Child-Directed Speech Is Infrequent in a Forager-Farmer Population: A Time Allocation Study |
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Authors: | Alejandrina Cristia Emmanuel Dupoux Michael Gurven Jonathan Stieglitz |
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Institution: | 1. LSCP, Département d'études cognitives, ENS, EHESS, CNRS, PSL Research University;2. University of California at Santa Barbara;3. Université Toulouse 1 Capitole |
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Abstract: | This article provides an estimation of how frequently, and from whom, children aged 0–11 years (Ns between 9 and 24) receive one-on-one verbal input among Tsimane forager-horticulturalists of lowland Bolivia. Analyses of systematic daytime behavioral observations reveal < 1 min per daylight hour is spent talking to children younger than 4 years of age, which is 4 times less than estimates for others present at the same time and place. Adults provide a majority of the input at 0–3 years of age but not afterward. When integrated with previous work, these results reveal large cross-cultural variation in the linguistic experiences provided to young children. Consideration of more diverse human populations is necessary to build generalizable theories of language acquisition. |
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