Documenting the emerging social-semiotic landscape in children ages 5 to 12

Abstract

Despite widespread application of semiotic theory in sociolinguistics, the development of children's social-semiotic landscapes remains underexplored. This paper analyzes the spontaneous responses of 94 children to short American English speech samples, with emic coding of responses. Results support a view of children's social-semiotic landscapes as rich and expanding; children as young as 5 volunteer a wide range of social indexes, but substantive comments increase in developmental time. Children use personal and local information early and often. Developmental increases in comments relying on more public or evaluative social knowledge suggest a developmental process building outward from the personal to the public. Children offer a window into the vibrant scaffolding process that all language users utilize, connecting language to the social in a local and dialogic process.