11
Language Acquisition and Socialization: Three
Developmental Stories and Their Implications
Elinor Ochs and Bambi B. Schieffelin
This chapter addresses the relationship between communication and culture from the perspective of the acquisition of language and socialization through language. Heretofore the processes of language acquisition and socialization have been considered as two separate domains. Processes of language acquisition are usually seen as relatively unaffected by cultural factors such as social organization and local belief systems. These factors have been largely treated as "context," something that is separable from language and its acquisition. A similar attitude has prevailed in anthropological studies of socialization. The language used both by children and to children in social interactions has rarely been a source of information on socialization. As a consequence, we know little about the role that language plays in the acquisition and transmission of socioculturai knowledge. Neither the forms, the functions, nor the message content of language have been documented and examined for the ways in which they organize and are organized by culture.
Our own backgrounds in cultural anthropology and language development have cd us to a more integrated perspective. Having carried out research on language in several societies (Malagasy, Bolivian, white middle-class American, Kaluli [Papua New Guinea], and Western Samoan), focusing on the language of children and their caregivers in three of them (white middle-class American, Kaluli, Western Samoan), we have seen that the primary concern of caregivers is to ensure that their children are •iblť to display and understand behaviors appropriate to social situations. A major means by which this is accomplished is through language. Therefore, we must examine the language of caregivers primarily for its socializing functions, rather than for only its strict grammatical input function. Further, we must examine the prelinguistic tnd linguistic behaviors of children to determine the ways they are continually and clectively affected by values and beliefs held by those members of society who interact vith them. What a child says, and how he or she says it, will be influenced by local
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cultural processes in addition to biological and social processes that have univei scope. The perspective we adopt is expressed in the following two claims:
1    The process of acquiring language is deeply affected by the process of becom a competent member of a society.
2    The process oř becoming a competent member of society is realized to a la extent through language, by acquiring knowledge of its functions, social dis bution, and interpretations in and across socially defined situations, i.e., throi exchanges of language in particular social situations.
In this chapter, we will support these claims through a comparison of social dei opment as it relates to the communicative development of children in three societ Anglo-American white middle class, Kaluli, and Samoan. We will present spec theoretical arguments and methodological procedures for an ethnographic appro; to the development of language. Our focus at this point cannot be comprehensive, l, .., therefore we will address developmental research that has its interests and roots in language development rather than anthropological studies of socialization.-1
Approaches to Communicative Development
Whereas interest in language structure and use has been a timeless concern, the child as a language user is a relatively recent focus of scholarly interest. This interest has been located primarily in the fields of linguistics and psychology, with the wedding or the two in the establishment of developmental psycholinguistics as a legitimate academic specialization. The concern here has been the relation of language to thought, both in terms of conceptual categories and in terms of cognitive processes (such as perception, memory, recall). The child has become one source for establishing just what that relation is. More specifically, the language of the child has been examined in terms of the following issues:
1    The relation between the relative complexity of conceptual categories and the linguistic structures produced and understood by young language-learning children at different developmental stages.
2    Processes and strategies underlying the child's construction of grammar.3
3    The extent to which these processes and strategies are language universal or particular.4
4    The extent to which these processes and strategies support the existence of a. language faculty.5
5    The nature of the prerequisites for language development.6
6    Perceptual and conceptual factors that inhibit or facilitate language development.
Underlying all these issues is the question of the source of language, in terms of not only what capacities reside within the child but the relative contributions of biology (nature) and the social world (nurture) to the development of language. The relation between nature and nurture has been a central theme around which theoretical positions have been oriented. B. K Skinner's (1957) contention that the child brings relatively little to the task of learning language and that it is through responses to
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cifíc adult stimuli that language competence is attained provided a formulation -at was subsequently challenged and countered by Chomsky's (1959) alternative osition. This position, which has been termed nativist, innatist, rationalist (see í a ttell i-Palmarini 1980), postulates that the adult verbal environment is an in-dequate source for the child to inductively learn language. Rather, the rules and rinciples for constructing grammar have as their major source a genetically deter-lined language faculty:
inauistics, then, may be regarded as that part of human psychology that is concerned with ie nature, function, and origin of a particular "mental organ." We may take UG (Universal rammar) to be a theory of the language faculty, a common human attribute, genetically =>termined, one component of the human mind. Through interaction with the environment, lis faculty of mind becomes articulated and refined, emerging in the mature person as a 'Stem of knowledge of language. (Chomsky 1977:164)
Jt needs to be emphasized that an innatist approach does not eliminate the adult world as a source of linguistic knowledge; rather, it assigns a different role (vis-á-vis the behaviorist approach) to that world in the child's attainment of linguistic competence: The adult language presents the relevant information that allows the child to select from the Universal Grammar those grammatical principles specific to the particular language that the child will acquire.
One of the principal objections that could be raised is that although "the linguist's grammar is a theory of this [the child's] attained competence" (Chomsky 1977:163), there is no account of how this linguistic competence is attained. The theory does not relate the linguist's grammar(s) to processes of acquiring grammatical knowledge. Several psycholinguists, who have examined children's developing grammars in terms of their underlying organizing principles, have argued for similarities between these principles and those exhibited by other cognitive achievements (Bates et al. 1979; Bever 1970).
