24(2) King & Melzi
5/3/04
8:57 AM
Page 1
ARTICLE
FIRST LANGUAGE Copyright © 2004 SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi) www.sagepublications.com Vol 24(2): 241–261 (200406) DO1: 10.1177/0142723704044139
Intimacy, imitation and language learning: Spanish diminutives in mother-child conversation Kendall King, Georgetown University Gigliana Melzi, New York University ABSTRACT This paper explores how Spanish-speaking Peruvian mothers and their children use diminutives in everyday conversations, seeking to characterize the discourse forms and functions of diminutive imitation and to explore potential differences across speaker groups. More generally, we investigate how and why the use of diminutives may play an important role in facilitating conversational interaction and language learning. Findings illustrate the importance of examining languagelearning processes among non-English-speaking populations, as well as the role of cross-linguistic, cross-cultural analysis in understanding interactional and language socialization processes. KEYWORDS CDS; child-directed speech; evaluative morphology; Latinos; mother-child interaction; repetition
24(2) King & Melzi
FIRST LANGUAGE
5/3/04
8:57 AM
Page 2
VOLUME 24 ISSUE 2
English diminutives have received little attention from language researchers. This is partly because English has a relatively impoverished and unproductive diminutive system, primarily relying on the suffix –y/ie (Berko Gleason, Perlmann, Ely & Evans, 1994). Correspondingly, English diminutives are generally used with a restricted set of common and proper nouns (e.g., birdie, piggy, Annie), and while variation within and across English-speaking communities exists, diminutives tend to occur in limited types of interactions and registers, most notably in child-directed speech (CDS) (Ferguson, 1977). Cross-linguistic comparative work has suggested, for instance, that while diminutives in Greek and English potentially express familiarity, informality and endearment, English diminutives are far less flexible and productive in conveying emotions or attitudes, largely because ‘English words accepting diminutive use are limited, and have more or less fixed meanings’ (Sifianou, 1992: 157; see also Schneider, 2003). These linguistic facts, together with the historic bias towards English speakers in language acquisition research (Lieven, 1994), have resulted in diminutives receiving relatively little scholarly attention – despite their rich semantic and pragmatic force in many languages. For instance, Russian employs as many as eight diminutive affixes (Voeykova, 1998), which can be combined with nearly any inanimate object, resulting in forms such as stolik (table-y, ‘little table’) or lampochka (lamp-y, ‘little lamp’) (Andrews, 1999; Kempe, Brooks, Mironova & Fedorova, 2003). Spanish also has rich and complex evaluative morphology (Amado, 1961; Inchaurralde, 1997), wherein diminutives perform many pragmatic functions, and, as in other languages, literally mean ‘small’ but convey intimacy, playfulness, politeness or 1 humour. Although preferred forms have shifted over time and continue to vary across regions of Spain and the Americas, by far the most popular is -ito/-ita. Indeed, this affix ‘may well be considered one of the most productive morphological processes of Spanish’ (Jaeggli, 1980: 142). Although -ito is generally considered to constitute one diminutive affix, in fact it is formed through the insertion of three distinct forms: (a) -it(as in tonto/tontito); (b) -sit- or -cit- (as in corazón/corazonsito or corazón/ corazoncito ‘heart’); and (c) -esit- or -ecit- (as in cruz/crucesita or cruz/crucecita ‘cross’) (Ambadiang, 1997; Jaeggli, 1980). Use of these affixes is governed by rules relating to the gender, number of syllables, and segmental form of the final syllable of the base form. Furthermore, as in many other languages, diminutives in Spanish are also semantically complex. As an example, the meaning of a particular morpheme/lexical base combination might vary across speech communities. For instance, in Mexican Spanish the diminutized ahorita carries an intensifying force; in Dominican Spanish, in contrast, it has an attenuating effect (Jurafsky, 1996: 534). Thus, in Mexican Spanish ahorita (NOW-DIM/FEM) means ‘immediately, right now’, while in Dominican Spanish ahorita (NOW-DIM/FEM) means ‘soon, in a little while’. Despite this complexity, past research on diminutives has been limited in scale and scope. Linguists interested in diminutives have focused on diminutives’ semantic and structural characteristics, including the meanings embedded in diminutive suffixes, rules for attachment to stem words, and word class of the landing sites of diminutive forms (e.g., Amado, 1961; Bauer, 1997; Ettinger, 1974; Inchaurralde, 1997; Jurafsky, 1996). More sociolinguistically-oriented researchers have addressed the social and cultural contexts of diminutive use, generally reporting their prevalence in female 242
24(2) King & Melzi
5/3/04
8:57 AM
Page 3
KING & MELZI: DIMINUTIVES IN MOTHER-CHILD CONVERSATION
speech and in speech about or directed at children (Andrews, 1999; Daltas, 1985; Ferguson, 1977). Psychologists, in turn, have concentrated on when children begin to use diminutives. Many of these studies observe that despite their semantic, structural and pragmatic complexity (Dressler & Barbaresi, 1994), diminutives are one of the earlier, if not the earliest, morphosyntactic forms to be acquired, with both simplex and diminutized forms appearing in the speech of very young children (e.g., Ceccherini, Bonifacio & Zocconi, 1997; Ruke-Dravina, 1976; Stephany, 1997). For instance, Gillis (1997), in his longitudinal study of Dutch diminutives in the natural speech of one child (1;5–2;5), reports that by early in the second year of life, the child’s patterns of diminutive use, as measured by the percentage of diminutive word forms, were comparable to those of the mother. Of course the fact that children use diminutives with similar frequencies as their interlocutors does not mean they have mastered all aspects of the system. There is evidence that the developmental trajectory, especially for semantic and pragmatic functions, extends much later and is more complicated. Much of this evidence comes from experimental data, such as Berko’s (1958) ‘wug’ study, which reported that none of the 51 child participants (5;6–7;0) were able to use the diminutive suffixes employed by adult participants (e.g., wuggie, wuglet and wugette). Likewise, Bates & Rankin (1979) performed diminutive comprehension experiments with 84 native Italian-speaking children (2;0–6;0). They reported that children’s level of performance varied by age and the semantic nature of particular morphemes tested. They concluded that the acquisition of evaluative inflections was not complete by the second year as past research suggested, and that acquisition patterns depended on the connotative complexity of individual morphemes. Recent work on children’s acquisition of diminutives has focused on the linguistic input that children receive, exploring Ferguson’s (1977) suggestion that exposure to (and use of) diminutives might play a facilitative role in language acquisition. Olmsted (1994), for example, argued that because Russian diminutives are characterized by predictable declensional endings, no third declension and limited stem alterations, they provide a simpler subset of morphemes that children can master with relative ease prior to ‘venturing into the wider fuller nominal system of Russian at large’ (p. 166). Recent empirical work provides support for this line of argumentation (Kempe & Brooks, 2001). Kempe et al. (2003), for example, found that young children (2;9–4;8) who were shown pictures of familiar and novel animals, and presented with the animal name in either simplex or diminutive form, produced fewer agreement errors when presented with the diminutive form. They interpreted this as evidence of the beneficial effect of diminutization for the acquisition of Russian, and suggest this pattern is not unique to Russian, as diminutives may reduce the number of different case-marking paradigms (Lithuanian) or different stem allomorphs (Finnish). Diminutives may also make grammatical gender more salient. In Spanish, for example, feminine words tend to end in –a, masculine words in –o, e.g., chica (girl) and chico (boy). Yet many words do not follow this pattern, such as flan (custard), which is masculine or cruz (cross), which is feminine. The diminutization of such words regularizes them so that they follow the standard pattern: thus, flan becomes flancito, and cruz become crucecita. 243
