query

[Jean Berko Gleason]

Michael Tomasello wrote:
> Can anyone direct me to studies or reports of young children - the
> younger the better (2 years?) - playing with words or other linguistic
> structures "knowingly" in either comprehsnion or production.  I am
> thinking of very simple things like participating with an adult in
> calling a giraffe an elephant (or some other such silliness) and then
> laughing about it together.
>
> Thanks in advance.


Hi Mike:

Ruth Weir's son Anthony engaged in language play (but not necessarily
metalinguistically informed) at the age of 27 months.  The transcripts
are in her book Language in the Crib.

Other books include Stan Kuczaj's book Crib speech and language play and
a book edited by Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett called Speech Play (UPenn
Press, 1976).  Catherine Garvey, and Richard Ely & Allyssa McCabe have
described speech play in preschoolers.

Anecdote:  My daughter Cindy talked early (10 months) and learned the
alphabet early (by 2).  When she was 2, we had an alphabet book we used
to read.  It began something like, "Tim is a tiger and this is how he
learned his ABCs.  He ate an apple and that was A"

We used to read the beginning of the sentence, and expect her to fill in
the letter. (No surprise there).  After a while of doing it perfectly,
she began to respond to "He ate an apple...."
with things like   "And that was Q!"

She found this hilarious.



jean