TY - JOUR

T1 - Mealtime Conversations Between Parents and Their 2-Year-Old Children in Five Cultural Contexts

AU - Bohn, Manuel

AU - da Silva Vieira, Wilson Filipe

AU - Torréns, Marta Giner

AU - Kärtner, Joscha

AU - Itakura, Shoji

AU - Cavalcante, Lília

AU - Haun, Daniel

AU - Köster, Moritz

AU - Kanngiesser, Patricia

N1 - Funding Information: The data assessment in Kyoto was partly funded by a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Fellowship to Moritz Köster. Manuel Bohn was supported by a Jacobs Foundation Research Fellowship (2022-1484-00). The authors would like to thank all the research assistants who supported the data assessments and coding: Phileas Heim, Chisato Fukuda, Julia Ohlendorf, and Marlene Abromeit. The authors are grateful to Luke Maurits for statistical advice. All data and analysis code can be found in the following repository: https://github.com/ccp-eva/mealtime. Publisher Copyright: © 2024 American Psychological Association

PY - 2024

Y1 - 2024

N2 - Children all over the world learn language, yet the contexts in which they do so vary substantially. This variation needs to be systematically quantified to build robust and generalizable theories of language acquisition. We compared communicative interactions between parents and their 2-year-old children (N =99 families) during mealtime across five cultural settings (Brazil, Ecuador, Argentina, Germany, and Japan) and coded the amount of talk and gestures as well as their conversational embedding (interlocutors, function, and themes). We found a comparable pattern of communicative interactions across cultural settings, which were modified in ways that are consistent with local norms and values. These results suggest that children encounter similarly structured communicative environments across diverse cultural contexts and will inform theories of language learning.

AB - Children all over the world learn language, yet the contexts in which they do so vary substantially. This variation needs to be systematically quantified to build robust and generalizable theories of language acquisition. We compared communicative interactions between parents and their 2-year-old children (N =99 families) during mealtime across five cultural settings (Brazil, Ecuador, Argentina, Germany, and Japan) and coded the amount of talk and gestures as well as their conversational embedding (interlocutors, function, and themes). We found a comparable pattern of communicative interactions across cultural settings, which were modified in ways that are consistent with local norms and values. These results suggest that children encounter similarly structured communicative environments across diverse cultural contexts and will inform theories of language learning.

KW - communication

KW - cross-cultural psychology

KW - gesture

KW - language acquisition

KW - parent–child interaction

KW - Psychology

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85189296337&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.31234/osf.io/amfj9

DO - 10.31234/osf.io/amfj9

M3 - Journal articles

C2 - 38407107

JO - Developmental Psychology

JF - Developmental Psychology

SN - 0012-1649

ER -