A second objection to the innatist approach has concerned its characterization of adult speech as "degenerate," fragmented, and often ill formed (McNeill 1966; Miller & Chomsky 1963). This characterization, for which there was no empirical basis, provoked a series of observational studies (including tape-recorded documentation) of the ways in which caregivers speak to their young language-acquiring children (Drach 1969; Phillips 1973; Sachs, Brown, & Salerno 1976; Snow 1972). Briefly, these studies indicated not only that adults use well-formed speech with high frequency but that they modify their speech to children in systematic ways as well. These systematic modifications, categorized as a particular speech register called baby-talk register (Ferguson 1977), include the increased (relative to other registers) use of high pitch, exaggerated and slowed intonation, a baby-talk lexicon (Garnica 1977; Sachs 1977; Snow 1972, 1977b), diminutives, reduplicated words, simple sentences (Newport 1976), shorter sentences, interrogatives (Corsaro 1979), vocatives, talk about the "here-and-now," play and politeness routines - peek-a-boo, hi-good-bye, say "thank you" (Andersen 1977; Gleason &c Weintraub 1978), cooperative expression of propositions, repetition, and expansion of one's own and the child's utterances. Many of these features are associated with the expression of positive affect, such as high pitch and diminutives. However, the greatest emphasis in the literature has been placed on these features as evidence that caregivers simplify their speech in addressing young
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ELINOR OCHS AND BAMBI B. SCHIEFFEUN
children (e.g., slowing down, exaggerating intonation, simplifying sentence strúci and length of utterance). The scope of the effects on grammatical development been debated in a number of studies. Several studies have supported Choms position by demonstrating that caregiver speech facilitates the acquisition of c language-specific features but not those features widely (universally) shared aci languages (Feldman, Goldin-Meadow, $c Gleitman 1978; Newport, Gleitman Gleitman 1977). Other studies, which do not restrict the role of caregiver speed facilitating only language-specific grammatical features (Snow 1977b, 1979), ret that caregivers appear to adjust their speech to a child's cognitive and linguj capacity (Cross 1977}. And as children become more competent, caregivers fewer features of the baby-talk register. Whereas certain researchers have emphasi the direct facilitating role of caregiver speech in the acquisition of language (van Geest 1977), others have linked the speech behavior of caregivers to the caregh desire to communicate with the child (Brown 1977; Snow 1977a, 1977b, 1979) this perspective, caregivers simplify their own speech in order to make themse understood when speaking to young children. Similarly, caregivers employ sev verbal and nonverbal strategies to understand what the child is trying to communicate. For example, the caregiver attends to what the child is doing, where the child is looking, and the child's behavior to determine the child's communicative intentions (Foster 1981; Golinkoff 1983; Keenan, Ochs, & Schieffelin 1976). Further, caregivers often request clarification by repeating or paraphrasing the child's utterance with a questioning intonation, as in Example 1 (Bloom 1973:170):
Example 1
Mother                                                                          Allison (16 mos 3 wks)
(A picks up a jar, trying to open it)                                more wída/p wídô/
q wída/ 3 wídá/ (A holding jar out to M)                                                up/ Mama/ Mama/
Mama ma   a wídä/
What, darling?
Mama Mama s wíds/
Mama wídô/ Mama/ Mama wídá/ Mama/ Mama wídd/
What do you wane Mommy to do?
— h wídš/ a wídšV {A gives jar to M)                                                           -— /here/
(A tries to turn top on jar in M's hand)
Open it up?
Mama/ Mama/ 3 wídš/ up/
Open it? OK. (M opens it)
Examples 1-5 follow transcription conventions in Bloom and Lahey 1978.
In other cases, the caregiver facilitates communication by jointly expressing with the child a proposition. Typically, a caregiver asks a question to which the child supplies the missing information (often already known to the caregiver), as in Example 2 (Bloom 1973:153):
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sŕ2                     Mison
.  fv iVtommy have (M holding cookies) , ',il(;hing for cookie)                                                  cookie/
kii-i OK. Here's a cookie for you ', .„keg cookie; reaching with other hand >vť3rd others in bag)                                                     more/
here's more in here. We'll have it in a little while. 1 picking up bag of cookies)                                        bag/
These studies indicate that caregivers make extensive accommodations to the
lild, assuming the perspective of the child in the course of engaging him or her in
jnversational dialogue. Concurrent research on interaction between caregivers and
relinguistic infants supports this conclusion (Bruner 1977; Bullowa 1979; Lock
978; Newson 1977, 1978; Schaffer 1977; Shotter 1978). Detailed observation of
hite middle-class mother-infant dyads (English, Scottish, American, Australian,
■utch) indicates that these mothers attempt to engage their very young infants
(starting at birth) in "conversational exchanges." These so-called protoconversations
(Bullowa 1979) are constructed in several ways. A protoconversation may take place
when one party responds to some facial expression, action, and/or vocalization of
the other. This response may be nonverbal, as when a gesture of the infant is
"echoed" by his or her mother.
As a rule, prespeech with gesture is watched and replied to by exclamations of pleasure or surprise like "Oh, my my!", "Good heavens!", "Oh, what a big smile!", "Ha! That's a big one!" (meaning a story), questioning replies like, "Are you telling me a story?", "Oh really?",
or even agreement by nodding "Yes" or saying "I'm sure you're right"___A mother evidently
perceives her baby to be a person like herself. Mothers interpret baby behavior as not only intended to be communicative, but as verbal and meaningful. (Trevarthen 1979a:339)
On the other hand, mother and infant may respond to one another through verbal means, as, for example, when a mother expresses agreement, disagreement, or surprise following an infant behavior. Social interactions may be sustained over several exchanges by the mother assuming both speaker roles. She may construct an exchange by responding on behalf of the infant to her own utterance, or she may verbally interpret the infant's interpretation. A combination of several strategies is illustrated in Example 3 (Snow 1977a:12).
Ann (3 mos) (smiles)
Example 3
Mother
Oh what a nice little smile!
Yes, isn't that nice?
There.
There's a nice little smile.
What a nice wind as well!
Yes, that's better, isn't it?
Yes.
Yes.
Yes!
There's a nice noise.
(burps)
(vocalizes)
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ELINOR OCHS AND BAMBI B. SCHIEFFEUN
These descriptions capture the behavior of white middle-class caregivers and turn, can be read for what caregivers believe to be the capabilities and predispo tions of the infant. Caregivers evidently see their infants as sociable and as capable intentionality, particularly with respect to the intentional expression of emotioi and physical states. Some researchers have concluded that the mother, in interpreti an infant's behaviors, provides meanings for those behaviors that the infant vt ultimately adopt (Lock 1981; Ryan 1974; Shorter 1978) and thus emphasize t active role of the mother in socializing the infant to her set of interpretations. Ott approaches emphasize the effect of the infant on the caregiver (Lewis dc Rosenhfu 1974), particularly with respect to the innate mechanisms for organized, purposei action that the infant brings to interaction (Trevarthen 1979b).
These studies of caregivers' speech to young children have all attended to what t child is learning from these interactions with the mother (or caregiver). There h been a general movement away from the search for direct causal links between t ways in which caregivers speak to their children and the emergence of gramm Instead, caregivers' speech has been examined for its more general communícati functions, that is, how meanings are negotiated, how activities are organized and accomplished, and how routines and games become established. Placed within this broader communicative perspective, language development is viewed as one of several achievements accomplished through verbal exchanges between the caregiver and the child.
The Ethnographic Approach
Ethnographic orientation
To most middle-class Western readers, the descriptions of verba! and nonverbal behaviors of middle-class caregivers with their children seem very familiar, desirable, and even natural. These descriptions capture in rich detail what goes on, to a greater or lesser extent, in many middle-class households. The characteristics of caregiver speech (baby-talk register) and comportment that have been specified are highly valued by members of white middle-class society, including researchers, readers, and subjects of study. They are associated with good mothering and can be spontaneously produced with little effort or reflections. As demonstrated by Shatz and Gelman (1973), Sachs and Devin (1976), and Andersen and Johnson (1973), children as young as 4 years of age often speak and act in these ways when addressing small children.