24(2) King & Melzi
5/3/04
FIRST LANGUAGE
8:57 AM
Page 4
VOLUME 24 ISSUE 2
Before we can accept the claim that diminutives facilitate language development, we need a better understanding of how diminutives are in fact used in everyday interaction between caretakers and children. Much of the above research relies either on researchers’ intuitions concerning how diminutives are employed or on experimentally elicited data. The limited naturalistic research which exists is generally based on studies with very small subject numbers. Given the highly varied and individualized nature of diminutive use patterns (Andrews, 1999) and their association with informal and intimate communication (cf. Derwing, 1976), these methods are less than ideal. It is thus critical that conversational and naturalistic data among a greater subject pool be collected in order to understand better how diminutives are used in everyday interactions between children and mothers; what relationship exists between mother and child usage patterns; and how these patterns interact with children’s diminutive use and language development. Such a perspective is also crucial if we are to gain insight into cross-cultural and cross-linguistic differences in language development. In previous work, we explored patterns of diminutive use across gender and age groups in conversations between 32 Spanish-speaking Peruvian mothers and their 3and 5-year-old children (Melzi & King, 2003). Results confirmed previous findings concerning parents’ greater use of diminutives with younger children, and children’s early acquisition of this complex aspect of morphology. Results also revealed that mothers’ and children’s imitations of their interlocutors’ diminutized words promoted interlocutors’ overall diminutive use. This finding highlighted the acute sensitivity of both speakers to each others’ language and the potential role of imitation in older children’s language development. The present paper expands on these findings and aims: (a) to analyse qualitatively the relation between mothers’ and children’s patterns of diminutive use, and (b) to provide basic descriptive data concerning the discourse form and function of diminutive imitations in mother-child conversations and their role in facilitating overall diminutive use as well as language learning more generally.
METHOD Participants Thirty-two mothers and their preschoolers participated in the study. Families resided in Lima, Peru, and were recruited through institutional and personal contacts of the second author. Mothers’ ages ranged from 24 to 39 years, with a mean age of 31. All 2 families spoke only Spanish, specifically Limeño Spanish. All parents were born and raised in Peru and the majority of parents (81%) were born and raised in Lima. By Peruvian standards, families’ socio-economic status was middle to upper-middle class. All parents had completed high school and attended post-high-school institutions. All fathers and 26 mothers (81%) had attended universities; the remaining six attended institutes of higher education (e.g., schools for interior design). Most (88%) of the sample were members of two-parent homes; three mothers were separated and one was divorced. All fathers and 24 mothers worked outside the home. All fathers held professional positions; mothers held semi-professional and clerical positions. Children were of two age groups: 3-year-olds (M = 3;7, SD = 3.8 months) and 244
24(2) King & Melzi
5/3/04
8:57 AM
Page 5
KING & MELZI: DIMINUTIVES IN MOTHER-CHILD CONVERSATION
5-year-olds (M = 5;5, SD = 3.4 months), each group divided equally by gender. There were no known statistically significant socio-demographic differences between age groups and, for both, age of onset of first words, as reported by mothers, was 10 months.
Procedure A Spanish-speaking Peruvian researcher visited mothers and children in their homes once for approximately four hours. Each mother was asked to engage in a conversation with her child about six events the child had experienced recently. Mothers were instructed to talk about one specific event at a time and to avoid retelling movies or storybooks. Written instructions were also provided, but no further specifications were given. The researcher explained to children that she was interested in tape-recording their voices and that they could hear themselves at the end. Tapes were allowed to run until mothers and children were finished; most dyads spent approximately 45–60 minutes on the task. The researcher was in the home at the time of the recordings, but neither she nor anyone else was present in the room where the recordings took place.
Coding Audiotapes were transcribed by a native Spanish speaker following a standardized format, Codes for the Human Analysis of Language (CHAT), available through the Child Language Data Exchange System (CHILDES; MacWhinney, 2000). Transcriptions were verified by the second author, a native of Lima. Conversations were segmented into two types of speech events: (a) narrative exchanges, identified using verbal and nonverbal cues provided by mothers and children (e.g., comments such as: ‘now let’s talk about . . .’, ‘I don’t wanna talk anymore’, ‘is there anything else you want to tell me?’); and (b) spontaneous conversations between the narrative exchanges (e.g., deciding what to talk about, failed attempts to remember a specific event, playing). Using programs available through CHILDES, all diminutized words in the transcripts were identified and coded. Frozen diminutives, that is, diminutized forms with a distinct, specific and widely known meaning were excluded, e.g., bocaditos (BITEDIM/MASC/PL), used in Lima to refer to hors d’oeuvres; fulbito (SOCCER-DIM/ MASC), a variety of soccer played with fewer players and special rules. We initially employed two coding schemes, one for ‘landing site’ and one for ‘usage mode’, as briefly described below (for details, see Melzi & King, 2003). First, all instances of diminutives were coded for the word class to which the diminutives were attached: noun, adjective, or adverb. Second, each instance of a diminutive was coded for the manner in which it was used within the immediate speech event (i.e., the narrative exchange or spontaneous conversation exchange), and the speaker (mother or child). The following six mutually exclusive codes were used and are illustrated in Example 1 below (see Note 3 for transcription conventions): 1.
Introduced by mother or child The speaker used a diminutive spontaneously and for the first time within the speech event. If the speaker introduced a diminutive after having used a non-diminutized form of the same word 245
24(2) King & Melzi
5/3/04
FIRST LANGUAGE
8:57 AM
Page 6
VOLUME 24 ISSUE 2
previously, the second instance was also coded as an introduction. (In Example 1, the mother introduces the diminutive ahorita in line 1, in response to child’s restlessness.) 2.
Self-repetition by mother or child The speaker used a diminutive previously introduced and used by him/herself within the same speech event. (In Example 1, mother self-repeats ahorita in lines 3 and 5; child self-repeats in line 6.)
3.
Imitation by mother or child The speaker used a diminutive form previously introduced by the interlocutor within the same speech event. Here the form had to be an exact copy, e.g., if the mother uses todito (ALL-DIM/MASC), the child must use todito (ALL-DIM/MASC), not todita (ALL-DIM/FEM). (In Example 1, child imitates mother’s use of ahorita in line 6.)
