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Repetition as ratification: How parents and children place information in common ground*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 April 2008

EVE V. CLARK  and
JOSIE BERNICOT
EVE V. CLARK*
Affiliation:
Stanford University
JOSIE BERNICOT*
Affiliation:
Université de Poitiers
*
Addresses for correspondence: Eve V. Clark, Department of Linguistics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-2150, USA. Email: [email protected].
Josie Bernicot, Université de Poitiers – CNRS, 99 avenue du Recteur Pineau, F-86000 Poitiers, France. Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

Repetition is used for a range of functions in conversation. In this study, we examined all the repetitions used in spontaneous conversations by 41 French adult–child dyads, with children aged 2 ; 3 and 3 ; 6, to test the hypotheses that adults repeat to establish that they have understood, and that children repeat to ratify what adults have said. Analysis of 978 exchanges containing repetitions showed that adults use them to check on intentions and to correct errors, while children use them to ratify what the adult said. With younger children, adults combine their repeats with new information. Children then re-repeat the form originally targeted by the adult. With older children, adults check on intentions but less frequently, and only occasionally check on forms. Older children also re-repeat in the third turn but, like adults, add further information. For both adults and children, repeats signal attention to the other's utterances, and place the information repeated in common ground.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 35 , Issue 2 , May 2008 , pp. 349 - 371
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

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Footnotes

*

We thank the CNRS and the Université de Poitiers for support for the first author's appointment as Professeur Invitée at the Université de Poitiers, Spring 2006. We are grateful to Emilie Despax, our graduate assistant, for her invaluable help with coding and organizing the data, and we would also like to acknowledge the Groupe Pergame who coordinated the original data collection. Finally, we thank Alain Bert-Eboul for statistical advice, and Herbert H. Clark, Bruno Estigarribia and Edy Veneziano for helpful comments on earlier versions.

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