Language use in mother-child and young sibling interactions in Senegal

A large number of studies conducted in a European or North American setting have shown that siblings and preschool-age children offer the young child a less responsive language model than the mother does. By looking at the participation of young Wolof children from Senegal in dialogical interaction with an adult or an older child, the present study was aimed at drawing up a table of the situations that give rise to the first conversational activities of Wolof children, and at analysing the support provided to the child by adults and older siblings. Ten children between the ages of 21 and 27 months were observed in interaction with an adult and/or an older sibling (ranging in age between 3 years 6 months and 10 years) in their usual life environment. An essential characteristic of this environment is the existence of polyadic communication. In this polyadic setting, the adult appears to impel the child into joint action and multi-party dialogue. While older children address toddlers mainly with requests for action, in certain socially codified interactions they prompt the young one to enter into the dialogue. In play situations, however, it is the younger one who manages to introduce or reintroduce topics and whose verbal initiatives are largely taken up by older children. The present observations of interactions between older and younger children suggest that child-to-child speech plays an important role here in the development of communication in the young language learner.