Example 1 (girl, 5;10) 1.
Mother:
Ya ahorita terminamos. [Introduction] We’re about to finish right now[+DIM].
2.
Child:
¿Ya vamos a acabar? (whining) Are we finished yet?
3.
Mother:
Sí, ya ahorita terminamos. [Mother self-repetition] Yes, we’re about to finish right now[+DIM].
4.
Child:
Ya xx. Ya nos vamos. ¿Ya acabamos? Already (unintelligible speech). We’re leaving. Are we finished yet?
5.
Mother:
No, ahorita terminamos. [Mother self-repetition] No, we’ll finish right now[+DIM].
6.
Child:
Pero ahorita [Imitation of mother] es ahorita. [Child self-repetition] But right now[+DIM] is right now[+DIM].
Intercoder reliability was established between the authors (both Spanish-English bilinguals) for each coding category separately based on 20% of the transcripts. Cohen’s kappa yielded 0.90 for landing site and 0.93 for usage mode (Cohen, 1960). As the total number of diminutives is largely dependent on the total amount of talk, namely on the number of words used during conversations (i.e., the greater number of words used, the greater the opportunity to diminutize words), percentages rather than frequencies were used as the primary unit of analysis. However, as the majority of Spanish words cannot be diminutized, we conducted analyses on the mean percentage of diminutives over the total number of diminutizable words 4 produced by each speaker (i.e., excluding verb, articles and most pronouns).
RESULTS Overview of previous quantitative findings In order to frame our current qualitative findings, we first provide an overview of prior quantitative analyses (Melzi & King, 2003). A total of 1515 diminutized words were 246
24(2) King & Melzi
5/3/04
8:57 AM
Page 7
KING & MELZI: DIMINUTIVES IN MOTHER-CHILD CONVERSATION
used by mother-child pairs, with a mean of 47 diminutives (SD = 32.24, range 4–144) per conversation. The mean frequency of diminutives equalled roughly 2% of words produced in the conversations and 7% of words allowing diminutive affixes in Limeño Spanish. The most frequently diminutized words were nouns, comprising 80% of diminutives, followed by adjectives (15%) and adverbs (5%). In terms of the usage mode, the greatest percentage of diminutives were spontaneously introduced (67%), followed by self-repetitions of the same form (19%), and imitation of the interlocutor’s form (14%). To examine potential age and gender differences in terms of frequency of use of diminutives, two separate analyses of variance were conducted on mean percentages of total diminutives used by mothers and children (for further details, see Melzi & King, 2003). Results showed no significant age-group or gender differences in children’s use. However, mothers of 3-year-olds used a greater percentage of diminutives (M = 8.80, SD = 3.75) than mothers of 5-year-olds (M = 5.54, SD = 2.35), regardless of children’s gender. In order to understand the relationship between mothers’ and children’s use of diminutives, we conducted partial correlation analyses on mean percentages of total use and categories for usage mode (introduction, self-repetition, imitation), controlling for children’s age. Children’s total use was positively related to mothers’ imitation (r (32) = 0.69, p < 0.0001); that is, the greater the percentage of diminutives the child used, the more the mother imitated her child. Conversely, the more the mother imitated her child, the more diminutives the child used. A similar relationship was found for mothers’ total use of diminutives and child’s imitation (r(32) = 0.52, p < 0.01). To determine the degree to which imitation accounted for total diminutive use in both mothers’ and children’s language, two separate multiple regression analyses were conducted. Interlocutors’ usage mode codes (introduction, self-repetition and imitation) 5 were used as predictors for speakers’ total use of diminutives. Results showed a significant R for the regression model on children’s total use of diminutives, F(3,28) = 10.29, p < 0.0001. Although the three variables combined (i.e., age group, spontaneous 2 2 usage and imitations) accounted for 52% (R = 0.52, Adj R = 0.47) of the variability in 2 children’s total diminutives, only maternal imitation (sr = 0.50) was found to be significant. Results of the regression analyses on mothers’ total use of diminutives were also significant, F(3,28) = 8.15, p < 0.001. The three independent variables combined 2 2 accounted for 47% (R = 0.47, AdjR = 0.41) of the variability in mothers’ total 2 2 diminutives; however, only age group (sr = 0.10) and the variable imitation (sr = 0.18) were significant. These results provide further evidence that children and mothers encourage the use of diminutives through imitation.
Qualitative analyses and findings In order to gain greater understanding of why and how imitations seem to play a significant role in promoting overall diminutive use, the usage mode of imitation was singled out for further analysis. Each of the 208 instances of diminutive imitation was analysed in terms of discourse form (i.e., the relationship between the introduction of the diminutive and its subsequent imitation) and discourse function (i.e., the function of the diminutive imitation within the conversational context). Discourse form and 247
24(2) King & Melzi
5/3/04
FIRST LANGUAGE
8:57 AM
Page 8
VOLUME 24 ISSUE 2
function usage patterns were then examined quantitatively and qualitatively across speaker, gender, and age groups. Discourse form Turning first to discourse form, we identified three general types of diminutive imitations. The first and most prevalent pattern was for imitations to appear within an ‘adjacency cluster’ (cf. Norrick, 1987). In these instances, introduction of the diminutive and the interlocutor’s imitation occurred within the same micro speech event, that is, within an exchange focused on the same subject, activities, participants and contexts. Typically, as evident in Example 2, the introduction and imitation were adjacent. In addition, in all adjacency clusters, the diminutized word only appeared within the cluster and nowhere else in the transcript. Example 2 (boy, 4;0) 1.
Mother:
¿Qué comimos? What did we eat?
2.
Mother:
¿Qué fuimos a comer? What did we go eat?
3.
Child:
Un pollito con papas. [Introduction] A chicken[+DIM] with potatoes
4.
Mother:
Oh, ¿te gusta el pollito con papas? [Imitation] Oh, do you like chicken[+DIM] with potatoes?
5.
Child:
¡Rico! Delicious!
6.
Child:
¡También con pellejo! Also with the skin!