From our research experience in other societies as well as our acquaintance with some of the cross-cultural studies of language socialization8 the general patterns of white middle-class caregiving that have been described in the psychological literature are characteristic neither of all societies nor of all social groups (e.g., all social classes within one society). We would like the reader, therefore, to reconsider the descriptions of caregiving in the psychological literature as ethnographic descriptions.
By ethnographic, we mean descriptions that take into account the perspective of members of a social group, including beliefs and values that underlie and organize their activities and utterances. Ethnographers rely heavily on observations and on
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f rinal and informal elicitation of members' reflections and interpretations as a basis for analysis (Geertz 1973). Typically, the ethnographer is not a member of the group
nder study. Further, in presenting an ethnographic account, the researcher faces the
D|em of communicating world views or sets of values that may be unfamiliar and
strange to the reader. Ideally, such statements provide for the reader a set of
organizing principles that give coherence and an analytic focus to the behaviors
described.
psychologists who have carried out research on the verbal and nonverbal behavior 0f caregivers and their children draw on both methods. However, unlike most ethnographers, the psychological researcher is a member of the social group under observation. (In some cases, the researcher's own children are the subjects of study.) Further, unlike the ethnographer, the psychologist addresses a readership familiar with the social scenes portrayed.
That the researcher, reader, and subjects of study tend to have in common a white middle-class literate background has had several consequences. For example, by and large, the psychologist has not been faced with the problem of cultural translation, as has the anthropologist. There has been a tacit assumption that readers can provide the larger cultural framework for making sense out of the behaviors documented, and, consequently, the cultural nature of the behaviors and principles presented have not been explicit. From our perspective, language and culture as bodies of knowledge, structures of understanding, conceptions of the world, and collective representations are extrinsic to any individual and contain more information than any individual could know or learn. Culture encompasses variations in knowledge between individuals, but such variation, although crucial to what an individual may know and to the social dynamic between individuals, does not have its locus within the individual. Our position is that culture is not something that can be considered separately from the accounts of caregiver-child interaction; rather, it is what organizes and gives meaning to that interaction. This is an important point, as it affects the definition and interpretation of the behaviors of caregivers and children. How caregivers and children speak and act toward one another is linked to cultural patterns that extend and have consequences beyond the specific interactions observed. For example, how caregivers speak to their children may be linked to other institutional adaptations to young children. These adaptations, in turn, may be linked to how members of a given society view children more generally (their "nature," their social status and expected comportment) and to how members think children develop.
We are suggesting here that the sharing of assumptions between researcher, reader, and subjects of study is a mixed blessing. In fact, this sharing represents a paradox of familiarity. We are able to apply without effort the cultural framework for interpreting the behavior of caregivers and young children in our own social group; indeed, as members of a white middle-class society, we are socialized to do this very work, that is, interpret behaviors, attribute motives, and so on. Paradoxically, however, in spite of this ease of effort, we can not easily isolate and make explicit these cultural principles. As Goffman's work on American society has illustrated, the articulation of norms, beliefs, and values is often possible only when faced with violations, that is, with gaffes, breaches, misfirings, and the like (Goffman 1963, 1967; Much & Shweder 1978).
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Another way to see the cultural principles at work in our own society k examine the ways in which other societies are organized in terms of social inter rion and of the society at large. In carrying out such research, the ethnograp} offers a point of contrast and comparison with our own everyday activities. $u comparative material can lead us to reinterpret behaviors as cultural that v,v f1;) assumed to be natural. From the anthropological perspective, every society will |1;) its own cultural constructs of what is natural and what is not. For example, c\\ society has its own theory of procreation. Certain Australian Aboriginal societ believe that a number of different factors contribute to conception. Von Si ürn (1980) writes that among the Kugu-Nganychara {West Cape York Peninsula. -\i tralia) the spirit of the child may first enter the man through an animal that he has killed and consumed. The spirit passes from the man to the woman through sexual intercourse, but several sexual acts are necessary to build che child (see also Hamilton 1981; Montagu 1937). Even within a single society there may be different beliefs concerning when life begins and ends, as the recent debates in the United States and Europe concerning abortion and mercy killing indicate. The issue of what is nature and what is nurtured (cultural) extends to patterns of caregiving and child development. Every society has (implicitly or explicitly) given notions concerning the capacities and temperament of children at different points in their development (see, e.g., Dentan 1978; Ninio 1979; Snow, de Blauw, & van Roosmalen 1979}, and the expectations and responses of caregivers are directly related to these notions.
Three developmental stories
At this point, using an ethnographic perspective, we will recast selected behaviors of white middle-class caregivers and young children as pieces of one "developmental story." The white middle-class developmental story that we are constructing is based on various descriptions available and focuses on those patterns of interaction (both verbal and nonverbal) that have been emphasized in the literature. This story will be compared with two other developmental stories from societies that are strikingly different: Kaluli (Papua New Guinea) and Western Samoan.
A major goal in presenting and comparing these developmental stories is to demonstrate that communicative interactions between caregivers and young children are culturally constructed. In our comparisons, we will focus on three facets of communicative interaction: (1) the social organization of the verbal environment of very young children, (2) the extent to which children are expected to adapt to situations or that situations are adapted to the child, (3) the negotiation of meaning by caregiver and child. We first present a general sketch of each social group and then discuss in more detail the consequences of the differences and similarities in communicative patterns in these social groups.
These developmental stories are not timeless but rather are linked in complex ways to particular historical contexts. Both the ways in which caregivers behave toward young children and the popular and scientific accounts of these ways may differ at different moments in time. The stories that we present represent ideas currently held in the three social groups.
The three stories show that there is more than one way of becoming social and using language in early childhood. Ail normal children will become members of their
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social group, but the process of becoming social, including becoming a lan-
°^ se user, is culturally constructed. In relation to this process of construction, every
^ -etv has its own developmental stories that are rooted in social organization,
l'efs and values. These stories may be explicitly codified and/or tacitly assumed by
jembers-
n Anglo-American white middle-class developmental story. The middle lass in Britain and the United States includes a broad range of lower middle-, itddle middle-, and upper middle-class white-collar and professional workers and leir families.9 The literature on communicative development has been largely based on middle middle- and upper middle-class households. These households tend to consist of a single nuclear family with one, two, or three children. The primary caregiver almost without exception is the child's natural or adopted mother. Researchers have focused on communicative situations in which one child interacts with his or her mother. The generalizations proposed by these researchers concerning mother-child communication could be an artifact of this methodological focus. However, it could be argued that the attention to two-party encounters between a mother and her child reflects the most frequent type of communicative interaction to which most young middle-class children are exposed. Participation in two-party as opposed to multiparty interactions is a product of many considerations, including the physical setting of households, where interior and exterior walls bound and limit access to social interaction.
