Not so much knowing what it means to 'talk posh'. More 'register awareness'

[Aubrey Nunes]

Dear All

Many thanks to all of those named below for all the interesting responses. I
have learnt a lot - hence the changed subject line.

I should have said that I thought that what children were relatively good at
by 8, they would be starting to learn much earlier.

Eve Clark reminds me of the distinction between 'register' and
'language/dialect'. What seems to me like key evidence from Caroline Bowen
is that 'code-switching' is not affected in SLI. There seems to me to be
significance in this and the fact that awareness of register seems to start
developing quite some time after that of grammatical structure.

This correspondence has reminded me of something. Going round a supermarket,
my son, then seven, asked me: "why does it sound ok if you say let's see if
we can find your mum, and not ok if I say let's see if we can find your
partner?" The only way I can explain this is like this: in a conversation
between A and B, for A to refer to C by C's relation to B suggests that A
thinks of B as not superior. Since this 'register awareness' thus seems to
be only expressed negatively in English, there is an interesting question as
to how it is learnt. Separately from this, it occurs to me now that one way
of looking at the development of register awareness may be in the use of
tutoiement and vouvoiement and its equivalents just about everywhere in
Europe at least, other than in the standard English speaking parts.



Here is my summary of what people said.

Elaine Andersen talks about a 'clear sensitivity to the correlation between
speech style (i.e., register) and power/prestige as early as age 4'.

Caroline Bowen uses the term code-switching, noting that it is detectable
before 3;0 in talk to dolls and teddies as a diagnostic.

Eve Clark points to relations of age, power, status, and within the family
as opposed to outside it by 4.

Judy Gould describes a situation in Australia where the use by Aboriginal
people of Standard Australian English is referred to as 'talking flash' and
how switching between the two can be funny ­ as intended - to  Aboriginal
children of 3 and 4 who themselves take part in this.

Jackie Guendouzi considers the issue of when and how British children are
'socially exposed to both RP and dialectal accents' and see 'speakers being
treated differently' or 'have it pointed out to them'.

Lise Menn points to several of the papers in her 2000 book in the
bibliography below.

Elena Nicoladis points to 'indirect and anecdotal evidence that minority
language speakers can detect the majority language from around 3-4 years of
age' and to 'anecdotes ... that girls from the pre-school age
through at least to adolescence are keener on learning the minority language
than boys.'

Jens Normann Jørgensen points to an on-going study in Denmark. He describes
the country as 'extremely intolerant towards linguistic variation'. The
study looks at how 8 year olds perceive the Copenhagen Danish of power and
prestige, a younger version, a Jutland version, and a non-native version.

Amy Sheldon points to her work on gender differences in conflict management
in preschoolers (3-5 yrs) interpretable as an '*implicit* understanding and
skill in making linguisic choices to manage one's agenda to manipulate
social outcomes.'

Carol Slater points to the issue of status in relationships and the contrast
between relations between doctor and patient between parents and between
parents and children and (I think) some interesting asymmetries in
children's perceptions of perceptions of fathers. She hazards a guess 'that
the "more polite" requests" and perhaps "deeper voice" will be found across
cultures but that (the) backed vowels are specific to a speech community.'
If the backing of vowels turned out to be not specific but general this
would, as she says, be intriguing.

Jim Stalker points to evidence that by 3;0 children 'know how to use
language to exert power and thwart others' attempts to apply power' and
notes how this is different from a 'conscious awareness of the
relationship of language to power'.


And here are the references I have been given (I think!).


Elaine Andersen (1991) Speaking with Style: The Sociolinguistic Skills of
Children. Routledge

Elaine Anderson (2000) Exploring register knowledge: The value of
'controlled improvisation.'" In Lise Menn & Nan Bernstein Ratner (eds), pp.
225-249. 
    
Eve Clark (2002) First language acquisition. Cambridge University Press

William Corsaro, Young children's conception of status and role, Sociology
of Education, 1979, 52, 15-79

Mavis Donahue (2000) Influences of school-age children's beliefs and goals
on their elicited pragmatic performance: Lessons learned from kissing the
Blarney Stone. In Lise Menn & Nan Bernstein Ratner (eds)

Susan Ervin-Tripp (2000) Studying conversation: How to get natural peer
interaction. In Lise Menn & Nan Bernstein Ratner, (eds.)

Catherine Garvey (1984) Children's Talk. Harvard University Press.
Cambridge, MA. 

Julie Gebhardt (1990)  The relation of language to context in children's
speech: the role of HAFTA statements in structuring 3-year-olds' discourse.
<Papers in Pragmatics>, 4, 1-57.

Lise Menn & Nan Bernstein Ratner (eds) (2000), Methods for Studying Language
Production Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates

Marilyn Shatz & Rochel Gelman (1973). The development of communication
skills: Modifications in the speech of young children as a function of
listener. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 38
(5, Serial No. 152).


Many thanks to all again. I hope I haven't missed anything or anyone out, or
got a name wrong.



Aubrey Nunes

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