Marilyn Shatz
Biographic Data
| ID | 737582 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Marilyn Shatz |
| GIVEN NAMES | Marilyn |
| FAMILY NAME | Shatz |
| SIGNATURE | SHATZ M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Michigan |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 26 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 35 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 26 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1973 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2008 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Maternal uses of non-object terms in child-directed speech: Color, number and time
Non-object terms including color, number and time words pose a challenge for word learning due in part to non-obvious word-referent mappings. Finding early word-word knowledge for such terms, Shatz has suggested that exposure to them in varied conversational contexts might facilitate word-word mappings. To address whether input feasibly carries such information, we examined longitudinal transcripts from the CHILDES database for the frequency and …
The influence of language and socioeconomic status on children's understanding of false belief
Study 1 investigated whether differences in the lexical explicitness with which languages express false belief influence children's performance on standard false belief tasks. Preschoolers speaking languages with explicit terms (Turkish and Puerto Rican Spanish) were compared with preschoolers speaking languages without explicit terms (Brazilian Portuguese and English) on questions assessing false belief understanding either specifically (the thi…
On the adequacy of buzzsaws
For decades, controversy has swirled around the question of whether some kind of innate capacity is required for language to develop normally. Ostensibly, there has been progress over the years on the old ‘nature- nurture’ question. Only the most die-hard theorists would now publicly argue for anything other than some sort of interactionist position. Nonetheless, as Sabbagh & Gelman (S&G) note in their review of The emergence of language , there …
When and how peers give reasons: Justifications in the talk of middle school children
The ability to justify one's beliefs or actions requires linguistic, social, and cognitive skills, including an understanding of the psychological states of others and the negotiation of a socially-sensitive discourse. The production of verbal justifications was examined both quantitatively and qualitatively in eight pairs of eight- to eleven-year-old children whose natural discourse was videotaped, transcribed and coded for justifications. Previ…
The effect of perceptual similarity and linguistic input on children's acquisition of object labels
This study investigated whether and when children establish various semantic relations between old and new words. Fifty two-year-olds were taught labels for objects previously referred to by an overextended term. We found that children were more likely to learn a new label when ( a ) it referred to a new object that was perceptually dissimilar, rather than similar, to a known one, and ( b ) when linguistic information indicated it had an inclusio…
Caregiver speech and children's use of nouns versus verbs: A comparison of English, Italian, and Mandarin
This paper examines naturalistic samples of adult-to-child speech to determine if variations in the input are consistent with reported variations in the proportions of nouns and verbs in children's early vocabularies. It contrasts two PRO-DROP languages, Italian and Mandarin, with English. Naturalistic speech samples from six 2;0 English-, six 1;11 Italian-, and ten 1;10 Mandarin-speaking children and their caregivers were examined. Adult-to-chil…
Linguistic influences on categorization in preschool children: A crosslinguistic study
Research on categorization suggests that information conveyed by language may be a guide for children performing classification tasks. In our study we asked whether differences between languages in linguistic form influence this performance. Thirty-five three- and four-year-old monolingual speakers of Spanish and English, languages differing in the way they encode gender, were tested in their native countries on a classification task of familiar …
Colour term knowledge in two-year-olds: Evidence for early competence
It is commonly believed that colour terms are acquired unusually slowly. However, several recent studies suggest that preschoolers have more colour term knowledge than previously believed. In two studies, we investigated the colour term knowledge of 49 two-year-olds and the influence of schooling on their colour term acquisition. Both studies revealed considerable knowledge in such young children. A longitudinal comparison of children with and wi…
A Toddler's Life
Mothers' social regulatory language to young children in family settings
We investigate the language mothers use to regulate social conduct in family settings with their older (4- to 5-year-old) and younger (2-year-old) children. Samples of spontaneous conversations between British mothers and their children were collected over six months. Twenty-five percent of mothers' child- directed speech was social regulatory, with significantly more such language directed to younger children. Although the most common kind of re…
Laura: A Case for the Modularity of Language
Patterns of language learning-related behaviours: Evidence for self-help in acquiring grammar