Soon after an infant is born, many mothers hold their infants in such a way that they are ŕace-to-face and gaze at them. Mothers have been observed to address their infants, vocalize to them, ask questions, and greet them. In other words, from birth on, the infant is treated as a social being and as an addressee in social interaction. The infant's vocalizations and physical movements and states are often interpreted as meaningful and are responded to verbally by the mother or other caregiver. In this way, protoconversations are established and sustained along a dyadic, turn-taking model. Throughout this period and the subsequent language-acquiring years, caregivers treat very young children as communicative partners. One very important procedure in facilitating these social exchanges is the mother's (or other caregiver's) taking the perspective of the child. This perspective is evidenced in her own speech through the many simplifying and affective features of the baby-talk register that have been described and through the various strategies employed to identify what the young child may be expressing.
Such perspective taking is part of a much wider set of accommodations by adults to young children. These accommodations are manifested in several domains. For example, there are widespread material accommodations to infancy and childhood in the form of cultural artifacts designed for this stage of life, for example, baby clothes, baby food, miniaturization of furniture, and toys. Special behavioral accommodations are coordinated with the infant's perceived needs and capacities, for example, putting the baby in a quiet place to facilitate and ensure proper sleep; ''baby-proofing" a house as a child becomes increasingly mobile, yet not aware of, or able to control, the consequences of his or her own behavior. In general, the pattern appears to be one of prevention and intervention, in which situations are adapted or modified to the child rather than the reverse. Further, the child is a focus of attention,
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ELINOR OCHS AND BAMBI B. SCHIEFFELIN
in that the child's actions and verbalizations are often the starting point of soci interaction with more mature persons.
Although such developmental achievements as crawling, walking, and first won are awaited by caregivers, the accommodations have the effect of keeping the chil dependent on, and separate from, the adult community for a considerable period u\ time. The child, protected from those experiences considered harmful (e.g., playing with knives, climbing stairs), is thus denied knowledge, and his or her competence i such contexts is delayed.
The accommodations of white middle-class caregivers to young children can \ examined for other values and tendencies. Particularly among the American midd class, these accommodations reflect a discomfort with the competence differenti; between adult and child. The competence gap is reduced by two strategies. One for the adult to simplify her/his speech to match more closely what the adu considers to be the verbal competence of the young child. Let us call this stratee the self-lowering strategy, following Irvine's (1974) analysis of inter-caste demeano A second strategy is for the caregiver to richly interpret (Brown 1973) what tr young child is expressing. Here the adult acts as if the child were more competent than his behavior more strictly would indicate. Let us call this strategy the child-raising (no pun intended!) strategy. Orher behaviors conform to this strategy, such as when an adult cooperates in a task with a child but treats that task as an accomplishment of the child.
For example, in eliciting a story from a child, a caregiver often cooperates with the child in the telling of the story. This cooperation typically takes the form of posing questions to the child, such as "Where did you go?" "What did you see?" and so on, to which the adult knows the answer. The child is seen as telling the story even though she or he is simply supplying the information the adult has preselected and organized (Greenfield & Smith 1976; Ochs, Schieffelin & Piatt 1979; Schieffelin &c Eisenberg 1984). Bruner's (1978) description of scaffolding, in which a caregiver constructs a tower or other play object, allowing the young child to place the last block, is also a good example of this tendency. Here the tower may be seen by the caregiver and others as the child's own work. Similarly, in later life, caregivers playing games with their children let them win, acting as if the child can match or more than match the competence of the adult.
The masking of incompetence applies not only in white middle-class relations with young children but also in relations with mentally, and to some extent to physically, handicapped persons as well. As the work of Edgerton (1967) and the film Best Boy indicate, mentally retarded persons are often restricted to protected environments (family households, sheltered workshops or special homes) in which trained staff or family members make vast accommodations to their special needs and capacities.
A final aspect of this white middle-class developmental story concerns the willingness of many caregivers to interpret unintelligible or partially intelligible utterances of young children (cf. Ochs 1982c), for example, the caregiver offers a paraphrase (or "expansion"; Brown & Bellugi 1964; Cazden 1965), using a question intonation. This behavior of caregivers has continuity with their earlier attributions of intentionality to the ambiguous utterances of the infant. For both the prelinguistic and language-using child, the caregiver provides an explicitly verbal interpretation.
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This interpretation or paraphrase is potentially available to the young child to affirm, disconfirm, or modify. Through exposure to, and participation in, these clarification exchanges, the oUnc child is socialized into several cultural patterns. The first of these recognizes nd defines an utterance or vocalization that may not be immediately understood. Second, the child is presented with the procedures for dealing with ambiguity. Through the successive offerings of possible interpretations, the child learns that fflore than one understanding of a given utterance or vocalization may be possible. The child is also learning who can make these interpretations and the extent to which they may be open to modification. Finally, the child is learning how to settle upon a possible interpretation and how to show disagreement or agreement. This entire process socializes the child into culturally specific modes of organizing knowledge, thought, and language.
A Kaluli developmental story. A small (population approximately 1,200), non-literate egalitarian society (E. Schieffelin 1976), the Kaluli people live in the tropical rain forest on the Great Papuan Plateau in the southern highlands of Papua New Guinea.11 Most Kaluli are monolingual, speaking a non-Austronesian verb final ergative language. They maintain large gardens and hunt and fish. Traditionally, the sixty to ninety individuals that comprise a village lived in one large longhouse without internal walls. Currently, although the longhouse is maintained, many families live in smaller dwellings that provide accommodations for two or more extended families. It is not unusual for at least a dozen individuals of different ages to be living together in one house consisting essentially of one semipartitioned room.
Men and women use extensive networks of obligation and reciprocity in the organization of work and sociable interaction. Everyday life is overtly focused around verbal interaction. Kaluli think of, and use, talk as a means of control, manipulation, expression, assertion, and appeal. Talk gets you what you want, need, or feel you are owed. Talk is a primary indicator of social competence and a primary means of socializing. Learning how to talk and become independent is a major goal of socialization.
