Discourse from Home to School

APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY: AN INTERNATIONAL REVIEW, 1988.37 (4) 39-

Discourse from Home to School

Rita Watson and Jon Shapiro University of British Columbia, Canada

I1 a ete etabli qu’un style de discours oral est associe a un type de scolarite et a une certaine education. Le langage dkcontextualise, ou le langage scolaire comme il est quelquefois appelt, a ete mis en cause dans I’apprentissage scolaire et dans I’acquisition de la culture. L’etude present& explore les correlations entre le discours parentsxnfants utilisant de bonne heure un langage decontex- tualisk (lecture de livres) et la performance s’ensuivant dans un champ d’attitudes preculturelles et des tlches scolaires. Le choix lexical des parents et des enfants dans le discours sur la lecture de livres est lie a la reussite de tiches formelles telles que definir, et aux attitudes precoces de I’enfant vis-a-vis de I’imprime. II apparait qu’il y a relation entre I’utilisation par les parents et les enfants d’un langage dkcontextualik et les possibilites de reussite scolaire des enfants.

I t has been argued that a style of oral discourse is associated with formal schooling and the uses of literacy. Decontextualised language, or the language of schooling as it is sometimes called, has been implicated in the child’s transition to schooling and acquisition of literacy. A study is presented which explores relations between parent-child discourse in an early decontextualised language context (bookreading) and the child’s subsequent performance on a range of pre-literacy skills and school-related tasks. Parent’s and child’s lexical choice in bookreading discourse is found to be related to the child’s subsequent performance in formal task contexts such as definition, and also to the child’s early concepts about print. It appears that there is a relation between parent- child use of decontextualised language and the child’s subsequent school- related skills.

INTRODUCTION

School Discourse: The Nature and Uses of Literacy

T h e acquisition of literacy has become a major focus of investigation in recent years (Olson, 1986; Teale 8c Sulzby, 1986). Too often this focus h a s

Requests for reprints should be sent to Rita Watson, Faculty of Education, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C.. Canada V6T 1WS. The research reported here was supported by grant #410-85-0576 from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The authors also gratefully acknowledge the co-operation and support of The Child Study Centre and The Centre for Curriculum and Instruction. University of British Columbia.

An earlier version of this paper was presented to the 2lst International Congress of Applied Psychology, Jerusalem. July 1986.

~ ~~

a 1988 International Association of Applied Psychology

396 WATSON AND SHAPIRO

been on the acquisition of specific print-related skills. Restricting investiga- tions to such a narrow view of literacy acquisition may not be the most informative or useful approach to the problem. Specific skill acquisition must be related to other bodies of knowledge about literacy, such as social and cultural differences in its acquisition, its importance in school achievement and its resistance to scholastic remediation (Snow, 1983). This suggests that when we restrict our study of the acquisition of literacy and its consequences to the developmental acquisition of print-related skills we may overlook critical socio-cultural and sociolinguistic factors. In short, a coherent theoretical framework for viewing the inter-relatedness of the cognitive and socio-cultural aspects of the development and acquisition of literacy is required.

Children acquire literacy skills in our culture within a complex matrix of cultural practices, both at home and at school. The acquisition by thechild of alphabetic literacy (reading), may not be simply a consequence of reading instruction at school. Rather i t may also be related to acquiring the oral discourse skills associated with literacy and schooling (Heath, 1983; Scollon & Scollon, 1981). The attitudes and language of the home, which have been found to vary across subcultural groups and to have an impact on literacy and school achievement (Bernstein, 1972; Heath, 1983; Labov, 1972; Wells, 1981), may be implicated in the child's successful transition to literacy and schooling. On this view, the child's acquisition of literacy could not fully, or even mainly, be explained by a model that appeals solely to the history of confrontations between the individual child's cognitive structure and a perceptual array of symbols representing the language (print). Such confrontations are mediated in powerful ways by the simultaneous uses of language to which the child is being exposed. This view does not deny the importance of print-related skills in successful acquisition of literacy by the child, nor does i t obviate exploration of such skills. I t does suggest, however, the necessity of relating specific skill acquisition to the uses of language they embody. and to the contexts of their acquisition.

