Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T01:31:45.902Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Mental terms in mothers' and children's speech: similarities and relationships*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

David Furrow ,
Chris Moore ,
Jane Davidge  and
Lorraine Chiasson
David Furrow*
Affiliation:
Mount Saint Vincent University
Chris Moore*
Affiliation:
Dalhousie University
Jane Davidge
Affiliation:
Mount Saint Vincent University
Lorraine Chiasson
Affiliation:
Dalhousie University
*
Department of Psychology, Mount Saint Vincent University, Halifax, NS, CanadaB3M 2J6
Department of Psychology, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, CanadaB3H4J1.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In this study, mental terms in mothers' and their children's speech at two and three years of age were studied in order to examine the relationships between maternal and child use. Nineteen mother and child dyads were videotaped for one hour on each of two days when the children were 2;0 and again for two one-hour sessions on separate days when they were 3;0, and mental terms were noted. The utterances in which mental terms were used were coded for function. Results supported the existing picture of children's mental term use. Few terms appeared at 2;0, but many were used at 3;0 with think and know predominating. Mental terms occurred more commonly in utterances used to regulate the interaction between the participants than in utterances referring to mental states. Children's mental term use mirrored that of their mothers. Further, mothers' use of mental terms for particular functions when their children were 2;0 predicted their children's use at 3;0. While allowing no conclusions about causation, our findings suggest that the development of mental state language, and thus presumably a theory of mind, is fostered by the linguistic environment. Specifically, it is argued that the tendency of mothers to focus their children's attention on mental processes by talking about them and, more importantly, by using utterance types which conceivably direct the children to reflect on their own mental states, is associated with children's use of mental terms.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 19 , Issue 3 , October 1992 , pp. 617 - 631
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

This research was supported by a grant (No. 410–89–0352) from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada to the first and second authors. We would like to thank the parents and children who generously offered their time to us, and Kiran Pure for her assistance in this research.

References

REFERENCES

Beeghly, M., Bretherton, I. & Mervis, C. (1986). Mothers' internal state language to toddlers. British Journal of Developmental Psychology 4, 247–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bloom, L., Rispoli, M., Gartner, B. & Hafitz, J. (1989). Acquisition of complementation. Journal of Child Language 16, 101–20.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bretherton, I. & Beeghly, M. (1982). Talking about internal states: the acquisition of an explicit theory of mind. Developmental Psychology 18, 906–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, R. (1973). A first language: the early stages. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, J. (1968). Weighted kappa: nominal scale agreement with provision for scaled disagreement or partial credit. Psychological Bulletin 70, 213–20.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Feldman, C. (1988). Early forms of thought about thoughts: some simple linguistic expressions of mental state. In Astington, J., Harris, P. & Olson, D. (eds), Developing theories of mind. New York: C.U.P.Google Scholar
Johnson, C. & Maratsos, M. (1977). Early comprehension of mental verbs: think and know. Child Development 48, 1743–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moore, C., Bryant, D. & Furrow, D. (1989). Mental terms and the development of certainty. Child Development 60, 167–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moore, C. & Furrow, D. (1987). Mental term use in preschoolers and their mothers. Paper presented at the meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Baltimore.Google Scholar
Moore, C. & Furrow, D. (1991). The development of the language of mental state: the expression of certainty. In Frye, D. & Moore, C. (eds), Children's theories of mind. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Moore, C., Pure, K. & Furrow, D. (1990). Children's understanding of the modal expression of speaker certainty and uncertainty and its relation to the development of a representational theory of mind. Child Development 61, 722–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Olson, D. (1988). On the origins of beliefs and other internal states in children. In Astington, J., Harris, P. & Olson, D. (eds), Developing theories of mind. New York: C.U.P.Google Scholar
Richards, M. (1982). Empiricism and learning to mean. In Kuczaj, S. (ed.), Language development. Vol. I. Syntax and semantics. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Shatz, M., Wellman, H. & Silber, S. (1983). The acquisition of mental verbs: a systematic investigation of the first reference to mental state. Cognition 14, 301–21.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Urmson, J. (1963). Parenthetical verbs. In Caton, C. (ed.), Philosophy and ordinary language. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar