Repetition and Variation in Child-Language Corporato Children

Sonja Eisenbeiss, Christoph Aurnhammer

Massimo Poesio

How do we talk to children?

What is the role of repetition and

variation?

What are their effects on language

learning?

Do nursery rhymes reflect &

exaggerate patterns of child-directed

speech?

Research Questions

Video recordings of a child’s home environment, age 3 months to 3 years

The two rooms in which the child spent most of this time (living room/kitchen, bedroom) equipped with

non-invasive cameras at the four corners

microphones

The BabyExp Corpus

Mostly mother and child (monolingual English)

Occasionally mother + father + child (bilingual, English/Italian)

160 days/year 1-8 hrs per day Around 2000 hours total For this analysis: 7 recordings when the

child was 9 months

Recordings

High proportion of repetition with and w/o variation:

1. There's a monkey.2. There's a giraffe.3. There's the giraffe's tail.

Types of variation:

• Overlap: 1-2, 1-3, 2-3• Expansion: 2 → 3• Reduction: 3 → 2

Repetition and Variation in Child-Directed Speech (CDS)

Variation sets are series of adult

utterances with a common theme and a

constant intention, but variation in form:

adding or deleting a word or phrase,

replacing one word with another,

changing the word order, etc.

(Küntay & Slobin, 1996, 2002; Slobin et al., 2011)

Variation Sets

Variation SetsVERB OBJECT GOAL

1 let’s put J’s bottles in the refrigerator2 want to put them in the refrigerator

with me3 let’s put J’s bottles in the refrigerator4 we’ll put it in the refrigerator

5 let’s put it in the refrigerator

6 we’ll put it in the refrigerator

7 you can put it in8 I’ll let you put it in

yourself9 you put it right in

10 you put it in there11 put it

right in the refrigerator

Variation sets occur across languages and cultures (Slobin et al., 2011).

They repeat words (e.g. put) and show how words can be combined with others.

This has been shown to foster word learning (Waterfall, 2006).

How Could Variation Sets Support Learning?

Both repetition and variation play a role in CDS, even though the child is very young (9 months).

  Immediate Within 1 minute Total

Repetition 18.35 18.17 36.51Expansion 8.26 .73 8.99Reduction 6.42 .18 6.61Overlap 26.79 3.49 30.28Total 59.82 22.57 82.39

Tokens of Repetition/Variation Types p.hr

Nursery Rhymes contained 23 instances of immediate overlap that were repeated within a minute; e.g. the refrain “Fly away Peter! Fly away Paul!”. This refrain-based pattern did not appear in spoken speech.

  Immediate Within 1 min Total

Nurs. Rh. 2.57 12.29 14.86

Other 15.78 5.87 21.65Total 18.35 18.17 36.51

Repetition p.hr.: Nursery Rhyme vs. Other

Preliminary Summary Patterns of repetition and variation observed in CDS for

toddlers can also be found in CDS for the 9 month old infant, who is not yet able to fully comprehend, comply, or provide information for parents.

Pairs of repeated or varied utterances mostly follow one another immediately, rather than being separated.

The exception to this “rule” are refrain-based repetitions in nursery rhymes, sometimes combined with immediate overlap.

How do these repetition/variation-patterns look? What can this tell us about their function?

What is Similar to CDS for Older Children?

•So

In the repetition/variation-sequences, the mother:

Provides information Asks the child to (not) perform actions Asks the child for information

What is Different in Information Queries?, I

•So

The mother sometimes answers herself, as in this variation set:

What've [: what have] I found?

toothpaste!

I found some toothpaste.

What is Different in Information Queries?, II •

So

The mother answers “as the child”, as in this variation set, which occurs when the child seems upset by the ongoing nappy change:

is it painful having your nappy changed?

is it painful this nappy business?

yes mummy. (in a different voice)

What is Different in Information Queries?

•So

The mother can also acknowledge the lack of successful communication, as in this sequence (which does not involve a repetition/variation sequence)

Do you want to get out or are you still pooing?

I don't understand.

What is Different in Information-Providing Sequences?

We did not find variation sets substituting full noun phrases by pronouns.

Such sequences are common in variation sets for older children (Slobin et al., 2011)

let’s put J’s bottles in the refrigeratorwant to put them in the refrigerator with me

They suggest that the speaker assumes the listener to have identified the referent of the initial phrase.

Conclusions: Repetiton & Variation in Early CDS Patterns of repetition and variation that characterise CDS for

older children can be found in early CDS. Repetition/variation sequences mostly follow one another

immediately, rather than being separated (except for refrain-based repetitions in nurs.rhymes).

Variation sets look as if they had similar functions as variation sets in CDS for older children.

However, information queries are just “simulated” or acknowledge the impossibility of success.

We do not find Noun phrase->Pronoun substitutions, which suggests that the mother does not assume reference comprehension.

And Now? Larger data sets Comparisons of languages & cultures, mothers/fathers,

boys/girls Sharing research summaries and tools on our CDS Blog:

https://childdirectedspeech.wordpress.com/ Looking at CDS in language games:

https://languagegamesforall.wordpress.com/ with our Language In A Bag toolkit

for the creation of language gameshttps://languagegamesforall.wordpress.com/examples-of-games/

and our Essex Language Games Clubhttps://languagegamesforall.wordpress.com/essex-language-games-club/

Thank you!

The research presented in this talk was supported by a pump funding grant from the EPSRC Network on Vision and Language.