Childers Jane B, Vaughan Julie, Burquest Donald A
Trinity University, Department of Psychology, One Trinity Place, San Antonio, TX 78212, USA.
J Child Lang. 2007 May;34(2):199-225. doi: 10.1017/s0305000906007835.
This study examines infants' joint attention behavior and language development in a rural village in Nigeria. Participants included eight younger (1 ;0 to 1 ;5, M age = 1 ;2) and eight older toddlers (1 ;7 to 2;7, M age= 2;1). Joint attention behaviors in social interaction contexts were recorded and coded at two time points six months apart. Analyses revealed that these toddlers were producing more high-level joint attention behaviors than less complex behaviors. In addition, the quality and quantity of behaviors produced by these Nigerian children was similar to those found in other cultures. In analyses of children's noun and verb comprehension and production (in relation to the number of nouns or verbs on a parental checklist), parents reported proportionally more verbs than nouns, perhaps because Ngas has some linguistic characteristics that are similar to languages in which a noun bias is not seen (e.g. Mandarin Chinese). An examination of the interrelations of joint attention and language development revealed that joint attention behaviors were related to both noun and verb development at different times. The set of results is important for understanding the emergence of joint attention in traditional cultures, the comprehension and production of nouns and verbs given the specific linguistic properties of a language, and the importance that early social contexts may have for language development.
本研究考察了尼日利亚一个乡村地区婴儿的共同注意行为和语言发展。参与者包括八名年龄较小的幼儿（1；0至1；5，平均年龄 = 1；2）和八名年龄较大的幼儿（1；7至2；7，平均年龄 = 2；1）。在间隔六个月的两个时间点记录并编码了社交互动情境中的共同注意行为。分析表明，这些幼儿表现出的高水平共同注意行为多于较简单的行为。此外，这些尼日利亚儿童产生的行为的质量和数量与其他文化中的情况相似。在对儿童名词和动词理解与产出的分析中（与父母清单上的名词或动词数量相关），父母报告的动词比例相对名词更多，这可能是因为恩加斯语具有一些与不存在名词偏好的语言（如汉语普通话）相似的语言特征。对共同注意和语言发展的相互关系的考察表明，共同注意行为在不同时间与名词和动词发展均相关。这一系列结果对于理解传统文化中共同注意的出现、鉴于一种语言的特定语言属性对名词和动词的理解与产出，以及早期社会环境对语言发展可能具有的重要性而言具有重要意义。
