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Brown & Hanlon revisited: mothers' sensitivity to ungrammatical forms*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Kathy Hirsh-Pasek ,
Rebecca Treiman  and
Maita Schneiderman
Kathy Hirsh-Pasek
Affiliation:
Swarthtnore College and C.M.D.N.J.–Rutgers Medical School
Rebecca Treiman
Affiliation:
Indiana University
Maita Schneiderman
Affiliation:
University of Connecticut
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Abstract

Brown & Hanlon (1970) reported that parents' explicit approval or disapproval of their child's utterances was not contingent on the well-formedness of that utterance. Rather, parents seemed attuned to the semantic value of their child's speech. Using 40 mother–child dyads, 10 from each of four age groups, 2–5 years, we replicated these results. We expanded upon this earlier work, however, to suggest that parents are not totally indifferent to the grammatical form of their child's utterances. Focusing on repetitions, we found that mothers are more inclined to repeat ungrammatical than grammatical sentences generated by 2- year-old subjects. This indicates that the language learning environment does present subtle cues that distinguish between well-formed and ill-formed sentences. Whether the child is capable of capitalizing on these cues remains unanswered.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 11 , Issue 1 , February 1984 , pp. 81 - 88
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1984

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References

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