For the purpose of comparison and for understanding something of the cultural basis for the ways in which Kaluli act and speak to their children, it is important first to describe selected aspects of a Kaluli developmental story constructed from various ethnographic data. Kaluli describe their babies as helpless, "soft" {taiyo), and "having no understanding" {asngo andoma). They take care of them, they say, because they "feel sorry for them." Mothers, the primary caregivers, are attentive to their infants and physically responsive to them. Whenever an infant cries, it is offered the breast. However, while nursing her infant, a mother may also be involved in other activities, such as food preparation, or she may be engaged in conversation with individuals in the household. Mothers never leave their infants alone and only rarely with other caregivers. When not holding their infants, mothers carry them in netted bags suspended from their heads. When the mother is gardening, gathering wood, or just sitting with others, the baby sleeps in the netted bag next to the mother's body.
Kaluli mothers, given their belief that infants "have no understanding," never treat their infants as partners (speaker/addressee) in dyadic communicative interactions.
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Although they greet their infants by name and use expressive vocalizations, tl rarely address other utterances to them. Furthermore, a mother and infant do i gaze into each other's eyes, an interactional pattern that is consistent with ad patterns of not gazing when vocalizing in interaction with one another. Rather than facing their babies and speaking to them, Kaluli mothers tend to face their babies outward so that they can see, and be seen by, other members of the social group Older children greet and address the infant, and the mother responds in a high-pitched nasalized voice "for" the baby while moving the baby up and down. Triadic exchanges such as that in Example 4 are typical (Golinkoff 1983).
Example 4
Mother is holding her infant son Bage (3 mo). Abi {35 mo) is holding a stick on his shoulder m a manner similar to chat in which one would carry a heavy patrol box (the box would be huiia on a pole placed across the shoulders of the two men).
Mother
(high nasal voice talking as if she is the baby, moving the baby who is facing Abi): My brother, I'll take half, my brother. nao, hebo ni difni, nao.
(in a high nasal voice as baby):
My brother, what half do í taker
nao, hsbD dieni hen?
What about it? my brother, put it on the shoulder!
Wangaya? nao. koleno wďla diefoma!
(to Abi in her usual voice):
Put it on the shoulder.
keleno wela dietondo.
There, carefully put it on.
ko dinafa diefoma. (stick accidentally pokes baby)
Feel sorry, stop.
Heyo, kadefoma.
Abi
(to baby)
Bage/ do you see my box here?/
Bage/ ni bokisi we badaya?/
Do you see it?/
oiibadaya?/
(holding stick out)
mother give him half/
no hebo erao dimina/ mother,
my brother here/here take half!
nao we/we hebo dima/
(rests stick on baby's shoulder)
When a mother takes the speaking role of an infant she uses language that is well formed and appropriate for an older child. Only the nasalization and high-pitch mark it as "the infant's." When speaking as the infant to older children, mothers speak assertively, that is, they never whine or beg on behalf of the infant. Thus, in taking this role the mother does for the infant what the infant cannot do for itself, that is, appear to act in a controlled and competent manner, using language. These kinds of interactions continue until a baby is between 4 and 6 months of age.
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Several points are important here. First, these triadic exchanges are carried out
mařily for the benefit of the older child and help create a relationship between the
0 children. Second, the mother's utterances in these exchanges are not based on,
nor do they originate with, anything that the infant has initiated - either vocally or
jesturally. Recall the Kaluli claim that infants have no understanding. How could
ľoineone with "no understanding" initiate appropriate interactional sequences?
However, there is an even more important and enduring cultural construct that Kelps make sense out of the mother's behaviors in this situation and in many others as well. Kaluli say that "one cannot know what another thinks or feels." Although Kaluli obviously interpret and assess one another's available behaviors and internal states, these interpretations are not culturally acceptable as topics of talk. Individuals often talk about their own feelings (I'm afraid, I'm happy, etc.). However, there is a cultural dispreference for talking about or making claims about what another might think, what another might feel, or what another is about to do, especially if there is no external evidence. As we shall see, these culturally constructed behaviors have several important consequences for the ways in which Kaluli caregivers verbally interact with their children and are related to other pervasive patterns of language use, which will be discussed later.
As infants become older (6-12 months), they are usually held in the arms or carried on the shoulders of the mother or an older sibling. They are present in all ongoing household activities, as well as subsistence activities that take place outside the village in the bush. During this time period, babies are addressed by adults to a limited extent. They are greeted by a variety of names (proper names, kin terms, affective and relationship terms) and receive a limited set of both negative and positive imperatives. In addition, when they do something they are told not to do, such as reach for something that is not theirs to take, they will often receive such rhetorical questions such as "who are you?!" (meaning "not someone to do that") or "is it yours?!" (meaning "it is not yours") to control their actions by shaming them [sasidiab). It should be stressed that the language addressed to the preverbal child consists largely of "one-liners" that call for no verbal response but for either an action or termination of an action. Other than these utterances, very little talk is directed to the young child by the adult caregiver.
This pattern of adults treating infants as noncommunicative partners continues even when babies begin babbling. Although Kaluli recognize babbling (dabedan), they call it noncommunicative and do not relate it to the speech that eventually emerges. Adults and older children occasionally repeat vocalizations back to the young child (age 12-16 months), reshaping them into the names of persons in the household or into kin terms, but they do not say that the baby is saying the name nor do they wait for, or expect, the child to repeat those vocalizations in an altered form. In addition, vocalizations are not generally treated as communicative and given verbal expression except in the following situation. When a toddler shrieks in protest of the assaults of an older child, mothers say "I'm unwilling" (using a quotative particle), referring to the toddler's shriek. These are the only circumstances in which mothers treat vocalizations as communicative and provide verbal expression for them. In no other circumstances did the adults in the four families in the study provide a verbally expressed interpretation of a vocalization of a preverbal child. Thus, throughout the preverbal period very little language is directed to the child,
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ELINOR OCHS AND BAMBI B. SCHIEFFELIN
except tor imperatives, rhetorical questions, and greetings. A child who by Kalu terms has not yet begun to speak is not expected to respond either verbally o vocally. As a result, during the first 18 months or so very little sustained dyadj verbal exchange takes place between adult and infant. The infant is only minimall treated as an addressee and is not treated as a communicative partner in dyadi exchanges. Thus, the conversational model that has been described for many whit middle-class caregivers and their preverbal children has no application in this cast Furthermore, if one defines language input as language directed to the child then it j reasonable to say that for Kaluli children who have not yet begun to speak there L very little. However, this does not mean that Kaluli children grow up in an impoverished verbal environment and do not learn how to speak. Quite the opposite ís true. The verbal environment of the infant is rich and varied, and from the very beginning the infant is surrounded by adults and older children who spend a great deal of time talking to one another. Furthermore, as the infant develops and begins to crawl and engage in play activities and other independent actions, these actions are frequently referred to, described, and commented upon by members of the household, especially older children, to each other. Thus the ongoing activities of the preverbal child are an important topic of talk among members of the household, and this talk about the here-and-now of the infant is available to the infant, though it is not talk addressed to the infant. For example, in referring to the infant's actions, siblings and adults use the infant's name or kin term. They say, "Look at Seligiwo! He's walking." Thus the child may learn from these contexts to attend the verbal environment in which he or she lives.