A number of theorists have advanced the notion of a style of language characteristic of formal schooling, distinguished by uses of language specific 10 texts and the abstract forms of knowledge they represent (Bruner, 1986; Bruner Rr Olson, 1978; Olson, 1983). Schooling on the western literate model had been said to engender this distinctive style of discourse, which is also variously referred to as "decontextualised" (Olson, 1977; Snow, 1983) or "disembedded" (Donaldson. Grieve, & Pratt, 1983). tises of the language of schooling are primarily the recasting of tacit, unexpressed knowledge into expressible forms amenable to logical-theoretical enquiry. This process is related to the development of metacognitive ability, or knowledge ahoui what one knows. The functions of the language of schooling are bound up with the opaque quality of text, and with reflective-analytic modes of

DISCOURSE FROM HOME TO SCHOOL 397

thought. If the acquisition of literacy is in some way related to learning particular uses of language, it is this style that is most strongly implicated.

Home Discourse: Parent-Child Bookreading

Snow (1983) has argued that bookreading between parent and child typifies the kind of decontextualised language referred to earlier as “the language of schooling”. Exploration of this issue has remained fairly theoretical. Snow and Ninio (1986) have recently advanced the argument that the “contracts of literacy” entered into by parent and child in bookreading episodes may be propaedeutic to the child’s acquisition of literacy. The term “contracts” reflects the notion that children’s induction into literacy via bookreading with their parents depends on the learning of a complex set of rules for interacting with text, and not just learning the skills of decoding print. The “contracts” include the distinctions between the representations of objects, the objects themselves, and labels; between the structure of events and the structure of narratives; between the world of experience and the “autono- mous fictional world” (Snow & Ninio, 1986). It has been suggested that learning the uses of decontextualised language (Bruner and Olson, 1978; Olson, 1977; Snow, 1983) underlies the child’s induction to literacy. It would thus seem that bookreading discourse should reflect some characteristics of the language of schooling and if there is a relation between home discourse and school discourse, it should be evident here.

The empirical question becomes, what specific features of discourse and what particular categories of skills may be central? Brown ( 1 957) suggested that parents’ choice of words, or labels, reflected their perceptions of the child’s competence and likely contexts of use. Recent attempts to identify language style, or register, also identify lexical choice as one dimension by which style of language can be distinguished (Ferguson, 1983). Lexical choice is thus one useful indicator of language style.

Which lexical items could be expected to be associated with the language of schooling? The use and understanding of internal state words, that is, verbs of cognition and affect, have been identified by a number of researchers as reflecting and engendering metacognition or knowledge about knowledge (Bretherton & Beeghly, 1982; Olson, 1986; in preparation; Olson & Ast- ington, 1986). Verbs of cognition, such as think. know, remember. and the like, express mental states. Their use by the child may imply some rnetacogni- tive awareness, in that one must be aware of a cognitive state in order to refer to i t . While i t is possible for these verbs to occur non-metalinguistically, in formulaic utterances (“I don’t know”), or under conditions where events in the world are not differentiated from mental events, children increasingly come to use them metalinguistically (Olson & Astington, 1986). Metacogni- tive awareness has been strongly implicated in the acquisition of alphabetic


literacy (Brown, 1980; Bruner and Olson, 1978; Downing & Leong, 1982). The presence in bookreading discourse of words that refer to mental states may indicate metacognitive activity on the part of the child; and would certainly indicate a metacognitive bias in parents’ talk. This metacognitive bias in language may be related to the subsequent emergence of literacy in the child.

Words that express affect also refer to inner states, and the child’s use of these words has also been said to figure in their understanding of their own and others’ inner states (Bretherton & Beeghly, 1982). These words are of interest for the same reason that cognitive verbs are. In addition, they may be an indicator of the degree of affective involvement of the parentxhild dyad engaged in bookreading. Words like love, wanr, nice, or yukky in bookreading discourse suggest a level of involvement with the content of bookreading beyond simple information sharing. Verbs of speech such as requests to “tell”, “read”, or “call” representations by name, emphasise the decontextualised aspect of bookreading by referring to the acts of reading, calling and telling. These could also be expected to be related to awareness of the written language, or metalinguistic awareness. For this reason, affect words and speech words may also be related to the subsequent emergence of literacy.