In Example 2, we see that the child introduced the diminutive form (line 3) in response to his mother’s questions (lines 1 and 2); the mother immediately imitated the child’s response in the expanded form of a question, requesting an evaluation. Overall, we found that the greatest number of diminutive imitations occurred in this discourse form (45%, or 94 of 208). The second discourse form of diminutive imitations identified in the data were ‘personal frozen diminutives’. These imitations tended not to be tightly linked with the diminutive introduction as in the adjacency clusters above, but consisted of words 6 which were only found in diminutive form throughout the entire transcript. These items did not consist of those frozen diminutives which are widely recognized and used across Peruvian society (such as bocadito or fulbito discussed above and excluded from analysis); yet they did seem to be ‘frozen’ as their usage was unmarked and conveyed a set meaning to these particular interlocutors. These were frequently proper names (e.g., Pepito) or family members (e.g., mamita, papito). Overall, 16% (33 of 208) of diminutive imitations fell under the category of ‘personal frozen diminutives’. The third identified discourse form for diminutive imitations, ‘habitual imitations’, rests between the two. These ‘habitual imitations’ often did not appear in tightly linked 248
24(2) King & Melzi
5/3/04
8:57 AM
Page 9
KING & MELZI: DIMINUTIVES IN MOTHER-CHILD CONVERSATION
adjacency clusters, nor were they ‘personal frozen’ diminutives which were constant across the conversation. Rather, habitual imitations are diminutized words which appeared multiple times, but not exclusively in diminutized form across the segmented conversation. In these instances, interlocutors moved back and forth between the simplex and diminutive form, as in Example 3. Example 3 (boy, 5;11) 1.
Mother:
¿Y Valeria que dijo? And what did Valeria say?
2.
Child:
Este … dijo … Um … she said …
3.
Child:
¡Ay, disculpe señorita Marujita! [Introduction] Oh, I’m sorry Miss Maruja[+DIM]!
4.
Mother:
¿Disculpe Marujita dijo? [Imitation] I’m sorry Maruja[+DIM] he said?
5.
Mother:
¿Y la señora Maruja qué dijo? And Mrs Maruja, what did she say?
6.
Child:
7.
Mother:
Y Pepito dijo disculpe señorita Marujasa. And Pepito said I’m sorry Miss Maruja[+AUG]. Ah. Uy, ¡qué vergüenza! Oh. How embarrassing!
Here we see that in telling a narrative about what a classmate said to the teacher (Ms Maruja), the diminutive form, Marujita, is introduced by the child (line 3), and then imitated by the mother (line 4). In the following turn, the mother switched back to the simplex (line 5). In line 6, the child used an augmentative connoting large size, jest and disrespect toward the teacher in reporting the speech of Pepito. Here and throughout this transcript we see that Maruja often appeared in diminutive form although simplex formations were also in use. Overall, across all conversations, 39% of diminutive imitations (81 of 208) were habitual. Discourse function Each diminutive imitation was also analysed in terms of its discourse function and was found to serve one of three broad purposes. While we initially intended to code for specific functions, including those delineated in the morphopragmatic literature, e.g., politeness, humour, sarcasm (cf. Dressler & Barbaresi, 1994; Schneider, 2003; Zuluaga, 1991), we found it impossible to infer such precise functions or intentions. As noted by Ochs & Schieffelin (1984) among others, similar structures take on different meanings depending on particularities of macro and micro conversational context, and as such are difficult, if not impossible, to infer. Our categories are thus necessarily broad. The first and most frequent function of diminutive imitations, we argue, was to maintain the referent constant. In such instances, the imitation seemed to allow or encourage the speaker to elaborate, question, and maintain the topic at hand by holding the referent constant, as evident in Example 4. 249
24(2) King & Melzi
5/3/04
FIRST LANGUAGE
8:57 AM
Page 10
VOLUME 24 ISSUE 2
Example 4 (girl, 3;11) 1. Mother: ¿Y qué llevó el tío Pepe para jugar? And what did Uncle Pepe bring to play with? 2.
Child:
Una tobi [?]. [unintelligible]
3.
Child:
Pero es que yo quería montar en el caballito. [Introduction] But I wanted to ride the horse[+DIM].
4.
Mother:
Pero … y ¿por qué no te subiste al caballito? [Imitation] But … and why didn’t you ride the horse[+DIM]?
5.
Child:
Porque es que tú no me dejabas. It’s because you didn’t let me.
6.
Mother:
Es que ese caballo era muy grande, ¿no? It’s because that horse was very big, right?
7.
Mother:
Te podías caer. You could have fallen.
8.
Child:
Sí. Yes.
9.
Mother:
Y nadie te iba a agarrar, mejor no. And no one was going to catch you, better not to.
In Example 4 we see that the child introduced the diminutive (line 3), stating her desire to ride the ‘little’ horse. The mother then asked a question based on that statement of desire (line 4), designed to elicit elaboration on why this desire was unfulfilled. In doing so, she imitated the child’s diminutive form, hence maintaining the referent constant. Not to do so would have destabilized the referent introduced by the child, potentially undermining continuity across utterances and shared understanding of the event, context and key participants (in this case, the horse). This example is also of interest because the interlocutors agree that the child did not ride the horse because it was too large (line 6). The mother might have suggested this fact in line 4 by using the simplex form. That she did not, even when the horse size is the key issue, suggests the tendency to maintain the referent constant within the adjacency cluster and the marked nature of not doing so. A similar discourse function is apparent in Example 5. Example 5 (girl, 3;6)
250
1.
Mother:
¿A qué jugaban? What did you play?
2.
Child:
A la casita. [Introduction] House[+DIM].
3.
Mother:
A la casita. [Imitation] House[+DIM].
4.
Mother:
¿Y qué hacían con la casita? [Imitation] And what did you do with the house[+DIM]?
5.
Child:
Techo. Roof.
24(2) King & Melzi
5/3/04
8:57 AM
Page 11
KING & MELZI: DIMINUTIVES IN MOTHER-CHILD CONVERSATION
6.
Mother:
¿Cómo se llamaba el: juego? How was the game called?
7.
Child:
¡Techo! Roof!
8.
Mother:
¿Cómo se llamaba el juego que ustedes estaban jugando? How was the game that you were playing called?
9.
Mother:
Sólo la casita, ¿y nada más? [Imitation] Only house[+DIM], and nothing else?
10. Child:
No. No.
11. Child:
Ventana, puerta, # y nada más. Window, door, and # nothing more.
12. Mother:
Mmm, ya. ¿Y Brenda # no jugaba? Mmm, OK. And Brenda # didn’t play?
13. Child:
No. No.
14. Mother:
¿Pero tú no dices que estabas jugando con Brenda? But didn’t you say that you were playing with Brenda?
15. Child:
Sí. Yes. Ya pues cuéntame qué jugabas con Brenda. Come on tell me what you played with Brenda.
16. Mother: 17. Child:
Casita. [Child self-repetition] House[+DIM].
Here we see that the child introduced the diminutive form of house (line 2) in response to her mother’s question (line 1). The mother affirmed this response in the following line by repeating the child’s phrase in its entirety (line 3). The mother then asked a question aimed to elicit an elaboration (line 4). In line 9 the mother used the same diminutive form again, asking for other games. In these instances, diminutive imitations are used by interlocutors, and by mothers in particular, not only to encourage expansion and elaboration of a topic, but also simultaneously to affirm and validate previous utterances, thus keeping the interlocutor (usually the child) focused on the topic at hand and, at the same time, facilitating the creation of an intimate communicative space which potentially leads to greater overall use of diminutives. Across all conversations, 80% (167 of 208) of diminutive imitations served the function of maintaining the referent constant. The second discourse function of diminutive imitations was instructional, as in Example 6. Here, diminutive imitations served instructive or corrective functions in response to pragmatic, grammatical, lexical pronunciation failures or communicative breakdowns. Overall, these constituted 5% (10 of 208) of diminutive imitations. 251
24(2) King & Melzi
5/3/04
FIRST LANGUAGE
8:57 AM
Page 12
VOLUME 24 ISSUE 2
Example 6 (boy, 3;5) 1.
