The socialization of affect in Japanese mother-child conversation

In this study the socialization of affect through language (cf. Ochs and Schieffelin, 1984) is analyzed in three Japanese mother-child pairs, with special emphasis on kowai, 'be scary/be afraid (of)'. Results indicate that the mothers and their two-year-olds already share an extensive affect lexicon, consisting primarily of adjectives and verbs that encode specific emotional states or more general evaluations with affective connotations, A model of the socialization of affect through language is proposed, in which children experience the socializing potential of language in three ways: modeling of the affect lexicon by caregivers, direct instruction in the use of certain words, and participation in negotiations in which caregivers question, accept, reject, and substitute alternatives for children's use of affect words. The linguistic and cultural resources proposed as mediators of the socialization process include the content and grammar of the affect lexicon, the frequency with which an affect word is associated with particular stimuli and/or experiencers, and the conversational sequences that serve as a site for the negotiation of affect. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.