Learning how to manage communication, with special reference to the acquisition of linguistic feedback

This study has two parts. The first part gives a theoretical overview of wh at a child has to learn in order to manage communication, whereas the secon d part provides a longitudinal case study. The case study shows how a child , from the age of 1 year and 8 months to the of 3 years and 3 months, learn s how to use different means for interacting in order to contextually relev ant communicative contributions. We can see how such aspects of his communi cation as mean length of utterances (MLU),use of onomatopoeia, communicativ e gestures, and informative actions develop in interaction with each other. A more specific of linguistic feedback (feedback morphemes and repetitions ) shows the development in different activities of the use of feedback. The role of the linguistic feedback system in acquisition is also discussed. ( C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.