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A pragmatic analysis of spontaneous imitations*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Joseph P. Folger  and
Robin S. Chapman
Joseph P. Folger
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin
Robin S. Chapman
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin
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Abstract

Children's imitations were analysed as a function of parental speech acts for six children in early Stage I of language acquisition. The relative frequency with which children imitated mothers reflected the relative frequency with which mothers imitated children (Spearman rank correlation = 0·77). Although parents' imitative expansions could all be categorized as having primary speech act functions (e.g. request for information) from the parents' point of view, expansions constituted a separate class of speech events in terms of children's responses. The children imitated imitations far more frequently than non-imitative speech acts in the same category. These findings suggest that individual differences in children's propensity to imitate may arise from the degree to which parents provide a model of imitation as a speech act.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 5 , Issue 1 , February 1978 , pp. 25 - 38
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1978

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Footnotes

[*]

This research was supported in part by a grant from the graduate school of the University of Wisconsin to the second author (Project No. 160450). The assistance of Lois Makoid, Sue Schmidt, Carol Caldwell, Bill Horne, and Larry Kohn in data collection and transcription is gratefully acknowledged. We thank the parents and children who participated and our colleague Louise Cherry for comments on the manuscript.

References

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