Child:
Sí. Yes.
2.
Mother:
Cuéntame. Cuéntame. Tell me. Tell me.
3.
Child:
Dos. Two.
4.
Mother:
¿Dos qué? Two what?
5.
Child:
Dos pelitos [= perritos]. [Introduction] Two dogs[+DIM]
6.
Mother:
¿Dos perritos? [Imitation] Two dogs[+DIM]?
7.
Child:
Sí. Yes.
In Example 6 the discourse function of this imitation (line 6) is instructional. In line 5 the boy attempted to say ‘doggies’, but mispronounced ‘perritos’ by using ‘l’ sounds rather than an ‘r’ sounds. The mother asked for clarification as ‘pelitos’ are strands of hair [+DIM]. Given the conversational context and the mother’s stress of the trilled ‘r’, she also seemed to be providing the child with an instructional recast. The third and much less common discourse function of diminutive imitations was to contest the meaning of the referent. Overall, only 2% (4 of 208) imitations fell into this category. These ‘contestations of referent’ included all imitative turns which involved metalinguistic contestation of the referent. This is illustrated by our first excerpt, Example 1, in which mother and child disagreed over the meaning of ahorita. In Example 1 the child wished to stop talking and to play. The mother attempted to placate the child by telling her that they ‘we are about to finish’ – literally ‘right now’ (line 1). The child was not reassured and instead asked again when they will finish (line 2). The mother attempted to focus the child again by repeating (line 3) that they are almost finished. When the mother stated that they are about to finish (literally ‘right now’, line 5), the child contested the meaning of ahorita (line 6), contending that ‘right now’ means ‘right now’ (and not, as her mother suggests, ‘in a little while’). In addition, a minority of diminutive imitations fell into none of the above discourse function categories (13%; 27 of 208). In such instances, no specific function or reason for diminutive imitation could be identified. As might be expected, in many cases (89%), these ‘non-classifiables’ co-occur with ‘personal frozen diminutives’ (i.e., the diminutive form is used throughout the transcript) or with ‘habituals’ (i.e., the diminutive and simplex forms are in free variation across the transcript). Form and function variation across speakers and age groups Although no significant gender differences were found, quantitative and qualitative analyses revealed form and function variation across both speaker and age groups, 252
24(2) King & Melzi
5/3/04
8:57 AM
Page 13
KING & MELZI: DIMINUTIVES IN MOTHER-CHILD CONVERSATION
Table 1 Raw frequencies (and percentages) of mothers’ and children’s diminutive imitations by discourse form
Adjacency cluster Habitual Personal frozen
Children’s imitations (N = 47)
Mothers’ imitations (N = 161)
Total (N = 208)
13 (27.7%) 25 (53.2%) 9 (19.2%)
81 (50.3%) 56 (34.7%) 24 (15.0%)
94 (45.0%) 81 (39.0%) 33 (16.0%)
Table 2 Raw frequencies (and percentages) of mothers’ and children’s diminutive imitations by discourse function
Maintaining referent constant Instructional Corrective Non-classifiable
Children’s imitations (N = 47)
Mothers’ imitations (N = 161)
Total (N = 208)
29 (61.7%) 0 (0.0%) 2 (4.3%) 16 (34.0%)
138 (85.7%) 10 (6.2%) 2 (1.2%) 11 (6.8%)
167 (80.3%) 10 (4.8%) 4 (1.9%) 27 (13.0%)
with both mothers and children, as well as 3-year-olds and 5-year-olds, using diminutive imitations in different ways. First, mothers and children used diminutive imitations in qualitatively and quantitatively different ways. Most obviously, mothers were three times more likely to use diminutive imitations in conversation (161 vs. 47). In terms of discourse form, mothers were nearly twice as likely to use imitations within adjacency clusters (50% vs. 28%), while children were more likely to use diminutive imitations habitually across the conversation (see Table 1). In terms of discourse function, mothers were more likely than children to use imitations to maintain the referent constant (86% vs. 62%), while children were more likely than mothers to use diminutive imitation for no identifiable discourse function (34% vs. 7%) (see Table 2). The qualitatively and quantitatively different nature of mothers’ and children’s diminutive imitations sheds light on the findings detailed above, which suggested that mothers’ imitations are more powerful than children’s imitations in promoting overall diminutive use. Recall that mothers’ use of imitation was singularly significant in 253
24(2) King & Melzi
5/3/04
FIRST LANGUAGE
8:57 AM
Page 14
VOLUME 24 ISSUE 2
predicting children’s total use, and the two were highly correlated. In contrast, there was a weaker (although still significant) relationship between children’s imitation and mothers’ total use, and both age group and imitation were predictors of mothers’ overall use. Differences between the predictive power of mothers’ and children’s diminutives can be attributed to mothers’ tendencies to use the ‘adjacency cluster’ form and the ‘maintain referent constant’ function; and hence that this particular form and function seem to be more ‘powerful’ in promoting overall diminutive use. Second, we found that older and younger children were likely to use diminutive imitations in different ways. In terms of discourse form, we found that 3-year-olds were more likely to use imitation within adjacency clusters than were 5-year-olds (42% vs. 10%). Further, they did so in ways which exhibited considerably less conversational independence, as is apparent when comparing Examples 7 and 8. Example 7 (boy, 3;5) 1.
Child:
Había un camión que que que levanta cajas. There was a truck that that that lifted boxes.
2.
Mother:
¿Sí? Yes?
3.
Child:
Sí. Yes.
4.
Mother:
¿Grande o chiquito? [Introduction] Big or small[+DIM]?
5.
Child:
Chiquito. [Imitation] Small[+DIM].
6.
Mother:
¿Y de qué color? And of what colour?
7.
Child:
Amalillo [= amarillo] . Lellow [= yellow].
Example 8 (girl, 5;7)
254
1.
Mother:
A mí lo que me dio más risa fue ese perrito disfrazado de elefante, ¿ah? [Introduction] To me what made me laugh the most was that dog[+DIM] disguised as an elephant, huh? (laughs)
2.
Child:
3.
Mother:
¿Qué te pareció? What did you think about it?
4.
Child:
Muy bonito. Very pretty.
5.
Mother:
Chistoso, ¿no? Funny, right?
6.
Mother:
Parecía que era un muñeco así que funcionaba mal. It seemed that it was a doll that like it was not working properly.
