| Individual differences in children's early use of language have been interpreted as evidence for more than one approach to the process of acquiring language. The relation between young children's patterns of using language for different pragmatic functions and the use of language by their partners has not been examined systematically. Further, the influence of characteristics of the communicative context on language use has received little attention. This research included 16 first and 16 later born children, ranging in age from 18 to 23 months, who were reported to be at the one and early two word stage of language development. Uses of language by children and their mothers were analyzed from videotaped sessions in which participants engaged in two distinct but representative types of activities, i.e., free play with toys and picture book reading. Participants were observed first in traditionally studied dyadic contexts of interaction. Later born children and their mothers were observed also in a triadic context that included a pre-school aged older sibling. This triadic context was viewed as characteristic of the situation in which many later borns acquire their linguistic skills. A language coding system, derived from the ideas of the linguist Roman Jacobson, was developed in order to compare uses of language by participant groups that differed in level of linguistic skill. This system included the more frequently examined "referential" and "expressive" uses of language but departed from traditional descriptive approaches by adding a third category of "metalingual" uses. This category highlighted instances in which a speaker actively focused on the communicative code or language, itself. Differences in using language for each of the categories were found as a function of participant group, size of context, and type of task. The relation between mothers' and children's uses of language and outcome measures of linguistic skill are discussed. Implications for characterizing different approaches to language acquisition are considered. |
