Análisis pragmático de las conversaciones entre niños ciegos y sus madres y la cuestión de la directividad materna

Abstract

The present paper reports two studies in which the pragmatic characteristics of conversational interactions between 6 mothers and their children were investigated. The children differed in their degree of vision (sighted, visually impaired and blind children). In the first study three children - one of them blind, another sighted and the third visually impaired - were recorded monthly in situations of spontaneous interaction with their mothers between 22 and 25 months of age. In the second study, language samples of three blind children and one sighted girl were gathered every month in situations of spontaneous conversational interactions with their mothers. Data is presented for two different time periods: the first from 28 to 34 months of age, and the second from 35 to 40 months of age. The pragmatic functions of the verbal utterances produced by the mothers and the children were analysed, with particular reference to the use of directives and their function in interaction. The results found indicated differences in the pragmatic strategies used by the mothers and the children. While the mothers used higher proportions of requests, directives, reformulations, and clarification requests than the children, the children used higher proportions of non-verbal behaviours, change of topic, and self-regulation of actions than the mothers. Interestingly, it was found that the mothers of the blind children talked more and used more directives than the mothers of the sighted children. However, detailed analysis of the type of directives used indicated that the mothers of the blind children had a significantly larger proportion of directives that contained descriptions than the mothers of the sighted and visually impaired children. In addition, their directives were more likely to occur in clusters in dialogue sequences. The paper concludes with a discussion of the complex nature of maternal directives and their possible adaptive role in conversational interactions with blind children.