On the linguistic implications of context-bound adult-infant interactions

Abstract

This poster presents a study of the linguistic information potentially available in adult speech directed to 3-month-old infants. The repetitive nature of the speech directed to young infants and the ecological context of the adult-infant natural interaction setting are analyzed in the light of the “Ecological theory of language acquisition” proposed by Lacerda et al. (2004, this volume). The analysis of transcripts of adult-infant interaction sessions suggests that enough information to derive general noun associations may be available as a consequence of the particular context of the adult-infant interactions during the early stages of the language acquisition process.