24(2) King & Melzi
5/3/04
8:57 AM
Page 15
KING & MELZI: DIMINUTIVES IN MOTHER-CHILD CONVERSATION
7.
Mother:
¿No? Didn’t it?
8.
Mother:
Parecía que era de a pilas. It seemed that it was a battery-operated one.
9.
Child:
Mami, ¿cómo sabías que era un perrito disfrazado? [Imitation] Mommy, how did you know that it was a dog[+DIM] disguised?
As evident in Example 7, the adjacency-cluster imitations of 3-year-olds tend to be closely linked to the mother’s introduction of the diminutive. Here the mother presented the child with a simple alternative question (line 4). The child’s response (line 5) contained the imitation and answer to his mother’s question. In contrast, the 5-yearolds tended to exhibit increased complexity and greater conversational independence as they relied less on maternal diminutized forms. In Example 8, for instance, we see that the mother introduced the diminutive form in line 1; they discussed different aspects of the ‘disguised dog’ for nine turns before the child used the same term (imitating her mother) to ask an unrelated and complex question. Thus, in terms of general patterns of usage, not only do 5-year-olds rely much less on adjacency-cluster imitations than do 3-year-olds, when we examine the data closely we see that the nature of the use is qualitatively different as well.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION This paper documents how Spanish-speaking mothers and their children use diminutives in everyday conversations, and attempts to explain how and why diminutive imitation seems to promote greater overall use of diminutives. More specifically, we sought to characterize the discourse forms and functions of diminutive imitation, and to explore potential differences across speaker groups. Results of our previous work (Melzi & King, 2003) showed that all mother-child pairs spontaneously used diminutives in their conversations, a finding which indicated the saliency of this grammatical form in everyday conversations with Peruvian children. Our findings confirmed previous work which suggests that young children are able to manipulate the diminutive suffix in similar ways as their adult interlocutors (Ceccherini et al., 1997; Gillis, 1997; Ruke-Dravina, 1976; Stephany, 1997). We found that when the total amount of speech was controlled for, 3-year-old children used diminutives with similar frequencies and distributions as 5-year-old children. However, mothers of 3-year-old children used more diminutives than mothers of 5-year-old children. This finding fits arguments that diminutives signal a childcentred, nurturing and intimate environment (e.g., Andrews, 1999), as well as Ferguson’s (1977) research with CDS which suggests that mothers use this register beginning in the child’s first months of life, with usage declining around the child’s fourth birthday. Most interestingly, our findings suggested that frequency of diminutive use by one interlocutor depends on the nature of use of diminutives by the other interlocutor, and that certain diminutive usage modes are more critical than others in promoting overall diminutive use. More precisely, the frequency of mother-to-child imitations of 255
24(2) King & Melzi
FIRST LANGUAGE
5/3/04
8:57 AM
Page 16
VOLUME 24 ISSUE 2
diminutive forms was a clear predictor of total use of diminutized forms by the child. Conversely, mothers’ total use of diminutives was predicted by children’s imitation and by children’s age. In the present study we examined the discourse form and discourse function of diminutive imitations and found four patterns. First, the greatest percentage of diminutive imitations in our data (45%) occurred as part of adjacency clusters. In other words, the introduction of the diminutive and its imitation were closely linked, and the diminutive only appeared in the context of this particular set of exchanges. Second, we found that most diminutive imitations (80%) served the broad purpose of ‘maintaining the referent constant’. The predominance of this discourse function sheds light on why diminutive imitation promotes interlocutors’ greater overall use of diminutives, and corresponds with what we know about imitation generally. For instance, Norrick (1987) suggests that imitations (what he terms ‘second speaker repetitions’) ‘signal agreement and rapport’ (pp. 250–251); demonstrate ‘concurrence and grudging admission’; and in general, concentrate ‘the hearer’s attention’ (p. 247). Likewise, Uz giris (1981: 35) maintains that imitation (with infants in particular) communicates ‘mutuality and shared understanding with another person’ and are ‘prompted less by cognitive-strategies and more by social-interpersonal purposes.’ Third, we found that mothers were more likely than children to use diminutive imitations and, specifically, tended to use them to maintain the referent constant, while children tended to use diminutive imitations with no particular discourse function. In terms of the distribution of imitations, Snow’s (1983) analysis of a mother-child conversation suggests that the diminutive patterns found in our study are not untypical. Snow examined one mother-child pair as they engaged in book reading activities eight times (2;5 to 2;6), finding that maternal imitation was more common than child imitation (269 times compared with 170). Mothers’ greater use of diminutive imitation is partly due to their greater amount of speech, but also stems from their particular role within the conversations. Mothers (and other more competent conversational partners) regularly juggle complex organizational, extralinguistic, cognitive and social aspects of speech in order to provide scaffolding assistance which allows children to perform at a higher level than possible without such support (Bingham Wesche, 1994; Bruner, 1978, 1983; Hawkins, 1988). Mothers’ higher rate of ‘maintaining-referent-constant’ diminutive imitations reflects their conversational tendency to provide such scaffolding. Fourth, 3-year-olds were more likely to use diminutive imitations within adjacency pairs than were 5-year-olds, and furthermore did so in different ways. This finding reflects the fact that as children mature they tend to exhibit greater independence in their conversations showing less reliance on maternal input. (Mothers also play a role here, for instance, by providing fewer alternative questions.) These results correspond to Snow’s (1979) findings which suggest that as children’s syntactic abilities develop, so does their ability to produce expanded imitations.
