Talk about talk with young children: pragmatic socialization in two communities in Norway and the US

Abstract

Recent studies have suggested that cultures vary in subtle ways in the talk about talk that children hear and learn to produce. Twenty-two three-year-old children and their families in respectively Oslo, Norway and Cambridge, Massachusetts were observed during mealtime with the aim of identifying talk-focused talk. The analysis distinguished talk about (a) language per se, (b) discourse management, and (c) former conversations and use of reported speech. No category of talk-focused talk appeared exclusively in either community, and the frequency of such talk was similar across these. The Oslo families talked more often about language per se and their talk-focused conversations typically had a question–answer form. Talk about talk appeared more often within narratives in Oslo and within explanations in Cambridge. A second analysis compared talk-focused talk at home with such talk at school, suggesting that talk about language per se appeared more often at school across the two communities.