Every society has its own ideology about language, including when it begins and how children acquire it. The Kaluli are no exception. Kaluli claim that language begins at the time when the child uses two critical words, "mother" (no) and "breast" (bo). The child may be using other single words, but until these two words are used, the beginning of language is not recognized. Once a child has used these words, a whole set of interrelated behaviurs is set into motion. Once a child has begun to use language, he or she then must be "shown how to speak" (Schieffelin 1979). Kaluli show their children language in the form of a teaching strategy, which involves providing a model for what the child is to say followed by the word elsma, an imperative meaning ''say like that." Mothers use this method of direct instruction to teach the social uses of assertive language (teasing, shaming, requesting, challenging, reporting). However, ob]ect labeling is never part of an shma sequence, nor does the mother ever use elema to instruct the child to beg or appeal for food or objects. Begging, the Kaluli say, is natural for children. They know how to do it. In contrast, a child must be taught to be assertive through the use of particular linguistic expressions and verbal sequences.
A typical sequence using elema is triadic, involving the mother, child (20-36 months), and other participants, as in Example 5 (Schieffelin 1979).
Example 5
Mother(M), daughter Binalia(B) (5 yrs), cousin Mama {3j yrs), and son Wanu(W) (27 mos) are at home, dividing up some cooked vegetables. Binalia has been begging for some, but her mother thinks that she has had her share. M -> W -» B:*
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Whose is it?! say like that.
Is it yours?! say like that. Genowo?! dema.
Who are you?! say like that. geoba?! elema.
Mama-W^>B:
Did you pick?! say like that. gt suwo?! elema.
M_ W^>B:
My grandmother picked! say like that.
ni nuwe suke! elema.
Mama -* W -*> B:
This my g'mother picked! say like that
we ni nuwe suke! elema.
-*  = speaker to addressee
>> = addressee to intended addressee
whose is it?!/ absnowo?!/
Is it yours?!/ genowo?!/
who are you?!/ ge oba?!/
did you pick?!/ gi suwo?!/
My grandmother picked!/ ni nuwe suke!/
This my g'mother picked!/ we ní nuwe suke!/
In this situation, as in many others, the mother does not modify her language to fit the linguistic ability of the young child. Instead, her language is shaped so as to be appropriate (in terms of form and content) for the child's intended addressee. Consistent with the way she interacts with her infant, what a mother instructs her young child to say usually does not have its origins in any verbal or nonverbal behaviors of the child but in what the mother thinks should be said. The mother pushes the child into ongoing interactions that the child may or may not be interested in and will at times spend a good deal of energy in trying to get the child verbally involved. This is part of the Kaluli pattern of fitting (or pushing} the child into the situation rather than changing the situation to meet the interests or abilities of the child. Thus mothers take a directive role with their young children, teaching them what to say so that they may become participants in the social group.
In addition to instructing their children by telling them what to say in often extensive interactional sequences, Kaluli mothers pay attention to the form of their children's utterances. Kaluli correct the phonological, morphological, or lexical form of an utterance or its pragmatic or semantic meaning. Because the goals of language acquisition include the development of a competent and independent child who uses mature language, Kaluli use no baby-talk lexicon, for they said (when I asked about it) that to do so would result in a child sounding babyish, which was clearly undesirable and counterproductive. The entire process of a child's
tuľJUK utl-li ANU ĽAMBÍ B. SCHIEFFELIN
development, in which language acquisition plays a very important role, is thou h-of as a hardening process and culminates in the child's use of "hard words" (Vf i fs> Schieffelin 1982).                                                                                          [ eld ô
The cultural dispreference for saying what another might be thinking or redi has important consequences for the organization of dyadic exchanges betwc caregiver and child. For one, it affects the ways in which meaning is negotiate!! during an exchange. For the Kaluli, the responsibility for clear expression is with th' speaker, and child speakers are not exempt from this. Rather than offering possibl interpretations or guessing at the meaning of what a child is saying, caregivers mak extensive use of clarification requests such as "huh?" and "what?" in an attempt r< elicit clearer expression from the child. Children are held to what they say anc mothers will remind them that they in fact have asked for food or an object if the-don't act appropriately on receiving it. Because the responsibility of expression lie with the speaker, children are also instructed with elema to request clarificauoi fusing similar forms) from others when they do not understand what someone saying to them.
Another important consequence of not saying what another thinks is the absenc of adult expansions of child utterances. Kaluli caregivers put words into the mouih of their children, but these words originate from the caregiver. However, caregiver do not elaborate or expand utterances initiated by the child. Nor do they jointb build propositions across utterances and speakers except in the context of sequence: with elema in which they are constructing the talk for the child.
All these patterns of early language use, such as the lack of expansions and the verbal attribution of an internal state to an individual are consistent with imponanr cultural conventions of adult language usage. The Kaluli avoid gossip and often indicate the source of information they report. They make extensive use of direct quoted speech in a language that does not allow indirect quotation. They use a range of evidential markers in their speech to indicate the source of speakers' informal ion, for example, whether something was said, seen, heard or gathered from other kinds of evidence. These patterns are also found in a child's early speech and, as such, affect the organization and acquisition of conversational exchanges in this face-to-face egalitarian society.
A Samoan developmental story. In American and Western Samoa, an archipelago in the southwest Pacific, Samoan, a verb-initial Polynesian language, is spoken. The following developmental story draws primarily on direct observations of life in a large, traditional village on the island of Upolu in Western Samoa; however, it incorporates as well analyses by Mead (1927), Kernan (1969), ami Shore (1982) of social life, language use, and childhood on other islands (the Mainťa islands and Savai'i).