Four kinds of language learning-related behaviours (LLRBs) were examined in the home conversations of six English children studied for six months from age 2;0 to 2;6. The speech of the children was coded for the number of times they participated in language lessons, language practice, metalanguage and revisions of prior language. All the children were active and frequent producers of LLRBs, with revisions being observed most commonly. Further ana…
Conversational or communicative skill? A reassessment of two-year-olds' behaviour in miscommunication episodes
Young children's competence in using and responding to clarification requests may reflect their desire to achieve goals through the direction of others rather than knowledge that messages must be understood by another mind. This possibility was addressed by examining miscommunication episodes between children aged 2;6 and their parents in videotaped free play sessions. Although the children generally responded appropriately in form to parental cl…
Effects of language and task on children's patterns of sentence verification and denial
In Experiment 1, the authors investigated whether monolingual Korean-speaking children would perform like Japanese-speaking children on the knowledge-verification task and whether their verification performance, but not that of English-speaking children, would be influence by type of verification task. In Experiment 2, using a denial task with Korean speakers, we further explored the role that language plays in tasks involving verification and ne…
Induction and the acquisition of English auxiliaries: The effects of differentially enriched input
Children aged 2;0 to 2;6 participated in a longitudinal study examining their acquisition of the English auxiliary system following a six-week period in which they were exposed to additional auxiliary input in varying sentence contexts. Groups of children received enrichment utterances with the auxiliary could either in first position in the sentence, in middle position, or in both positions. Children in the front position group were significantl…
Development of conventional object term descriptions
The role of maternal gesturing in conversations with one-year-olds
This study explores the question of whether maternal gestures facilitate aspects of the linguistic or communicative behaviour of young children. Four children aged 1; 4 were videotaped playing with their mothers in an unconstrained free condition, and then again in an ungestured condition in which mothers were instructed not to use their hands while interacting with their children. Results from the two conditions of our study show that though chi…
Interactive devices of two‐year‐old dyads: A twin and nontwin comparison∗
We report here a new method for analyzing patterns of dyad interaction. The method is used to describe the free play of one twin dayd and one nontwin dyad at similar levels of language development who were videotaped twice when the subjects were in their third year. Interactive sequences and their component turns were identified. Microanalysis of all interactive sequences examined both the behavior mode used in each turn (utterance or action) and…
The acquisition of mental verbs: A systematic investigation of the first reference to mental state
‘What says meow?’. The role of context and linguistic experience in very young children's responses to what -questions
Children aged 1; 4 to 1; 6 were asked common what /-questions under four different contextual conditions. The presence of a gesture was found to have a significant effect on the nonverbal components of children's responses, while linguistic sophistication and type of question asked affected vocal responses, but did not produce any consistent effects on nonverbal responses. Results are interpreted as suggesting that, at this early age, gestural in…
Linguistic input and the child's acquisition of language
Developmental Pragmatics
Children's comprehension of their mothers' question-directives
Much of adult communication is carried on at the subtle level of indirect utterance meaning, where the speaker's intent is not literally expressed in his or her utterance. This work investigates the young child's ability to respond appropriately to the intended, as opposed to the literal, meaning of one class of such utterances, requests for action. The data were the responses of five children between 1; 7 and 2; 4 to the direct and indirect requ…
On the development of communicative understandings: An early strategy for interpreting and responding to messages
Aspects of Communicative Interaction
Journal Article Aspects of Communicative Interaction Get access Marilyn Shatz Marilyn Shatz 1Marilyn Shatz is an Assistant Professor in Psychology at the Graduate School, City University of New York Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of Communication, Volume 27, Issue 2, June 1977, Pages 92–97, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.1977.tb01832.x Published: 07 February 2006
On the development of communicative understandings: An early strategy for interpreting and responding to messages
The influence of language and socioeconomic status on children's understanding of false belief
Study 1 investigated whether differences in the lexical explicitness with which languages express false belief influence children's performance on standard false belief tasks. Preschoolers speaking languages with explicit terms (Turkish and Puerto Rican Spanish) were compared with preschoolers speaking languages without explicit terms (Brazilian Portuguese and English) on questions assessing false belief understanding either specifically (the thi…
