Exploración de las creencias maternas en torno al proceso de adquisición del lenguaje

Abstract

This paper presents a piece of research on language socialization and one aspect of its developmental niche: beliefs on language acquisition sustained by two generations of Mexican mothers in the Northwest region. The participant roles attributed to infant, as a speaker or a hearer, are explored, the interlocutive space conceded to children, and the features believed to mark child directed speech. The conception that emerges as dominant in this exploration supposes that mother is the child’s interlocutive-center and preferred interlocutor, mother is considered to mediate and regulate child's insertion and participation in family interaction. Mothers value differentiallyc hildren’s activities as a speaker over his hearer activities, and recognize a particular type of speech directed to children (habla chipilona), which is characterized in terms of a marked intonation (soft, low, sweet) and an affective function. They tend to give a negative value to a more adapted type of speech directed to children involving segmental and lexical changes, that some grand - mothers say to use. The distribution of this set of beliefs seems to be in a process of expansion; and pushing back a conception less favorable to credit the child with early communicativ e activities, less favorable to introduce the child in the interaction outside the family members and more akin to use a highly adapted —child's imitative— speech to children.