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In:Language in Interaction: Studies in honor of Eve V. Clark
Edited by Inbal Arnon, Marisa Casillas, Chigusa Kurumada and Bruno Estigarribia
[Trends in Language Acquisition Research 12] 2014
► pp. 333–352

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How to talk with children

 | Department of Psychology, Stanford University
Published online: 17 July 2014
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https://doi.org/10.1075/tilar.12.24cla
It is generally assumed that adults learn how to talk with children in a special style called child-directed speech. But this cannot be the whole story. Each child’s ability to speak and understand is a moving target, changing yearly, weekly, even daily. How could adults adapt to these changes? Evidence shows that in conversation both adults and children try to establish, as they go along, the mutual belief that they have understood each other well enough for current purposes. It is this process, called grounding, that allows adults to infer the child’s current abilities and to adapt their speech to that child. Adults, then, learn how to talk with children in the very act of talking with them.
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Cited by three other publications

Masson, Caroline
2024. Interaction and language acquisition in non-family settings. Language, Interaction and Acquisition 15:1 ► pp. 13 ff. DOI logo
Masson, Caroline
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Marcos, Haydée, Anne Salazar Orvig, Christine da Silva-Genest & Julien Heurdier
2021. The influence of dialogue in young children’s uses of referring expressions. In The Acquisition of Referring Expressions [Trends in Language Acquisition Research, 28], ► pp. 203 ff. DOI logo

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