Intimacy, imitation and the cultural aspects of diminutive use Taken together, these findings provide further evidence of the importance of imitation for understanding language development and language socialization processes. This is 256
24(2) King & Melzi
5/3/04
8:57 AM
Page 17
KING & MELZI: DIMINUTIVES IN MOTHER-CHILD CONVERSATION
not because there is a direct relationship between diminutive imitation and language learning in our data. Rather, we suggest that diminutive imitation is evidence of intense and intimate interactions between mother-child pairs as they engage in conversation. There are several processes at work: (a) the emotional power of diminutives as an aspect of CDS, in establishing attachment and intimacy; (b) the important role of imitation in general in signalling personal involvement and connection; and (c) the cultural significance of diminutives for Peruvians. Diminutives are frequently described as a feature of CDS, used in some cultures with young children. While CDS research has tended to emphasize the syntactic adjustments made by adult caretakers (e.g., Pine, 1994), investigations into ‘babytalk’ among adults have focused on its role in emotional bonding. Bombar & Littig (1996: 137) report that ‘communicative intentions of babytalk coincided with hallmarks of attachment, particularly affection and play’, suggesting that babytalk plays a role ‘in the establishment of intimate relations’. While babytalk signals attachment, conversely, this attachment also seems to influence language behaviour (Bus & Van Ijzendoorn, 1988; Klann-Delius & Hofmeister, 1997). Greater use of diminutive imitations may be indicative of higher levels of attachment, which in turn corresponds to greater amounts of language use. Imitation or repetition of one’s interlocutors’ linguistic forms is a pervasive element of everyday discourse. Communication theory has viewed repetition or imitation as a means to correct a breakdown in the flow of communication (Brody, 1986). However, discourse analysts have argued that imitation or repetition also establishes continuity and stability of the conversational discourse (e.g., Brody, 1986; Norrick, 1987; Tannen, 1987, 1989). Imitation achieves this continuity by weaving a coherent connection between utterances, thus affirming the interpersonal involvement between interlocutors (Tannen, 1989). Tannen (1987: 236) has argued that this process is often unconscious as ‘speakers repeat, rephrase, and echo (or shadow) others’ words in conversation … as an automatic and spontaneous way of participating’. We concur that in the present data, speakers’ imitation of diminutives is below the interlocutors’ level of awareness and unplanned. However, we also suggest that imitation concomitantly plays a key role in certain strategic functions, such as agreeing with the child, affirming the child’s response and asking for elaboration, each of which facilitate completion of the conversational task at hand and simultaneously strengthen the connection between parent and child. Lastly, we also suggest that cultural factors come into play in explaining the strength and nature of the relationships surrounding diminutive imitations, following those who have suggested that diminutives reflect aspects of speakers’ culture. For instance, Wierzbicka (1991: 56), writing about diminutives in Australian English, connects their use (e.g., mozzies for mosquitoes) with aspects of the Australian ethos: ‘anti-sentimentality, jocular cynicism, a tendency to knock things down to size, “mateship”, good-natured humour, love of informality, and dislike for “long words’’.’ In the culture of our study’s participants, use of diminutives in general, and the frequent use of diminutives in particular, might reflect the Peruvian cultural value of cariño, which translates loosely as tenderness, endearment, fondness and positive affect. In their ethnographic analysis of classroom interactions, Erickson, Cazden, Carrasco & Maldonado-Guzmán (1983) noted that ‘a cariño style’ was common 257
24(2) King & Melzi
FIRST LANGUAGE
5/3/04
8:57 AM
Page 18
VOLUME 24 ISSUE 2
among Latino teachers and students. This cariño style was characterized by in-group forms of address, by physical displays of affection, by expressions of the teacher’s knowledge of students’ family life, by reminders to the children of the norms of interpersonal respect and by the frequent use of diminutives. As Ochs & Shieffelin (1984) have argued, the process of language acquisition is deeply impacted by the notions of being a competent member of society; concomitantly, the process of becoming a competent member of the society is largely realized through language. In highlighting diminutives through imitation, the mother is not only affirming and validating the child’s prior utterance, she is also highlighting appropriate values and preferred ways of interacting. These natural and unconscious processes together may play an indirect role in facilitating language development. Not unlike recent work which has suggested that mothers use similar pitch and affect levels in talking to their pets and babies, but unconsciously employ the didactic device of exaggerating their vowels for their infants (but not for their pets) (Burnham, Kitamura & Vollner-Conna, 2002), mothers in our study seem to use diminutives naturally and unconsciously, and diminutive imitations in particular, as a pedagogical means of encouraging both linguistic development and culturally appropriate values. Mothers’ use of diminutive forms may make grammatical gender more salient for young language learners (cf. Kempe et al., 2003), while at the same time, encouraging them to participate actively in the conversation and inculcating appropriate world-views.
NOTES 1.
2.
3.
4.
258
For instance, during the Middle Ages, ‘the common forms were -illo, -illa, -uelo, -uela, -iello; but there were new affixes that appeared towards the end of the Middle Ages (-ico, -ito) which began to compete with them’ (Inchaurralde, 1997: 138). Limeño literally means pertaining to Lima; it is used to refer to the people of Lima, their language variety and their customs. For an overview of Peruvian Spanish characteristics, see Lipski (1994). Guide to transcription conventions: [+DIM] diminutive [+AUG] augmentative xx unintelligible word # unfilled pause : lengthened syllable [?] best guess at a word [=!] paralinguistic material To determine the total number of diminutizable word tokens, a list of all words produced by mothers and children was obtained. After reviewing the list, all words not diminutizable in Spanish, and particularly in the middle-class Limeño Spanish variety under investigation here, were deleted. These words included all verbs and articles and some pronouns. In cases where it was not possible to discern the word class in isolation (e.g., in Spanish, past participles can be used as adjectives or as verbs), we reviewed each word in its sentential and conversational context to determine its status. We were conservative in deleting words from our final list of diminutizable word tokens, asking three speakers of the same middleclass Limeño variety to inform us whether they believed these items to be diminutizable. In
24(2) King & Melzi
5/3/04
8:57 AM
Page 19
KING & MELZI: DIMINUTIVES IN MOTHER-CHILD CONVERSATION
5.
6.
cases where there were disagreements between our informants, words were kept in our final list of diminutizable words. In both analyses, a dummy variable for age group was entered to control for its effects on total use, and the variables ‘introductions’ and ‘self-repetitions’ were combined as a ‘spontaneous usage’ variable. Of course, in order to confirm absolutely that these items were personal frozen diminutives (and were never used in the simplex form), all of the child conversations would need to be recorded and analysed. Given the quantity and quality of data here and, in particular, the high frequency of usage of such forms across the conversations, this classification of personal frozen diminutive, although less than perfect, seems warranted.
REFERENCES Amado, A. (1961). Concept, emotion, action, and fantasy in diminutives. In A. Amado (Ed.), Estudios lingüísticos: Temas españoles (pp. 161–189). Madrid: Gredos. Ambadiang, T. (1997). Las bases morfológicas de la formación de diminutivos en español. Verba, 24, 99–132. Andrews, E. (1999). Gender roles and perception: Russian diminutives in discourse. In M. Mills (Ed.), Slavic gender linguistics (pp. 85–111). Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Bates, E. & Rankin, S. (1979). Morphological development in Italian: Connotation and denotation. Journal of Child Language, 6, 29–52. Bauer, L. (1997). Evaluative morphology: In search of universals. Studies in Language, 21, 533–575. Berko, J. (1958). The child’s learning of English morphology. Word, 14, 150–177. Berko Gleason, J., Perlmann, R. U., Ely, R. & Evans, D. W. (1994). The babytalk register: Parents’ use of diminutives. In J. L. Sokolov & C. A. Snow (Eds), Handbook of research in language development using CHILDES (pp. 50–76). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Bingham Wesche, M. (1994). Input and interaction in second language acquisition. In C. Gallaway & B. Richards (Eds), Input and interaction in language acquisition (pp. 219–249). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bombar, M. & Littig, L. (1996). Babytalk as a communication of intimate attachment: An initial study in adult romances and friendship. Personal Relationships, 3, 137–158. Brody, J. (1986). Repetition as a rhetorical and conversational device in Tojolabal (Mayan). International Journal of American Linguistics, 52(3), 255–274. Bruner, J. (1978). The role of dialogue in language acquisition. In A. Sinclair, R. J. Jarvella & W. J. Levelt (Eds), The child’s conception of language (pp. 241–256). New York: Verlag. Bruner, J. (1983). Child’s talk, learning to use language. London: Oxford University Press. Burnham, D., Kitamura, C. & Vollner-Conna, U. (2002). What’s new, pussycat? On talking to babies and animals. Science, 296, 1435. Bus, A. G. & van Ijzendoorn, J. H. (1988). Mother-child interactions, attachment, and emergent literacy: A cross-sectional study. Child Development, 59, 1262–1272. Ceccherini, M., Bonifacio, S. & Zocconi, E. (1997). Acquisition of diminutives in Italian. In W. U. Dressler (Ed.), Studies in pre- and protomorphology (pp. 157–163). Vienna: Verlag. Cohen, J. (1960). A coefficient of agreement for nominal scales. Educational and Psychologica Measurement, 20, 37–46. Daltas, P. (1985). Some patterns of variability in the use of diminutive and augmentative suffixes in spoken Modern Greek Koine (MGK). Glossologia, 4, 63–88. Derwing, B. L. (1976). Morpheme recognition and the learning of rules for derivational morphology. Canadian Journal of Linguistics, 21, 38–66.
