title: Speech overlap in Japanese mother-child conversations.
abstract: This study aimed to clarify the development of conversational style in Japanese mother-child interactions. We focused on the frequency of speech overlap as an index of Japanese conversational style, with particular attention to ne, a particle produced by the speaker, and to backchannels, such as 'uh-huh', produced by the listener that support sympathetic conversation. The results of longitudinal observations of two Japanese mother-child dyads from approximately 0;11 to 3;3 suggest that an adultlike conversational style with frequent overlaps emerges in Japanese child-directed speech around the two-word utterance period, and a child's development of ne use is closely related to this shift.
authors.affiliation: NTT Communication Science Laboratories, NTT Corporation, Kyoto, Japan.
authors.forename: Sachiyo
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kajikawa
authors.forename: Shigeaki
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Amano
authors.forename: Tadahisa
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kondo
mesh_terms: D002663:Child Language; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003142:Communication; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007804:Language Development; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D009034:Mother-Child Relations; D014705:Verbal Behavior