Future Talk and Lexical Input. A Study with Two Social Groups from Argentina

ROSEMBERG, C. R.; ALAM, F.; STEIN, A.

Congreso; ELA2012 -Early Language Acquisition; 2012

This study aims to analyze the future talk that 4-year-old Argentinean children from two socio-cultural groups (children from marginalized urban neighborhoods and children from middle income families with university education[1]) produce and have the opportunity to hear in natural discourse set in family and community contexts. The analysis considers the temporal and sequential terms that children use to textualize future accounts that are inserted in interactional situations as well as the temporal and sequential terms that constitute the linguistic input of both groups of children in their homes.  The theoretical perspective assumes that the child gradually develops knowledge about temporal and sequential expressions as they are used by others in discourse and activity contexts and as the child uses them herself (Levy & Nelson, 1994; Nelson, 1996; 2007). The acquisition of time concepts is knowledge mediated through language and cultural artifacts (Nelson, 1996). This development can therefore follow different trajectories and differences between children can be observed. That is why this study focuses on the future expressions heard and used by children from two different socio-cultural groups.  The data consists of a) 228 hours of spontaneous situations (-play, hygiene, meal) recorded in the homes of 19 children (4:5) from low-income populations and 216 hours of spontaneous situations (play, hygiene, meal) recorded in the homes of 18 children (4:5) from middle-income populations. Each child’s home was recorded for 12 hours; b) 250 episodes of child talk about future events produced in spontaneous situations by the same children: 104 produced by the low-income group and 146 by the middle-income. The units of analysis are interactive episodes that include a child contribution of at least 2 utterances referring to a future event. Both corpora were transcribed according to the Code for the Human Analysis of Transcripts and analyzed using the Computerized Language Analysis (MacWhinney & Snow, 1985). The quantity of the temporal and sequential vocabulary that children from the two social groups were exposed to as well as the vocabulary they use in their future accounts were measured.  Findings show differences in the temporal language used in the textualization process of the future accounts by the children from marginalized urban neighborhoods (MUN) and by the children from middle-income families with university education (MI). Children from urban marginalized neighbourhoods include less temporal and sequential terms per account than the children from middle-income families (temporal terms: MUN: 0.5 vs. MI: 1.07; sequential terms: MUN: 0.59; MI: 1.02). The differences between the groups with regards to temporal terms are statistically significant (Test used: ANOVA; F(1,36) = 7.53, MSE = 0.399, p < .01). The diversity of temporal and sequential terms used by middle income children per account is also higher than the diversity observed in low-income children (temporal terms: MI: 0.69 vs. MUN: 0.32; sequential terms: MI: 0.38 vs. MUN: 0.37). The differences between the groups with regards to the diversity of temporal terms per account are statistically significant (Test used: ANOVA; F(1,36) = 7.95, MSE = 0.159, p < .01). The same pattern was observed regarding the temporal and the sequential terms that the two groups of children have the opportunity to hear in natural situations in their homes and communities. While the middle-income children hear an average of 189 temporal terms and 250 sequential terms over the course of 12 hours, the children who live in marginalized urban neighbourhoods hear an average of 117 temporal terms and 157 sequential terms. These differences are statistically significant (Test used: ANOVA; temporal terms: F(1, 36) = 13.77, MSE = 3531.5, p < .01; sequential terms: F(1,36) = 7.7, MSE = 10268.4, p < .01). The diversity of temporal and sequential terms that middle-income children have the opportunity to hear is also higher than the diversity observed in the input of low-income children (diversity of temporal terms heard by children in 12 hours: MI: 22 vs. MUN: 10; diversity of sequential terms heard by children in 12 hours: MI: 10 vs. MUN: 5). These differences are statistically significant (Test used: ANOVA; diversity of temporal terms: F(1, 36) = 166, MSE = 8.4, p < .01; diversity of sequential terms: F(1,36) = 0.141, MSE = 1456.4, p < .01). This data provides new empirical evidence on the importance of taking into account the linguistic signals that children come in to contact with on a day-to-day basis (the input) to explain differences in lexical acquisition.  References Levy, E. and Nelson K. (1994). Words in discourse: A dialectical approach to the acquisition of meaning and use. Journal of Child Language, 21, 367-389. MacWhinney, B. and Snow, C. E. (1985). The Child Language Data Exchange System. Journal of Child Language, 12, 271-295. Nelson, K. (1996). Language in cognitive development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nelson, K. (2007). Young minds in social worlds. Experience, meaning and memory. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.     [1] Children from marginalized urban neighborhoods live with their families in extremely poor communities called “villas de emergencia”. These “villas de emergencia” are characterized by precarious housing, which has mostly been built from wood and salvaged materials, and insufficient or inexistent infrastructure services. Although most of the neighborhoods have drinkable water connections, they all lack sewer and natural gas lines. In many cases they are illegally connected to the power grid, since the inhabitants do not have the resources to pay for service. The neighborhood is accessed by narrow dirt- or cement-floored corridors. Adults from these communities reached on average 7 years of schooling. For their part, middle income adults have an average of 17 years of schooling.