Language socialisation and the construction of socio-moral meanings

Although researchers working from the cognitive-developmental and domain pe rspective have contributed significantly in presenting insights on children 's moral Knowledge, specific questions about how caregivers' language-based input facilitates their children's understanding of moral knowledge have n ot been examined. This article explores how language-based socialisation pa tterns play an important role in care-givers' and children's construction o f socio-moral meanings. I argue that it is through participation in communi cative and narrative practices that children begin to understand cultural m eanings about morality. By drawing on theories and research conducted in th e field of language socialisation, I demonstrate the mutual interdependence between the construction of moral meanings and communicative practices. Ex amples that demonstrate the various ways in which communicative practices p rovide the foundation for the co-creation of moral meanings between Hindi-s peaking Indian caregivers and their children are discussed.