Another domain of lexical choice that is likely to be important is object labels. Labelling is a primary activity of bookreading (Ninio & Bruner, 1978). The level of labelling, i.e. the uses of superordinate Categories (animal), in contrast to basic (cat), or subordinate (tabby) level category labels (Anglin. 1977; Brown, 1957) reflect analytic-logical groupings, as opposed to perceptual or functional groupings. The hierarchical cognitive organisation that they reflect is typical of the language and thought associated with formal, theoretical contexts of education (Bruner, 1986). Preference for logical or superordinate category terms in discourse may also then be a source of continuity between the bookreading language of parent and child, and the logical-analytic discourse of schooling.

The foregoing comprise aspects of parent+hild discourse that could be expected to demonstrate continuities with the formal discourse of schooling. The claim was made earlier that the child’s acquisition of literacy skills is related to experience with these formal or decontextualised language skills which have been associated with literacy. I t was also pointed out that isolating the effects of language, or any single specific factor, in the child’s acquisition of literacy is next to impossible in a culture where the child is subject to a range of practices and experiences motivated by literacy. The exposure to print in formal educational contexts is only one factor, and one that emerges comparatively late in the child’s development.

The present study proposed to explore whether the categories of lexical choice used by parents and children in bookreading discourse are related to the child’s early literacy skills, and to formal tasks that exemplify the


language and thought associated with formal schooling. If such a relationship were found, further exploration of links between discourse in the home, and the patterns of socia1 interaction and cognitive activity that it reflects, and the child’s successful transition to literacy and formal schooling would be called for.

Many diverse skills have been referred to as comprising “metalinguistic awareness”, including conventions of bookreading (Clay, 1976) and school- based literacy instruction (Downing & Oliver, 1974). The acquisition of these skills has been the focus of much reading research. But measures that focus on children’s judgements about printed texts differ from those that focus on children’s judgement about language; hence we have used the term metaliteracy skills to distinguish them from more general “metalinguistic” skills. The major issue centring around metaliteracy skills is the validity of the measures and the tasks in which the children are requested to engage. A review of commonly used research measures led to a selection of tasks described later in this paper.

Finally, three logical category tasks will be administered. These are word definitions, long known to be predictors of IQ and school achievement (Sattler, 1982; Wechsler, 1974) and strongly associated with literacy (Bruner & Olson, 1978; Greenfield & Bruner, 1966; Luria, 1976; Scribner & Cole, 1981; Snow, 1983). The critical feature of definition skill is the use of the superordinate category term in the expression of the word’s meaning. But the child may know the category term, and simply not realise that it is required in this task. Therefore, the child’s receptive language knowledge of these terms and the child’s non-verbal preference for logical category organisation is also explored. These three measures of logical category organisation in the child will be compared with the frequency of hierarchical label use in parent-child bookreading. This should indicate whether the features of home discourse identified earlier are related to linguistic and cognitive organisation associated with formal schooling. The following study thus explores whether features of talk that could be expected to be associated with the language of schooling are related to measures of rnetaliteracy and school-related skills in pre-school children.

METHOD

Procedure

Twenty parentxhild dyads ( I 7 mothers, 3 fathers) were videotaped reading books with their children. The children were all enrolled in a toddler class at a university-based pre-school, which attracts middle to upper middle-class parents, and in most cases at least one parent is university-educated. The children’s age range was 2 years, 3 months to 3 years, 2 months (mean 2


years, 7 months). The tapings were done before, after or during the child's typical morning session at the pre-school centre, in a separate room designed specifically for the study. Participation was voluntary. The parents were asked to bring a favourite book (these usually had extended written text) and two additional types of books were supplied. One was a standard picture book filled with pictures of animals, the other was a picture book with cut- out profile pages showing a frog travelling through the jungle. Thus, three "text types", or genres, were available for each child, although not all children agreed to read all three books.

Taping was done in two separate sessions with no more than one month between sessions, and selected portions of the tapes were transcribed. Criteria for transcription were (1) one full episode, or at least five minutes of an episode (where the episode was lengthy) of each type of book read, and ( 2 ) of the two taping sessions, the episodes in which the most interactive dialogue occurred was selected. Operationally, this was "frequency of child's utterances"; since the parents universally had high utterance frequenciss. These criteria yielded a corpus of around 6500 utterances across the 20 dyads.