As has been described by numerous scholars, Samoan society is highly stratified. Individuals are ranked in terms of whether or not they have a title, and if «i, whether it is an orator or a chiefly title - bestowed on persons by an extended family unit {'aiga potopoto) - and within each status, particular titles are reckoned with respect to one another.
Social stratification characterizes relationships between untitled persons as well, with the assessment of relative rank in terms of generation and age. Most relevant lo
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: p Samoan developmental story to be told here is that caregiving is also socially
-atified. The young child is cared for by a range of untitled persons, typically the
■ iij'g older siblings, the mother, and unmarried siblings of the child's mother.
*. here more than one of these are present, the older is considered to be the higher
' nking caregiver and the younger the lower ranking caregiver (Ochs 1982c). As will
!.   discussed in the course of this story, ranking affects how caregiving tasks are
rried out and how verbal interactions are organized.
From birth until the age of 5 or 6 months, an infant is referred to as pepemeamea ■»aby thing thing). During this time, the infant stays close to his or her mother, who
assisted by other women and children in child-care tasks. During this period, the
i,fant spends the periods of rest and sleep near, but somewhat separated from,
.. hers, on a large pillow enclosed by a mosquito net suspended from a beam or
. pe. Waking moments are spent in the arms of the mother, occasionally the father,
i [t most often on the hips or laps of other children, who deliver the infant to his or
r mother for feeding and in general are responsible for satisfying and comforting
e child.
In these early months, the infant is talked about by others, particularly in regard to
í or her physiological states and needs. Language addressed to the young infant
ids to be in the form of songs or rhythmic vocalizations in a soft, high pitch. I fants at this stage are not treated as conversational partners. Their gestures and
calizations are interpreted for what they indicate about the physiological state of > e child. If verbally expressed, however, these interpretations are directed in general not to the infant but to some other more mature member of the household (older child), typically in the form of a directive.
As an infant becomes more mature and mobile, he or she is referred to as simply prpe (baby). When the infant begins to crawl, his or her immediate social and verbal environment changes. Although the infant continues to be carried by an older sibling, he or she is also expected to come to the mother or other mature Ki míly members on his or her own. Spontaneous language is directed to the infant to a much greater extent. The child, for example, is told to "come" to the caregiver.
To understand the verbal environment of the infant at this stage, it is necessary to consider Samoan concepts of childhood and children. Once a child is able to locomote himself or herself and even somewhat before, he or she is frequently described as cheeky, mischievous, and willful. Very frequently, the infant is negatively sanctioned for his actions. An infant who sucks eagerly, vigorously, or frequently at the breast may be teasingly shamed by other family members. Approaching a guest or touching objects of value provokes negative directives first .ind mock threats second. The tone of voice shifts dramatically from that used with vounger infants. The pitch drops to the level used in causal interactions with adult addressees and voice quality becomes loud and sharp. It is to be noted here that «.nregiver speech is largely talk directed at the infant and typically caregivers do not engage in "conversations" with infants over several exchanges. Further, the language used by caregivers is not lexically or syntactically simplified.
The image of the small child as highly assertive continues for several years and is reflected in what is reported to be the first word of Samoan children: tae (shit), a curse word used to reject, retaliate, or show displeasure at the action of another. The
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child's earliest use of language, then, is seen as explicitly defiant and angry. Although caregivers admonish the verbal and nonverbal expression of these qualities, the qualities are in fact deeply valued and considered necessary and desirable in particular social circumstances.
As noted earlier, Samoan children are exposed to, and participate in, a highly stratified society. Children usually grow up in a family compound composed of several households and headed by one or more titled persons. Titled persons conduct themselves in a particular manner in public, namely, moving slowly or being stationary, and they tend to disassociate themselves from the activities of lower status persons in their immediate environment. In a less dramatic fashion, this demeanor characterizes high ranking caregivers in a household as well, who tend to leave the more active tasks, such as bathing, changing, and carrying an infant to younger persons (Ochs 1982c).
The social stratification of caregiving has its reflexes in the verbal environment of the young child. Throughout the day, higher ranking caregivers (e.g., the mother) direct lower ranking persons to carry, put to sleep, soothe, reed, bathe, and clothe a child. Typically, a lower ranking caregiver waits for such a directive rather than initiate such activities spontaneously. When a small child begins to speak, he or she learns to make his or her needs known to the higher ranking caregiver. The child learns not to necessarily expect a direct response. Rather, the child's appeal usually generates a conversational sequence such as the following:
Child appeals to high ranking caregiver                                            (A — B)
High ranking caregiver directs lower ranking caregiver                     (B — C)
Lower ranking caregiver responds to child                                        (C —> A)
These verbal interactions differ from the ABAB dyadic interactions described for white middle-class caregivers and children. Whereas a white middle-class child is often alone with a caregiver, a Samoan child is not. Traditional Samoan houses have no internal or external walls, and typically conversations involve several persons inside and outside the house. For the Samoan child, then, multiparty conversations are the norm, and participation is organized along hierarchical lines.
The importance of status and rank is expressed in other uses of language as well. Very small children are encouraged to produce certain speech acts that they will be expected to produce later as younger (i.e., low ranking) members of the household. One of these speech acts is reporting of news to older family members. The reporting of news by lower status persons complements the detachment associated with relatively high status. High status persons ideally (or officially) receive information through reports rather than through their own direct involvement in the affairs of others. Of course, this ideal is not always realized. Nonetheless, children from the one-word stage on will be explicitly instructed to notice others and to provide information to others as Example 6 illustrates.
Example 6
Pesio, her peer group including Maselino 3 yrs 4 mos, and Maselino's mother, Iuliana, are in the house. They see Alesana (member of research project) in front of the trade store across the street. Iuliana directs the children ro notice Alesana.
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pesio (2 yrs 3 mos)
á?/ Hub?
ai Alesaga/
Look (at) Alesana
{(very high, loud))
SAGA?/ Alesana!
((loud)) ALÖ! [Congratulations/hello)
Sego lea/ Elenoa here Elenoa [is| here.
The character of these instructions is similar to that of the triadic exchanges described in the Kahili developmental story. A young child is to repeat an utterance offered by a caregiver to a third party. As in the Kaluli triadic exchanges, the utterance is designed primarily for the third party. For example, the high, soft voice quality used by Iuliana expresses deference in greeting Alesana, the third party. Caregivers use such exchanges to teach children a wide range of skills and knowedge. In fact, the task of repeating what the caregiver has said is itself an. object of knowledge, preparing the child for his or her eventual role as messenger. Children at the age of 3 are expected to deliver verbatim messages on behalf of more mature members of the family.
