Mother-child conversation during joint picture book reading in Japan and the USA

This study compared the sequential structure of mother-child conversation during joint picture book reading in Japanese and American dyads with children between 12 and 27 months. Although there were commonalities such as increased maternal elaborative information-asking in response to children’s labelling with children’s vocabulary growth, there were substantial differences. Japanese children produced labelling following maternal labelling more than American children, while American children produced labelling following information-asking more than Japanese children. Japanese mothers responded to children’s labelling with interpersonal utterances more than American mothers, while American mothers responded to labelling with elaborative information-asking more than Japanese mothers. Interaction in American dyads generally followed an instruction model, while interaction in Japanese dyads reflected aspects of an osmosis model.