The features of discourse targeted in this analysis as already discussed, was lexical choice. The words of interest are of two general types: ( I ) menial sfate wordr: cognitive verbs such as know, remember, think, understand, etc; affect words such as like, love, want, etc; and verbs of speech such as call, tell, say, read, etc; ( 2 ) level of labels: basic level, subordinate level or superordinate level t e r m (cf. Anglin, 1977; Brown, 1957). The children were tested in their subsequent year at the preschool (mean C.A. 3 years, 2 months) on the dependent measures described here.

Description of Dependent Measures

I . Superordinate Category Word DeJiniiion. In this task, children are asked to define common nouns. Procedures are identical to standardised tests of vocabulary, in which children are asked, "What is a(n) X?", where X is the word being defined. A single probe, "Tell more about X", is given if the child gives a single word or very short response. The number of superordinate category responses is scored.

2. The Receptive Language Category Knoudedge task tests children's receptive language knowledge of the superordinate category terms related to the target definition words. Target and foil receptive language questions are balanced for order of presentation and question type, e.g.: A: Category.

B: Function.

1. Is a cat an animal? (target) 2 . Is a cat a plant? (foil) I . Does a flower grow? (target) 7 . Does a flower eat food? (foil)


3 . The Non-verbal Superordinate Category Preference task tests children's non-verbal category organisation. Children are presented with a series of triadic displays of pictures of familiar objects. The target is presented with a categorical associate and a thematic associate. An example is: target picture = cow; categorical associate = horse (animal); thematic associate =milk (milk comes from cows). This is typical of tasks used in the developmental literature (Markman & Callanan, 1984). The child's choice of which object is most ''like'' the other is taken as an indication of relative strength of categorical organisation of knowledge. (This task is administered prior to tasks 1 and 2 above, to avoid any priming effect of the language tasks.)

4. The Identification of Written Language test and the Mow-Motorcycle test were two subtests of the original battery of the Written Language Awareness Test (Evans, Taylor, & Blum, 1979). This test has established reliability and has been reported elsewhere in the research literature (Taylor, Blum, & Logsdon, 1986).

4a The Oral- Written Word Discrimination Task or the Mow-Motorcycle test, so named for the first stimulus item pair, measures understanding of spoken and written codes. Specifically, i t examines the understanding that the spoken word is a cue to the length of the written word. I t has been speculated (Rozin, Bressman, & Taft, 1974) that this task taps awareness of the basic relationship between speech and print. Each subject is presented with eight sets of two words. The pairs of words begin with the same letter but differ in length. The subject is asked to point to one word spoken by the examiner. Items are counter-balanced by length of target word and position of long and short word on each card.

4b. The Identlfication of Written Language test assesses children's ability to discriminate writing from non-meaningful marks. Each subject is presented with a series of twelve cards. There are four sets of three cards which display manuscript writing, cursive script, geometric shapes, and letter-like forms. The child is asked to separate the messages in real writing from the non-meaningful marks.

5. The Concepts About Print test (Clay, 1976) was designed to measure young children's knowledge of print-related concepts. The test consists of a children's picturejstory book (Sand or Stones) which is read to the subject. While the examiner is reading the story, the subject is asked 24 questions which assess knowledge of various print-related concepts. A factor-analysis of the 24 items (Day & Day, 1979) yielded four patterns thought to be acquired sequentially. These are (a) book orientation concepts such as front of book, left before right; (b) print-direction concepts such as print goes from left to right and then one makes a return sweep; (c) letter-word concepts such as capital/lower case letters; and (d) advanced print concepts such as letter/word order and punctuation.


Each of these was analysed separately, together with a global score. Statistical data on this measure have reported reliabilities which have ranged from 0.73 to 0.95 (Clay, 1972). Internal consistency scores ranging from 0.76 to 0.86 have also been reported (Johns, 1980). The Concepts About Print test is the only measure of this type which has reported reliability scores and is frequently used in research regarding young children's literacy development.

Analyses

Each utterance in the bookreading discourse sample was coded by speaker (parent or child), and then coded for instances of three verb types-cognitive, affective, and speech; and three levels of labels-superordinate, basic and subordinate, as already described. This procedure yielded frequencies within each coded category that could not be easily compared across subjects, as each subject had produced a different number of utterances, and therefore had had a different number of opportunities to produce a given lexical type. For this reason, proportions were calculated: number of tokens within each coding category expressed as a proportion of speaker's total utterances. This allowed comparability across the speakers.