Linguistic input and the child's acquisition of language
Effects of language and task on children's patterns of sentence verification and denial
In Experiment 1, the authors investigated whether monolingual Korean-speaking children would perform like Japanese-speaking children on the knowledge-verification task and whether their verification performance, but not that of English-speaking children, would be influence by type of verification task. In Experiment 2, using a denial task with Korean speakers, we further explored the role that language plays in tasks involving verification and ne…
The Development of Communication Skills: Modifications in the Speech of Young Children as a Function of Listener
Marilyn Shatz, Rochel Gelman, The Development of Communication Skills: Modifications in the Speech of Young Children as a Function of Listener, Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, Vol. 38, No. 5, The Development of Communication Skills: Modifications in the Speech of Young Children as a Function of Listener (Oct., 1973), pp. 1-38
Aspects of Communicative Interaction
Journal Article Aspects of Communicative Interaction Get access Marilyn Shatz Marilyn Shatz 1Marilyn Shatz is an Assistant Professor in Psychology at the Graduate School, City University of New York Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of Communication, Volume 27, Issue 2, June 1977, Pages 92–97, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.1977.tb01832.x Published: 07 February 2006
Children's comprehension of their mothers' question-directives
Much of adult communication is carried on at the subtle level of indirect utterance meaning, where the speaker's intent is not literally expressed in his or her utterance. This work investigates the young child's ability to respond appropriately to the intended, as opposed to the literal, meaning of one class of such utterances, requests for action. The data were the responses of five children between 1; 7 and 2; 4 to the direct and indirect requ…
On the development of communicative understandings: An early strategy for interpreting and responding to messages
Developmental Pragmatics
Linguistic input and the child's acquisition of language
The acquisition of mental verbs: A systematic investigation of the first reference to mental state
‘What says meow?’. The role of context and linguistic experience in very young children's responses to what -questions
Children aged 1; 4 to 1; 6 were asked common what /-questions under four different contextual conditions. The presence of a gesture was found to have a significant effect on the nonverbal components of children's responses, while linguistic sophistication and type of question asked affected vocal responses, but did not produce any consistent effects on nonverbal responses. Results are interpreted as suggesting that, at this early age, gestural in…
The role of maternal gesturing in conversations with one-year-olds
This study explores the question of whether maternal gestures facilitate aspects of the linguistic or communicative behaviour of young children. Four children aged 1; 4 were videotaped playing with their mothers in an unconstrained free condition, and then again in an ungestured condition in which mothers were instructed not to use their hands while interacting with their children. Results from the two conditions of our study show that though chi…
Interactive devices of two‐year‐old dyads: A twin and nontwin comparison∗
We report here a new method for analyzing patterns of dyad interaction. The method is used to describe the free play of one twin dayd and one nontwin dyad at similar levels of language development who were videotaped twice when the subjects were in their third year. Interactive sequences and their component turns were identified. Microanalysis of all interactive sequences examined both the behavior mode used in each turn (utterance or action) and…
Development of conventional object term descriptions
Induction and the acquisition of English auxiliaries: The effects of differentially enriched input
Children aged 2;0 to 2;6 participated in a longitudinal study examining their acquisition of the English auxiliary system following a six-week period in which they were exposed to additional auxiliary input in varying sentence contexts. Groups of children received enrichment utterances with the auxiliary could either in first position in the sentence, in middle position, or in both positions. Children in the front position group were significantl…
Conversational or communicative skill? A reassessment of two-year-olds' behaviour in miscommunication episodes
Young children's competence in using and responding to clarification requests may reflect their desire to achieve goals through the direction of others rather than knowledge that messages must be understood by another mind. This possibility was addressed by examining miscommunication episodes between children aged 2;6 and their parents in videotaped free play sessions. Although the children generally responded appropriately in form to parental cl…
Effects of language and task on children's patterns of sentence verification and denial
