. & Rosenbaum, P. S. (1968). English transformational grammar. Waltham, Mass.: Ginn.Google Scholar
Kean, M-L. (1979). Agrammatism: a phonological deficit. Cognition 7. 60–84.Google Scholar
Landau, B. & Gleitman, L. R. (forthcoming). Language and the vocabulary of perception in a blind child.Google Scholar
Lasnik, H. (1976). Remarks on coreference. LingAnal 2. 1–22.Google Scholar
Marin, O., Saffran, E. & Schwartz, M. (1976). Dissociations of language in aphasia: implications for normal function. AnnNYAcSci 280. 868–84.Google ScholarPubMed
Morgan, J. & Newport, E. L. (1981). The role of constituent structure in the induction of an artificial language. JVLVB 20. 67–85.Google Scholar
Nelson, K. E. (1976). Facilitating children's syntax. DevPsychol 13. 101–7.Google Scholar
Nelson, K. E., Carskaddon, G. & Bonvillian, J. (1973). Syntax acquisition: impact of experimental variation in adult verbal interaction with the child. ChDev 44. 497–504.Google Scholar
Newport, E. L. (1977). Motherese: the speech of mothers to young children. In Castellan, N. J., Pisoni, D. B. & Potts., G. (eds), Cognitive theory, Vol. 2. Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Newport, E. L. (1981). Constraints on structure: evidence from American Sign Language and language learning. In Collins, W. A. (ed.), Minnesota symposia on child psychology (Vol. 14). Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Newport, E. L. (1982). Task specificity in language learning? Evidence from speech perception and American Sign Language. In Wanner, E. & Gleitman, L. R. (eds), Language acquisition: the state of the art. New York: C.U.P.Google Scholar
Newport, E. L. & Gleitman, H. (1977). Maternal self-repetition and the child's acquisition of language. PRCLD 13. 46–55.Google Scholar
Newport, E. L., Gleitman, H. & Gleitman, L. R. (1977). Mother, I'd rather do it myself: some effects and non-effects of maternal speech style. In Snow, C. E. & Ferguson, C. A. (eds), Talking to children: language input and acquisition. New York: C.U.P.Google Scholar
Newport, E. L., Gleitman, L. R. & Wanner, E. (forthcoming). The prosodic input to language learning.Google Scholar
Newport, E. L. & Supalla, T. (1980). The structuring of language: clues from the acquisition of signed and spoken language. In Bellugi, U. & Studdert-Kennedy, M. (eds), Signed and spoken language: biological constraints on linguistic form. Dahlem Konferenzen. Weinheim/Deerfield Beach, Fla./Basle: Verlag Chemie.Google Scholar
Peters, A. (1981). Language typology and the segmentation problem in early child language acquisition. Proceedings of the Berkeley Linguistic Society, 7.Google Scholar
Pinker, S. (1979). Formal models of language learning. Cognition 7. 217–83.Google Scholar
Pinker, S. & Lebeaux, D. (1982). A learnability-theoretic approach to children's language. Unpublished manuscript, Stanford University.Google Scholar
Sachs, J. & Truswell, L. (1978). Comprehension of two-word instructions by children in the one-word stage. JChLang 5. 17–24.Google Scholar
Sankoff, G. & Laberge, S. (1973). On the acquisition of native speakers by a language. Kivung 6. 32–47.Google Scholar
Shatz, M. & Hoff-Ginsburg, E. (in prep.) Effects of differentially-enriched input on the acquisition of auxiliary structure.Google Scholar
Shipley, E. F., Smith, C. S. & Gleitman, L. R. (1969). A study in the acquisition of language: free responses to commands. Lg 45. 322–42.Google Scholar
Slobin, D. I. (1973). Cognitive prerequisites for the development of grammar. In Ferguson, C. A. & Slobin, D. I. (eds), Studies ofchild language development. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.Google Scholar
Slobin, D. I. (1977). Language change in childhood and in history. In Macnamara., J. (ed.), Language learning and thought. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Slobin, D. I. (1982). Universal and particular in the acquisition of language. In Wanner, E. & Gleitman, L. R. (eds), Language acquisition: the state of the art. New York: C.U.P.Google Scholar
Slobin, D. I. (In press). Cross-linguistic study of child language acquisition. Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Slobin, D. I. & Bever, T. G. (1982). Children use canonical sentence schemas: a crosslinguistic study of word order and inflections. Cognition 13, 220–65.Google Scholar
Snow, C. E. (1972 a). Young children's responses to adult sentences of varying complexity. Paper presented to the International Congress of Applied Linguistics,Copenhagen.Google Scholar
Snow, C. E. (1972 b). Mothers' speech to children learning language. ChDev 43. 549–65.Google Scholar
Snow, C. E. & Ferguson, C. A. (eds). (1977). Talking to children: language input and acquisition. New York: C.U.P.Google Scholar
Wanner, E. & Maratsos, M. (1978). An ATN approach to comprehension. In Halle, M., Bresnan, J. & Miller, G. A. (eds), Linguistic theory and psychological reality. Cambridge, Mass: M.I.T.Google Scholar
Wexler, K. & Culicover, P. (1980). Formal principles of language acquisition, Cambridge, Mass.M.I.T.Google Scholar
Zwicky, A. M. (1976). On clitics. Paper presented at the Third International Phonology Meeting,Vienna.Google Scholar