The cumulative orientation is one in which even very young children are oriented toward others. In contrast to the white middle-class tendencies to accommodate situations to the child, the Samoans encourage the child to meet the needs of the situation, that is, to notice others, listen to them, and adapt one's own speech to their particular status and needs.
The pervasiveness of social stratification is felt in another, quite fundamental aspect of language, that of ascertaining the meaning of an utterance. Procedures for clarification are sensitive to the relative rank of conversational participants in the following manner. If a high status person produces a partially or wholly unintelligible utterance, the burden of clarification tends to rest with the hearer. It is not inappropriate for high status persons to produce such utterances from time to time. In the case of orators in particular, there is an expectation that certain terms and expressions will be obscure to certain members of their audiences. On the other hand, if a low status person's speech is unclear, the burden of clarification tends to be placed more on the speaker.
Others
Iuliana: Va'ai Alesana.
Look (at) Alesana!
Iuliana:     Alesana Maselino: Alesaga/
Iuliana: Vala'au Alesana Call (to) Alesana.
((high, soft)) Iuliana:   Málo.
(Congratulations/hello)
Iuliana: (Fail o Elegoa lea.
(Say) prt. Elenoa here. (say) "Elenoa jis] here."
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The latter situation applies to most situations in which young children produce ambiguous or unclear utterances. Both adult and child caregivers tend not to try to determine the message content of such utterances by, for example, repeating or expanding such an utterance with a query intonation. In fact, unintelligible utterances of young children will sometimes be considered as not Samoan but another language, usually Chinese, or not language at all but the sounds of an animal. A caregiver may choose to initiate clarification by asking "What?" or "Huh?" but it is up to the child to make his or her speech intelligible to the addressee.
Whereas the Samoans place the burden of clarification on the child, white middle-class caregivers assist the child in clarifying and expressing ideas. As noted in the white middle-class developmental story, such assistance is associated with good mothering. The good mother is one who responds to her child's incompetence by making greater efforts than normal to clarify his or her intentions. To this end, a mother tries to put herself in the child's place (take the perspective of the child). In Samoa good mothering or good caregiving is almost the reverse: A young child is encouraged to develop an ability to take the perspective of higher ranking persons in order to assist them and facilitate their well-being. The ability to do so is part of showing fa'aaloalo (respect), a most necessary demeanor in social life.
We can not leave our Samoan story without touching on another dimension of intelligibility and understanding in caregiver-child interactions. In particular, we need to turn our attention to Samoan attitudes toward motivation and intentionality (cf. Ochs 1982c). In philosophy, social science, and literary criticism, a great deal of ink has been spilled over the relation between act and intention behind an act. The pursuit and ascertaining of intentions is highly valued in many societies, where acts are objects of interpretation and motives are treated as explanations. In traditional Samoan society, with exceptions such as teasing and bluffing, actions are not treated as open to interpretation. They are treated for the most part as having one assignable meaning. An individual may not always know what that meaning is, as in the case of an oratorical passage; in these cases, one accepts that there is one meaning that he may or may not eventually come to know. For the most part as well, there is not a concern with levels of intentions and motives underlying the performance of some particular act.
Responses of Samoan caregivers to unintelligible utterances and acts of young children need to be understood in this light. Caregivers tend not to guess, hypothesize, or otherwise interpret such utterances and acts, in part because these procedures are not generally engaged in, at least explicitly, in daily social interactions within a village. As in encounters with others, a caregiver generally treats a small child's utterances as either clear or not clear, and in the latter case prefers to wait until the meaning becomes known to the caregiver rather than initiate an interpretation.
When young Samoan children participate in such interactions, they come to know how "meaning" is treated in their society. They learn what to consider as meaningful (e.g., clear utterances and actions), procedures for assigning meaning to utterances and actions, and procedures for handling unintelligible and partially intelligible utterances and actions. In this way, through language use, Samoan children are socialized into culturally preferred ways of processing information. Such contexts of experience reveal the interface of language, culture, and thought.
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Implications of developmental stories: three proposals
Interactional design reexamined. We propose that infants and caregivers do not interact with one another according to one particular "biologically designed choreograph)''" (Stern 1977). There are many choreographies within and across societies, and cultural as well as biological systems contribute to their design, frequency, and significance. The biological predispositions constraining and shaping the social behavior of infants and caregivers must be broader than rhus far conceived in that the use of eye gaze, vocalization, and body alignment are orchestrated differently in the social groups we have observed. As noted earlier, for example, Kaluli mothers do not engage in sustained gazing at, or elicit and maintain direct eye contact with, their infants as such behavior is dispreferred and associated with witchcraft.
Another argument in support of a broader notion of a biological predisposition to be social concerns the variation observed in the participant structure of social interactions. The literature on white middle-class child development has been oriented, quite legitimately, toward the two-party relationship between infant and caregiver, typically infant and mother. The legitimacy of this focus rests on the fact that this relationship is primary for infants within this social group. Further, most communicative interactions are dyadic in the adult community. Although the mother is an important figure in both Kaluli and Samoan developmental stories, the interactions in which infants are participants are typically triadic or multiparty. As noted, Kaluli mothers organize triadic interactions in which infants and young children are oriented away from their mothers and toward a third party. For Samoans, the absence of internal and external walls, coupled with the expectation that others will attend to, and eventually participate in, conversation, makes multiparty interaction far more common. Infants are socialized to participate in such interactions in ways appropriate to the status and rank of the participants.
This is not to say that Kaluli and Samoan caregivers and children do not engage in dyadic exchanges. Rather, the point is that such exchanges are not accorded the same significance as in white middle-class society. In white middle-class households chat have been studied, the process of becoming social takes place predominantly through dyadic interactions, and social competence itself is measured in terms of the young child's capacity to participate in such interactions. In Kaluli and Samoan households, the process of becoming social takes place through participation in dyadic, triadic, and multiparty social interactions, with the latter two more common than che dyad.
From an early age, Samoan and Kaluli children must learn how to participate in interactions involving a number of individuals. To do this minimally requires attending to more than one individual's words and actions and knowing the norms for when and how to enter interactions, taking into account the social identities of at least three participants. Further, the sequencing of turns in triadic and multiparty interactions has a fat wider range of possibilities vis-ä-vis dyadic exchanges and thus requires considerable knowledge and skill. Whereas dyadic exchanges can only be ABABA..., triadic or muhiparcy exchanges can be sequenced in a variety of ways, subject to such social constraints as speech content and the status of speaker (as discussed in the Samoan developmental story). For both the Kaluli and the Samoan