The Role of Dialogue and Discourse Co-construction in the Acquisition of Morpho-syntax: an Interactional and Dialogical Process

Abstract

This paper aims to illustrate the contribution of Acquisition Linguistics combined with the dialogic view driven by Bakhtin’s ideas, in order to describe morpho-syntactic acquisitions. According to the first approach, interaction is the main driver of syntactic acquisition processes, especially adults’ adjustments to the morpho-syntactic attempts of children and children’s repetitions of adults’ speech. In parallel, a dialogic approach to language acquisition focuses on how the two speakers’ co-construction of discourse leads children to use and acquire the linguistic ability to share and construct meaning in discourse. We analyse conversations between adults and children aged between 2 and 4 years old, with typical and atypical developments. Our results show how inter-discursive facts in dialogue and repetition in interaction are major contributors of language acquisition processes.