In Experiment 1, the authors investigated whether monolingual Korean-speaking children would perform like Japanese-speaking children on the knowledge-verification task and whether their verification performance, but not that of English-speaking children, would be influence by type of verification task. In Experiment 2, using a denial task with Korean speakers, we further explored the role that language plays in tasks involving verification and ne…
Patterns of language learning-related behaviours: Evidence for self-help in acquiring grammar
Four kinds of language learning-related behaviours (LLRBs) were examined in the home conversations of six English children studied for six months from age 2;0 to 2;6. The speech of the children was coded for the number of times they participated in language lessons, language practice, metalanguage and revisions of prior language. All the children were active and frequent producers of LLRBs, with revisions being observed most commonly. Further ana…
Mothers' social regulatory language to young children in family settings
We investigate the language mothers use to regulate social conduct in family settings with their older (4- to 5-year-old) and younger (2-year-old) children. Samples of spontaneous conversations between British mothers and their children were collected over six months. Twenty-five percent of mothers' child- directed speech was social regulatory, with significantly more such language directed to younger children. Although the most common kind of re…
Laura: A Case for the Modularity of Language
Linguistic influences on categorization in preschool children: A crosslinguistic study
Research on categorization suggests that information conveyed by language may be a guide for children performing classification tasks. In our study we asked whether differences between languages in linguistic form influence this performance. Thirty-five three- and four-year-old monolingual speakers of Spanish and English, languages differing in the way they encode gender, were tested in their native countries on a classification task of familiar …
Colour term knowledge in two-year-olds: Evidence for early competence
It is commonly believed that colour terms are acquired unusually slowly. However, several recent studies suggest that preschoolers have more colour term knowledge than previously believed. In two studies, we investigated the colour term knowledge of 49 two-year-olds and the influence of schooling on their colour term acquisition. Both studies revealed considerable knowledge in such young children. A longitudinal comparison of children with and wi…
A Toddler's Life
The effect of perceptual similarity and linguistic input on children's acquisition of object labels
This study investigated whether and when children establish various semantic relations between old and new words. Fifty two-year-olds were taught labels for objects previously referred to by an overextended term. We found that children were more likely to learn a new label when ( a ) it referred to a new object that was perceptually dissimilar, rather than similar, to a known one, and ( b ) when linguistic information indicated it had an inclusio…
Caregiver speech and children's use of nouns versus verbs: A comparison of English, Italian, and Mandarin
This paper examines naturalistic samples of adult-to-child speech to determine if variations in the input are consistent with reported variations in the proportions of nouns and verbs in children's early vocabularies. It contrasts two PRO-DROP languages, Italian and Mandarin, with English. Naturalistic speech samples from six 2;0 English-, six 1;11 Italian-, and ten 1;10 Mandarin-speaking children and their caregivers were examined. Adult-to-chil…
When and how peers give reasons: Justifications in the talk of middle school children
The ability to justify one's beliefs or actions requires linguistic, social, and cognitive skills, including an understanding of the psychological states of others and the negotiation of a socially-sensitive discourse. The production of verbal justifications was examined both quantitatively and qualitatively in eight pairs of eight- to eleven-year-old children whose natural discourse was videotaped, transcribed and coded for justifications. Previ…
On the adequacy of buzzsaws
For decades, controversy has swirled around the question of whether some kind of innate capacity is required for language to develop normally. Ostensibly, there has been progress over the years on the old ‘nature- nurture’ question. Only the most die-hard theorists would now publicly argue for anything other than some sort of interactionist position. Nonetheless, as Sabbagh & Gelman (S&G) note in their review of The emergence of language , there …
The influence of language and socioeconomic status on children's understanding of false belief
Study 1 investigated whether differences in the lexical explicitness with which languages express false belief influence children's performance on standard false belief tasks. Preschoolers speaking languages with explicit terms (Turkish and Puerto Rican Spanish) were compared with preschoolers speaking languages without explicit terms (Brazilian Portuguese and English) on questions assessing false belief understanding either specifically (the thi…
Psychology (25 works) · Linguistics (18 works) · Language Development and Disorders (17 works) · Developmental psychology (15 works) · Cognitive psychology (12 works) · Computer Science (10 works) · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies (9 works) · Child and Animal Learning Development (8 works) · Reading and Literacy Development (7 works) · Language development (6 works)