Hampson J, Nelson K
University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, Piscataway.
J Child Lang. 1993 Jun;20(2):313-42. doi: 10.1017/s0305000900008308.
The main thrust of this paper is to question whether in earlier studies the 'motherese hypothesis' has been adequately tested. The present study first explores concurrent relations between maternal and child language at an early age, using the Snyder, Bates & Bretherton (1981) questionnaire to assess vocabulary at 1;1. With a large sample of 45 subjects, videotaped at 1;1 and 1;8, it was possible to analyse earlier talkers separately from later talkers. The results indicate pre-existing differences between the mothers of earlier and later talkers as early as 1;1--some 5 months before other studies have examined the possible facilitative effects of 'motherese'. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, when the sample was divided according to stylistic preference at 1;8, several associations between maternal language at 1;1 and MLU at 1;8 emerged for the non-expressive group which were non-existent for the expressive group. These results imply that earlier studies may have been looking for the effectiveness of maternal input too late. Moreover, it may continue to be difficult to demonstrate consistent effects of child-directed speech as long as researchers continue to ignore individual differences in style of language acquisition.
本文的主要目的是质疑在早期研究中“妈妈语假说”是否得到了充分验证。本研究首先探讨了幼儿期母婴语言之间的同步关系，使用斯奈德、贝茨和布雷瑟顿（1981）的问卷来评估1岁1个月时的词汇量。通过对45名受试者的大样本进行1岁1个月和1岁8个月时的录像，得以将说话早的孩子的母亲与说话晚的孩子的母亲分开进行分析。结果表明，早在1岁1个月时，说话早的孩子的母亲和说话晚的孩子的母亲之间就存在差异——比其他研究考察“妈妈语”可能的促进作用的时间早约5个月。其次，也许更重要的是，当根据1岁8个月时的风格偏好对样本进行划分时，对于非表达型组，1岁1个月时的母亲语言与1岁8个月时的平均语句长度（MLU）之间出现了几种关联，而表达型组则不存在这些关联。这些结果意味着早期研究可能在太晚的时候才去探寻母亲语言输入的有效性。此外，只要研究人员继续忽视语言习得风格上的个体差异，可能就难以证明面向儿童的言语具有一致的效果。
