Language Style Matching in Preschooler–Adult Dyads: Associations with Dyad Familiarity and Children’s Age

Borelli, Jessica L.; Klemfuss, J. Zoe; Hollas, Kristen

doi:10.1177/0261927x19853317

Cited by 4 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…We also investigated whether lexical alignment is influenced by conversational partners and observed no difference in the degree of lexical alignment exhibited by the children when interacting with their parents relative to an unfamiliar university student. These findings contrast with previous findings in which younger children (i.e., aged 5 years and below) exhibited more alignment with familiar than unfamiliar partners (e.g., Borelli et al., 2019; Ostashchenko, Deliens, Geelhand, Bertels, & Kissine, 2019; Strapp & Federico, 2000). While there are several potential reasons for these differences, it is possible that, as children get older and are exposed to a wider social circle, they may learn to adapt to the linguistic patterns of the broader community, such as teachers, friends, or strangers, more generally than their primary caregivers.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 99%

“…These studies have been conducted in various conversational settings, such as the home environment (Clark, 2007) and the research laboratory (Schwab & Lew‐Williams, 2016). Additionally, a diverse range of tasks, including toy play (Foushee et al., 2022), interactive games (Leung, Tunkel, & Yurovsky, 2021), and spontaneous conversation (Borelli, Klemfuss, & Hollas, 2019), has been used. Further, children have engaged in interactions with conversational partners who are both familiar (Kunert et al., 2011) and unfamiliar (Girolametto & Weitzman, 2002) to them.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In addition to the conversation task, differences between one's partners may also influence the degree of lexical alignment. For example, some studies have found that adults and preschool children align more with familiar partners (i.e., spouse, caregivers, sibling, and close friends) than with unfamiliar partners (e.g., Borelli et al., 2019; Menshikova, Kocharov, & Kachkovskaia, 2021; Weise, Silber‐Varod, Lerner, Hirschberg, & Levitan, 2021). Whether the type of partner functionally constrains alignment patterns in school‐aged children and adults remains unknown.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Lexical Alignment is Pervasive Across Contexts in Non‐WEIRD Adult–Child Interactions

Chieng,

Wynn,

Wong

et al. 2024

Cognitive Science

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Lexical alignment, a communication phenomenon where conversational partners adapt their word choices to become more similar, plays an important role in the development of language and social communication skills. While this has been studied extensively in the conversations of preschool‐aged children and their parents in Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) communities, research in other pediatric populations is sparse. This study makes significant expansions on the existing literature by focusing on alignment in naturalistic conversations of school‐aged children from a non‐WEIRD population across multiple conversational tasks and with different types of adult partners. Typically developing children aged 5 to 8 years (n = 45) engaged in four semi‐structured conversations that differed by task (problem‐solving vs. play‐based) and by partner (parent vs. university student), resulting in a corpus of 180 conversations. Lexical alignment scores were calculated and compared to sham conversations, representing alignment occurring at the level of chance. Both children and adults coordinated their conversational utterances by re‐using or aligning each other's word choices. This alignment behavior persisted across conversational tasks and partners, although the degree of alignment was moderated by the conversational context. These findings suggest that lexical alignment is a robust phenomenon in conversations between school‐age children and adults. Furthermore, this study extends lexical alignment findings to a non‐WEIRD culture, suggesting that alignment may be a coordination strategy employed by adults and children across diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds.

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Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Lexical Alignment is Pervasive Across Contexts in Non‐WEIRD Adult–Child Interactions

Chieng,

Wynn,

Wong

et al. 2024

Cognitive Science

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“…Misiek et al (2020) report 'robust evidence of children's ability to engage in multi-level linguistic alignment to adult speech from two years old ' (p. 56). Corpora studies have found child-adult language matching on levels of complexity (Dale & Spivey, 2006;Kunert et al, 2011) and function words (Borelli et al, 2019). This coordination may not apply to all parts of language (e.g.…”

Section: Children Adapt Their Speech In Interactionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Parent–toddler play talk: Toddler speech is differentially associated with paternal and maternal speech in interaction

Quigley,

Nixon

2023

First Language

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Children’s speech is influenced by the speech they hear, in particular by the parental speech addressed directly to them. The aim of this study was to analyse toddlers’ speech with their parents and to investigate the influence of specific characteristics of child-directed speech on child speech in real time during mother–child and father–child dyadic interactions. Eighty-four children ( M = 24.11 months, SD = 1.37, 42 girls) and their parents were video-recorded in dyadic freeplay. Parent and child speech was compared on measures of quantity (number of words), quality (vocabulary diversity, proportion, and composition of nouns/verbs) and productivity or complexity. Overall findings reveal very similar speech produced by mothers and fathers with their toddlers and by toddlers with each parent, with the exception of vocabulary diversity patterns. Furthermore, the child-directed speech of mothers and fathers was differently associated with child speech in interaction. Findings suggest that children may be exposed to different lexical sets by mother and father and there may be added value for the child of engaging in separate dyadic interactions with mother and father. Implications for research include sampling child speech across contexts and conversational partners.

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Associations between dyadic language style matching and classroom observations of behaviorally inhibited children's sociability

Sem,

Shakiba,

Rubin

et al. 2024

Social Development

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Children's sociability, the motivation and ability to initiate and maintain social interactions, influences how children navigate their social worlds. When sociability supports interactions, it contributes to social competence and positive social‐emotional outcomes. Although a substantial body of literature characterizes how specific parenting behaviors have an early and lasting influence on children's social development, far fewer studies have considered how characteristics of, and interactions within the parent‐child dyad influence children's sociability. For example, matching affect and behaviors during dyadic interactions may provide insight into children's openness to affiliate, and these interactions provide opportunities to model and practice responses to behavioral and emotional cues common in social interactions. One novel approach to characterizing behavioral matching in dyadic interactions is language style matching (LSM), a linguistic construct characterizing the similarity of subconscious speech patterns (i.e., function words) between members of dyads during social interaction. Although researchers have established links between LSM and other characteristics of the dyad known to influence children's social development (e.g., attachment quality), whether and how LSM predicts children's adaptive sociability among peers is currently unknown. Therefore, we examined the associations between parent‐child LSM and classroom observations of children's sociability among 151 preschoolers with elevated behavioral inhibition. Results indicated that LSM is positively associated with observed sociability in the company of classmates over and above other aspects of the parent‐child relationship (e.g., parenting). Results supported LSM as an indicator of behavioral matching and contributed to the growing body of research that considers the implications of LSM for children's social development.

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Language Style Matching in Preschooler–Adult Dyads: Associations with Dyad Familiarity and Children’s Age

Cited by 4 publications

References 18 publications

Lexical Alignment is Pervasive Across Contexts in Non‐WEIRD Adult–Child Interactions

Lexical Alignment is Pervasive Across Contexts in Non‐WEIRD Adult–Child Interactions

Parent–toddler play talk: Toddler speech is differentially associated with paternal and maternal speech in interaction

Associations between dyadic language style matching and classroom observations of behaviorally inhibited children's sociability

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