The proportional scores were calculated within each test type, or genre, as different speech patterns were evident with different kinds of books. For example, when reading books of their own selection, many of the parents' utterances were determined by characteristics of the text, and less interactive dialogue occurred. The mean of the three within-genre proportions yielded a single proportional score for each speaker on each coded variable.

The degree of relation between the dependent measures and the scores representing parent's and child's lexical choice in discourse was calculated using Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients. The results are presented in Tabies 1 and 2.

RESULTS

The analysis of level of labels yielded a clear pattern of significant results. Table I shows that the child's use of superordinate category labels in bookreading discourse (at age 2 years. 7 months) is positively correlated with the expression of superordinate category terms in definition one year later. This is not too surprising. I f a noun, or label, is in the child's expressive language lexicon, it is likely to turn up in related expressive language contexts. Also, since i t is the only significant correlation between all three levels of labels used by the child and all other measures, it does not seem to indicate a general pattern.

What is more surprising is the correlation between the parent's use of superordinate category labels in bookreading and all three measures of the


TABLE 1 Level of Labels Used by Parents and Children in Bookreading Discourse

Correlated with Dependent Measures

Lpvel o j Lobel

Speaker

Superordinare Basic Subordinare

Child Parenr Child Pareni Child Parenr

I . ? -.

3 .

4 4a.

4b.

5 .

Tasks Superordinate category definitions

Receptive language category know ledge

Non-verbal superordinate category preference

Wrirren language anareness Oral-written word discrimination (Mow-Motorcycle)

Identification of written language

Concepts about print (Total score) i . Book orientation

i i . Print direction i i i . Letter-word iv. Advanced print concepts

0.47’ 0.55‘

0.17 0.63h

0.06 0.39

0.1 I -0.01

-0.28 -0.24

0.14 0.10 0.22 -0.04

-0.01 0.04 0.25 0.30

-0.09 -0.01

0.14

0.36

- 0.03

-0.11

- 0.26

-0.18 0.04

- 0.27 -0.12 -0.12

- 0.06

0.20

-0.15

0.23

-0.36

- 0.08 -0.18 - 0.23

0.29 0. I4

0.39

0.02

0.0 I

- 0.33

-0.18

- 0.34 - 0.26 - 0.38 - 0.09 -0.07

0.03

0.02

0.30

-0.13

-0.02

-0.13 - 0.30 - 0.2 I

0.22 0.24

‘ P 4 0.05. A P40.01.

child’s categorical organisation-expressive (definition), receptive and cognitive. This suggests a relation between parents’ lexical choice and the child’s subsequent performance on tasks that measure aspects of the child’s categorical preferences. No other level of label was found to be significantly correlated with the other tasks, and label choice does not appear to be correlated with any of the measures of print concepts or written language awareness.

Table 2 shows that both the child’s and parents’ use of cognitive verbs are positively correlated with all measures of the child’s categorical organisation, with the exception of the child’s verb usage and receptive language category knowledge. The child’s use of cognitive verbs thus seems to be related to both expressive and underlying categorical organisation. However, there was a narrow range of tokens in this category of lexical choice by the children. Many instances of cognitive verbs in the child’s speech at this early age are accounted for by the verb “know” in the formulaic response ‘‘I don’t know”, given after parent’s questions probing the child’s knowledge. Interpretations

I 9

3

4 4d

4b

5

. ... . . ~ ~

-


TABLE 2 Types of Mental State and Speech Words Used by Parents and Children

in Bookreading Discourse Correlated with Dependent Measures

Word Tj.pe Cognirive .4 ffecrive Speech

Speaker Child Parent Child Parenr Child Parent

Tasks Superordinate category definitions

Receptive language categor) knowledge

Yon-verbal superordinate category preference

Wrrrten language ab$areness Oral-written word d i rnminat ion ( Mow- M o t orcycie)

Identification of wntten language

Concepts about pnnt (Total score) i Book onenration

i i Print direction i i i Letter-word I V 4dLan-d print concepts

0 4 9 046 ' -

0 2 7 043'

0 67' 0 33-

.0.1?. -0.03

0 01 -0 .24

0 I ? -0.09 0 10 -0.21 008 -0.21 0 I I 0.25 0.07 0.20

. O O R -

0 08

0 51'

0 14

0 2 2

0 13' 0 36 0 19 0 46' 0 77f

. 0 0 9 0 2 1

0 3 5 003

0 2 0 0 18

0 0 5 - 0 3 6

0 1 2 0 2 1

037' 039 0 2 2 - 0 16 046" 0 2 5 0 3 7 046 ' 0 17 062'

0 4 9

0 39

0 13

0 09

0 01

0 32 0 10 0 20 0 46 0 31

' P<O 05 ' P G O 01

P$O 001

put on this result must therefore be somewhat tentative. The negative correlation between children's use of cognitive verbs and the oral-written word discrimination task, which is an isolated finding that does not f i t in with an overall pattern, also suggests caution in the interpretation of this particular category of lexical choice by the child.

