Quantity, Diversity and Quality of Lexical input to young children. A study in two social groups from Buenos Aires, Argentina

ROSEMBERG, CELIA RENATA; STEIN, ALEJANDRA; ALAM, FLORENCIA

Budapest

Congreso; CEU Conference on Cognitive Development; 2013

P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm; } Differences in the size of children?s vocabularies develop in infancy, mainly as a consequence of the opportunities offered by their environment (Nelson, 1996; Tomasello, 2003). That is why this study analyses the lexical properties of the linguistic context that 4-year-old Argentinean children from two social groups (marginalized-urban neighbourhoods, MU and middle-income families, MI) are exposed to daily in spontaneous situations. The sample included interactions recorded over a 12 hour period in the homes of 20 MI and 20 MU children. Data was analysed using the CLAN Program (MacWhinney & Snow, 1985), considering: a) quantity and diversity of words heard by the children; b) quantity of words representing non-observable phenomena. Findings show significant differences in the input children were exposed to: MI children heard a greater quantity and diversity of words than UM children (quantity: 18,650 versus 13,920; diversity: 2,512 vs. 1,899 ANOVA; quantity: F(1, 35) = 4.45, MSE = 35131034, p < .05; diversity: F(1,35) = 7.45, MSE = 453354, p < .01). Differences in the amount of non-observable nouns, adjectives and verbs, were found between the two groups of children. The statistical analysis suggests an association between words referencing non?observable phenomena and the social group (nouns MI: 16.57% vs MU 6.67% ,χ²(1) = 133.52, p< .001; Adjectives, MI 39.34%; UM: 20.25%; χ²(1) = 99.54, p< .001; verbs, MI : 13.92% UM: 8.04% heard χ²(1) = 91.74, p< .001). Findings are discussed taking previous research in other cultures and languages into account