Structural characteristics of monologues in the speech of normal children: semantic and conversational aspects

Semantic and conversational aspects of monologues in the speech of normal children were investigated. Subjects were nine children, three each at Brown's language Stages I, II, and III. A two-hour language sample, containing alternations of dialogue with the examiner and monologue produced during independent play, was collected from each child. Results indicate that the semantic and conversational categories that occurred in monologue speech were similar to those that appeared in contextually matched dialogue speech but the proportional frequencies differed. Monoloque subsamples were generally short in length and had a sequencing pattern that was highly consistent and sematically organized. Results are discussed in terms of Piagetian cognitive theory and pragmatic language models.