However, parent's use of cognitive verbs displayed a wide range of tokens including k n o ~ , , rhink, remember, understand. guess. etc. The correlation of this verb type with the child's subsequent performance thus becomes very interesting. I t appears that parents' use of cognitive verbs, that is, verbs that express or refer to mental states. is related to the child's subsequent performance on school-related tasks. The implication of this and the following findings are discussed later.

Table 2 also illustrates correlations between the use of affective verbs in bookreading discourse, particularly by the child, and subsequent task performance. This suggests that a relation exists between the child's verbally

DISCOURSE FROM H O M E TO SCHOOL 405

expressed affect in bookreading contexts and subsequent acquisition of print- related skills. However, the degree to which lexical expression reflects affective involvement during bookreading is not clear. Two-year-olds express affect in many ways other than lexicalisation and this finding may not indicate a relation between affective involvement between parent and child on the occasion of reading a text, and subsequent acquisition of print concepts. Still, it may be significant that the lexicalisation of internal affective states by children, and to a lesser extent by parents, shows this pattern of results. The relation between the child’s use of speech verbs and print concepts, also shown in Table 2, reflects a relation between children’s requests to the parent to “read”, “tell”, or “call” when confronted with text, and later measures of acquisition of print concepts. Finally, the relation between parent’s use of speech verbs and the child’s expressive category knowledge in definition suggests that parents’ requests to the child to ‘‘tell”, “call”, or “say” is related to the child’s subsequent expressions of category knowledge in a school-type task, although this, again, is the only significant correlation in that category of parent’s lexical choice.

DISCUSSION A N D CONCLUSIONS

The question raised at the outset of this study was the degree to which features of parent-child bookreading discourse, said to reflect decontextualised language use in the home (Snow, 1983). are related to measures of metalinguistic, cognitive, and metaliteracy skills. The question is premised on claims that literacy, and the linguistic and cognitive skills that have been identified with the acquisition of literacy in formal school contexts, may be related to the forms of discourse with which the child has become familiar in the home (Heath, 1983; Scollon & Scollon, 1981; Snow, 1983). Specifically, we explored whether lexical choice in bookreading discourse between literate parents and pre-literate children, in lexical categories that reflect the logical- analytic categories of the language of schooling, were related to the measures already described of the child’s performance.

The finding of a relation between parents’ use of cognitive verbs and the dependent measures of categorisation support the claim (Olson, 1986; Olson & Astington, 1986) that use of mental state words is related to higher level cognitive organisation. Specifically, i t is argued that there is a relation between mental state words and metacognitive development. Here, a relation is found between parent’s use of cognitive verbs and the child’s logical- category organisation. This finding suggests that use of mental state words by the parent is related to the emergence of logical-analytic cognitive organisation typical of educational contexts (Bruner, 1986). Although a relation between parent’s use of these terms and the child’s subsequent performance does not constitute evidence for a causal argument, i t is not an

P )7:4-G


insignificant finding. First, a relation that appears robust across three task contexts is not likely to be spurious. Second, if any directionality of effect exists, the literature suggests i t is likely to be in the direction from parent to child (Bruner, 1983; Snow & Ferguson, 1977). Third, language is only one, measurable indicator of a pattern of interaction that may be going on between parent and child. Leong (personal communication, July 1986) suggested that i t is the dyad, rather than the parent per se, that is important, as parent and child would influence each other’s lexical choices. I t may be the parent’s greater level of linguistic skill (compared with a two-and-a-half- year-old child) that yields more predictable correlations for the parent’s language than the child’s on this discourse variable, and also the superordinate category label variable, across the three dependent measures.

