“The Dog is Feliz” Code-Switching in Emotion Talk with Toddlers
Poster Number
19B
Format
Poster Presentation (Research Day, April 30)
Faculty Mentor Name
Jessica Grady
Faculty Mentor Department
Psychology
Abstract/Artist Statement
Code-switching is when someone switches their speech from one language to another. Parents use code-switching in order to bolster understanding of certain concepts with their children. Considering that parents also teach their children about emotion at a young age, parents can possibly reinforce certain ideas about emotion through code-switching. Previous research has shown that there is a relationship between parents’ use of emotion through facial expressions and code-switching. The present study extends beyond previous research through measuring emotion talk in order to see how parents express this dimension of emotion socialization in relation to code-switching. We will examine 13 Spanish-English bilingual parents of 21- to 24-month-old toddlers who were observed code-switching as they read a picture book to their child. During the book reading task only the parent and the child were in the room, so the observation could capture authentic conversations between parent and child. Each session for the 13 parent-child dyads will be transcribed for the English and Spanish spoken by a bilingual transcriber. The transcriptions will then be coded for instances of code-switching and emotion talk spoken by the parent. Code-switching will be divided into two main categories, intrasentential and intersential, where intrasentential code-switching occurs within utterances while intersentential code-switching occurs between utterances. Emotion talk will be coded as statements parents made that referred to positive and negative emotions in the book characters. We expect results to show that parents use more emotion talk than not in their code switching. We also expect that intrasentential code-switching will occur more frequently in utterances that contain emotion talk than in utterances without emotion talk. In contrast, it is not expected that intersentential code-switching will vary with emotion talk.
Location
Information Commons, William Knox Holt Memorial Library and Learning Center
Start Date
30-4-2022 1:00 PM
End Date
30-4-2022 3:00 PM
“The Dog is Feliz” Code-Switching in Emotion Talk with Toddlers
Information Commons, William Knox Holt Memorial Library and Learning Center
Code-switching is when someone switches their speech from one language to another. Parents use code-switching in order to bolster understanding of certain concepts with their children. Considering that parents also teach their children about emotion at a young age, parents can possibly reinforce certain ideas about emotion through code-switching. Previous research has shown that there is a relationship between parents’ use of emotion through facial expressions and code-switching. The present study extends beyond previous research through measuring emotion talk in order to see how parents express this dimension of emotion socialization in relation to code-switching. We will examine 13 Spanish-English bilingual parents of 21- to 24-month-old toddlers who were observed code-switching as they read a picture book to their child. During the book reading task only the parent and the child were in the room, so the observation could capture authentic conversations between parent and child. Each session for the 13 parent-child dyads will be transcribed for the English and Spanish spoken by a bilingual transcriber. The transcriptions will then be coded for instances of code-switching and emotion talk spoken by the parent. Code-switching will be divided into two main categories, intrasentential and intersential, where intrasentential code-switching occurs within utterances while intersentential code-switching occurs between utterances. Emotion talk will be coded as statements parents made that referred to positive and negative emotions in the book characters. We expect results to show that parents use more emotion talk than not in their code switching. We also expect that intrasentential code-switching will occur more frequently in utterances that contain emotion talk than in utterances without emotion talk. In contrast, it is not expected that intersentential code-switching will vary with emotion talk.