Style and structure in mother‐child conversations about the past

Abstract

This research examined possible stylistic differences in how mothers structure conversations about the past with their young children. Just as there are different maternal styles for talking about the “here‐and‐now,” which influence children's language development, we explored different maternal styles for talking about the “there‐and‐then,” which might influence children's memory development. Ten mothers and their 30–35‐month‐old children engaged in naturalistic conversations about various past events. Two styles emerged, an elaborative style and a repetitive style. Elaborative mothers talk more than repetitive mothers, they ask more memory questions, and they provide more information about the event under discussion. They are also more likely to elaborate on their previous questions, whereas repetitive mothers tend to simply repeat questions without embellishment. Implications of these two maternal styles for the child's memory development are discussed.