Lithuanian and russian child-directed speech: Why do we ask young children so many questions?

Abstract

The main objective of the study was to identify and compare the variety and distribution of interrogatives in Lithuanian and Russian child-directed speech (CDS) from the perspective of the functional and structural characteristics of questions addressed to young children. The analysis was based on the longitudinal data of two monolingual typically developing children, a Lithuanian girl (2;0-2;8) and a Russian boy (2;0-2;8). The transcribed corpus of conversations between the children and their parents was annotated for multipurpose automatic linguistic analysis, using tools of the program CHILDES (Child Language Data Exchange System). During the investigation, the functional and structural features of parental interrogatives were analysed. After the analysis of conversations between the children and their parents, the following can be stated: in both Lithuanian and Russian CDS, interrogatives are more numerous than imperatives, statements and exclamations. A number of parental interrogatives are used (similar to natural adult conversation) as requests for information, clarifications of incomprehensible utterances or demonstrations of disagreement. Despite this, the majority of them appear to be used for a very specific purpose (e.g., negative evidence) and in specific forms (e.g., repetitions, reformulations or corrections), which would be inappropriate and/or redundant in a natural adult conversation. With the exception of a few differences, interrogatives in both Lithuanian and Russian CDS are generally used for the same purpose, and their forms and structures seem to be similar or even identical. This leads us to the conclusion that a correlation can be identified between parental conversational strategy and the type of language, i.e., adults speaking typologically, culturally and geographically close languages demonstrate the same or similar strategy of conversation with their children.