The only systematic set of correlations with the metaliteracy measures was found between children’s use of affect and speech words, and their print concepts, especially advanced print concepts. As mentioned. both of these variables could reflect the level of the child’s involvement or interest in the bookreading activity. Use of affect words is indicative of affective inner states (Bretherton & Beeghly, 1982); thus i t is not unreasonable to suggest that their use here reflects affective involvement with the content of the bookreading dialogue. Similarly speech verbs reflect children’s requests for parents to read, to tell the story, or request for labels (e.g. what is this called?) and this type of utterance suggests active involvement on the part of the child in the boo kreading activity .

The pattern of correlations for the child also included one between superordinate category expressions in both bookreading discourse and word definitions. This illustrates a continuity in the child’s expressive language between home and school-like discourse contexts. However, words that are in the child’s vocabulary are likely to occur in both of two expressive language contexts. The strong relation between the child’s use of words of affect and speech with print concepts, particularly advanced print concepts, interpreted earlier as reflecting the level of the child’s involvement with the bookreading activity, cannot be explained by simply appealing to the child’s expressive vocabulary. I t suggests that the pattern of discourse in bookreading reflects some form of cognitive and/or linguistic activity that is related to the later emergence of print-related skills.

This is also suggested in the finding that the child’s use of cognitive words, such as know and remember. are related to the child’s expressive and non- verbal category knowledge. This finding, however, is difficult to interpret in light of the negative correlation with the oral-written word discrimination task, since i t does not seem to indicate a coherent pattern. This inconsistency is attributed to the majority of cognitive words in the child’s discourse occurring in formulaic utterances such as “ I don’t know”, which do not indicate true metacognitive use of the terms (Olson & Astington, 1986).

DISCOURSE FROM H O M E TO SCHOOL 407

The overall findings indicate some relation between the child’s lexical choice in bookreading discourse and his/her later school- and literacy-related skills. Lexical choice by the child may reflect the requirements of the discourse context, or of interaction with the parent or of the books, but, in any case, must be based on the child’s linguistic and cognitive capabilities. The relation between lexical choice by the child and the dependent measures may mean that the same capabilities underlie both the discourse measures and the dependent measures. Still, the findings indicate a relation between the child’s oral language in bookreading discourse and formal measures of school- and literacy-related skills.

More surprising is the robust relationship of parenfs’ use of analytic (superordinate category terms) and metacognitive (cognitive verb) lexical categories with the child’s subsequent skill with superordinate category word definition, receptive language category knowledge and non-verbal superordinate category preference in a picture-sort task. This suggests that the emergence in the child of hierarchical categorical organisation, identified with both the language and thought of formal educational contexts (Bruner, 1986) is related to the use by the parent of words encoding categories and mental states. Again, one cannot infer a causal relation. Lexical choice by the parent must be interpreted with the same caveats that apply to children’s lexical choice outlined earlier. Intervening variables within the parent and requirements of the dyadic interaction may also influence the parent’s choice of words. The pattern of these relations strongly suggests an effect of parent’s language, or whatever may underlie the particular features of parent’s language measured here, and the child’s subsequent school- and literacy- related skills.

The inferences that can be drawn from correlational evidence are limited. Particularly with natural language data, i t is difficult to say whether it is in fact lexical choice, or the particular categories of lexical choice coded here, that underlies the observed relation, and not some intervening psycholinguis- tic, cognitive or social-interaction variable that may influence or determine lexical choice. However, while no claim about directionality or causality can be made, a pattern of significant correlations was observed between parent’s and child’s lexical choice in bookreading, and the child’s subsequent school- related skills. What is most surprising is that parent’s lexical choice should be related in this way. Minimally, i t seems clear that a relation exists between parent-child bookreading discourse, or decontextualised discourse in the home, and some of the child’s subsequent school-related and literacy skills.

This suggests that the child’s introduction to the language of schooling may begin long before school, and possibly from even earlier stages of enculturation than those explored by the current study. The ways in which the child’s early confrontations with text are structured in bookreading discourse with the parent appear to be related to measures of skills associated


with schooling. Thus, while certain features of the language of schooling, such as abstractness and explictness, have led it to be characterised as "decontextualised", it is in another respect highly contextualised in the forms of discourse observed between parent and child in a literate culture. Early experiences with this form of discourse may play a role in engendering skills which have been associated with schooling and literacy.

M a n u r n p t received May 1987 Revixd manuscnpt received September 1987

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Discourse from Home to School