Mothers' control strategies in dyadic mother/child conversations

Conversations combine the exchange of messages with the interchange of the speaker/ listener role. These discourse features were reflected differentially in the language used by mothers and children engaged in dyadic play situations. Differences in the speech patterns of the mothers and children indicated the type of reciprocity engendered by the mothers' social and didactic control strategies. Mothers tended to ensure the maintenance of the conversation and the interchange of the speaker/listener role. The children showed a stronger interest in topic in various ways. The interval of 12 months between the two recording sessions produced certain changes in discourse patterns. These included a decline in the tendency to initiate new topics, and a move toward greater cohesiveness was postulated. Relationships between aspects of mothers' and children's speech were also examined.Some of the work reported in this article was undertaken while the author was in receipt of a postdoctoral award from the Social Science Research Council, London.