259
24(2) King & Melzi
FIRST LANGUAGE
5/3/04
8:57 AM
Page 20
VOLUME 24 ISSUE 2
Dressler, W. U. & Barbaresi, L. M. (1994). Morphopragmatics: Diminutives and intensifiers in Italian, German, and other languages. New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Erickson, F., Cazden, C., Carrasco, R. & Maldonado-Guzmán, A. (1983). Social and cultural organization in classrooms of bilingual children. Unpublished; final report to the National Institute of Education. Ettinger, S. (1974). Diminutiv- und Augmentativbildung: Regeln und Restriktionen. Tübingen: Narr (cited in Dressler & Barbaresi, 1994). Ferguson, C. A. (1977). Babytalk as a simplified register. In C. E. Snow & C. Ferguson (Eds), Talking to children: Language input and acquisition (pp. 209–235). New York: Cambridge University Press. Gillis, S. (1997). The acquisition of diminutives in Dutch. In W. U. Dressler (Ed.), Studies in pre-and protomorphology (pp. 165–179). Vienna: Verlag. Hawkins, B. (1988). Scaffolded classroom interaction and its relation to second language acquisition for language minority language children. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of California at Los Angeles. Inchaurralde, C. (1997). Space, reference, and emotional involvement. In S. Niemeier & R. Dirven (Eds), The language of emotions: Conceptualization, expression, and theoretical foundation (pp. 135–154). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Jaeggli, O. (1980). Spanish diminutives. In F. Nuessel (Ed.), Contemporary studies in Romance languages (pp. 142–158). Bloomington: Indiana University Linguistics Club. Jurafsky, D. (1996). Universal tendencies in the semantics of the diminutive. Language, 72, 533–578. Kempe, V. & Brooks, P. J. (2001). The role of diminutives in Russian gender learning: Can childdirected speech facilitate the acquisition of inflectional morphology? Language Learning, 51, 221–256. Kempe, V., Brooks, P. J., Mironova, N. & Fedorova, O. (2003). Diminutivisation supports gender acquisition in Russian children. Journal of Child Language, 30(2), 471–485. Klann-Delius, G. & Hofmeister, C. (1997). The development of communicative competence of securely and insecurely attached children in interactions with their mothers. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 26, 69–88. Lieven, E. V. M. (1994). Crosslinguistic and crosscultural aspects of language addressed to children. In C. Gallaway & B. J. Richards (Eds), Input and interaction in language acquisition (pp. 56–73). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lipski, J. M. (1994). Latin American Spanish. New York: Longman. MacWhinney, B. (2000). The CHILDES project: Tools for analyzing talk. 3rd ed. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Melzi, G. & King, K. A. (2003). Spanish diminutives in mother-child conversations. Journal of Child Language, 30(2), 281–304. Norrick, N. R. (1987). Functions of repetition in conversation. Text, 7(3), 245–264. Ochs, E. & Schieffelin, B. B. (1984). Language acquisition and socialization. In R. A. Shweder & R. A. LeVine (Eds), Culture theory: Essays on mind, self, and emotion (pp. 276–320). New York: Cambridge University Press. Olmsted, H. (1994). Diminutive morphology of Russian children: A simplified subset of nominal declension in language acquisition. In C. E. Gribble, R. A. Rothstein, E. Haber, H. Olmstead, R. Szulkin & C. Townsend (Eds), Alexander Lipson in memoriam (pp. 165–209). Bloomington: Slavica Publishers. Pine, J. M. (1994). The language of primary caregivers. In C. Gallaway & B. J. Richards (Eds), Input and interaction in language acquisition (pp. 15–37). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ruke-Dravina, V. (1976). ‘Mama’ and ‘papa’ in child language. Journal of Child Language, 3, 157–166. 260
24(2) King & Melzi
5/3/04
8:57 AM
Page 21
KING & MELZI: DIMINUTIVES IN MOTHER-CHILD CONVERSATION Schneider, K. P. (2003). Diminutives in English. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag. Sifianou, M. (1992). The use of diminutives in expressing politeness: Modern Greek vs. English. Journal of Pragmatics, 17, 155–173. Snow, C. E. (1979). The uses of imitation. Journal of Child Language, 8, 205–212. Snow, C. E. (1983). Saying it again: The role of expanded and deferred imitations in language acquisition. Children’s Language, 4, 29–58. Stephany, U. (1997). Diminutives in early child Greek, a preliminary investigation. In W. U. Dressler (Ed.), Studies in pre- and protomorphology (pp. 147–156). Vienna: Verlag. Tannen, D. (1987). Repetition in conversation as spontaneous formulaicity. Text, 7, 215–244. Tannen, D. (1989). Talking voices: Repetition, dialogue and imagery in conversational discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Uz giris, I. C. (1981). Two functions of imitation during infancy. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 4, 1–12. Voeykova, M. D. (1998). Acquisition of diminutives by a Russian child: Preliminary observations in connection with the early adjectives. In S. Gillis (Ed.), Studies in the acquisition of number and diminutive marking – Antwerp Papers in Linguistics, 95, 97–113. Wierzbicka, A. (1991). Cross-cultural pragmatics: The semantics of human interaction. Mouton de Gruyter: Berlin (quoted in Dressler & Barbaresi, 1994). Zuluaga, A. O. (1991) La función del diminutivo en español. Thesaurus, 1, 305–330.
ADDRESS FOR CORRESPONDENCE Dr Kendall King, Department of Linguistics, Georgetown University, Intercultural Center 458, Washington, DC 20057, USA E:
[email protected]
261
