Scaff, Casillas, Stieglitz, Cristia
There
is little systematically collected quantitative empirical data on how much
linguistic input children in small-scale societies encounter, with some
estimates suggesting low levels of directed speech. We report on an
ecologically-valid analysis of speech experienced over the course of a day by
young children (N = 24, 6–58 months old, 33% female) in a
forager-horticulturalist population of lowland Bolivia. A permissive
definition of input (i.e., including overlapping, background, and non-linguistic
vocalizations) leads to massive changes in terms of input quantity, including
a quadrupling of the estimate for overall input compared to a restrictive
definition (only near and clear speech), while who talked to and around a
focal child is relatively stable across input definitions. We discuss
implications of these results for theoretical and empirical research into
language acquisition.