Steven Feld and Bambi Schieffelin describe a different kind of socialization among the Kaluli in Papua New Guinea. The Kaluli emphasize the need for the child to learn to use language for practical reasons, to halaido, "hard words." Kaluli adults train their children to do this by telling the child exactly what to say in a particular situation. Word play is considered "bird talk" and discouraged. The Kaluli adults place great importance on correct behavior and early language in- struction is intended to reinforce this behavior. The four approaches to language socialization described in these two chapters are interesting for their similarities and differences:
1.
In Maintown and Roadville and among the Kaluli the adults are very con- cerned about their children's language development and intervene to guide it in the right direction. Trackton adults assume that the children will learn from observation and example; they do not provide explicit instruction.
2.
The Maintown and Roadville children are brought up in the relative isola- tion of single-family homes. The Trackton and Kaluli children spend most of their time in a wider social context, which includes adults who are not part of their immediate family.
3.
Maintown and Roadville adults interpret very young children's unclear ut- terances. Trackton and Kaluli adults ignore or discourage such utterances.
4.
Roadville and Kaluli adults give specific instructions to children on what to say in particular situations. Maintown adults are more likely to try to elicit the appropriate form from the child. Trackton adults are less concerned about encouraging language development.
5.
Maintown and Trackton adults encourage their children to use language imaginatively and creatively. Roadville and Kaluli adults explicitly discour- age this.
6.
In all four communities the adults pay more attention to what the children are doing with language than to linguistic form.
These two chapters provide a window into the circumstances in which children develop linguistic skills. Chomsky has claimed that children are genetically en- dowed with a language acquisition device that enables them to develop these skills in a predictable manner regardless of the efforts of the adults around them. One of the questions that these chapters raise is: Do they support or refute Chomsky's view?
Language development does not cease at the age of three or four. In their chap- ter, Elinor Ochs, Ruth Smith, and Carolyn Taylor show how family members solve problems by discussing them in a narrative framework. Most accounts of narra- tives deal with the structure of narratives told by a single speaker ( Bauman 1986 ; Johnstone 1990 ; Labov and Waletzky 1967 ; Labov 1981 ). Ochs et al., however, are concerned with co-narration in which the "story" is socially negotiated by the par- ticipants. They show how a story that starts out in one direction can end up with
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Publication Information: Book Title: The Matrix of Language: Contemporary Linguistic Anthropology. Contributors: Donald Brenneis - editor, Ronald K. S. Macaulay - editor. Publisher: Westview Press. Place of Publication: Boulder, CO. Publication Year: 1996. Page Number: 9.
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