Imaginative dialogues in children's private speech

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Abstract
This study investigated the development of the structure of dialogues by analysing one child's bedtime soliloquies over a two year period (age 2 1/2 to 41/2) and comparing them with those of another child (age 21/2) reported earlier in the literature. It documents the role of language in the social ization process and argues that development of conversational forms is best understood in the context of a theory of cognitive development. Dialogues were analysed for conventional forms of social address (imperatives, interrogatives, vocatives), for conversational maintenance techniques (direct and indirect repetition of phrases and ideas) and for level of conceptualization (linguistic representation of single then multiple speakers). Results indicate that, although there were large individual differences, both children used conventional forms of social address in their private speech from the beginning recordings but their language reflected a limited understanding of societal relationships.

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