Verbal expression in picture books for Japanesa and American children

研究一旨在探讨日本父母言语中婴儿话语的使用与父母信仰之间的关系。18-20个月大孩子的日本父母回答了问卷调查。相互依赖取向的社会化目标与父母言语的移情取向有关，移情取向与拟人化后缀的增加和音素重复有关。父母言语的支架化取向与音素重复显著相关。以移情为导向的图画书阅读风格与音素的重复和拟人化后缀的增加呈正相关。研究2和研究3考察了图画书中的拟人化作为日本和美国儿童形成生物概念的发展小生境的一个方面。研究二显示，在婴儿或幼儿书目中推荐的图画书中，日本书中包含拟人化的比例高于美国书，其中不包括童谣集。研究三表明，在经常从公共图书馆借阅的图画书中，日语图书中包含人格化的比例高于美国图书，而且这一趋势在婴幼儿图画书中比学龄前儿童更为突出。作为未来的研究方向，实验研究需要考察语言符号和图形符号中的拟人化对生物概念形成的影响。

Study 1 was performed to investigate the relationships between use of baby talk in Japanese parental speech and parents' beliefs. Japanese parents of children aged 18-20 months responded to questionnaires. The interdependence-oriented socialization goals were related to the empathy orientation of parental speech, and empathy orientation was related to the addition of personification suffixes and to phoneme repetition. The scaffolding orientation of parental speech was significantly related to phoneme repetition. An empathy-oriented picture-book reading style related positively to the repetition of phonemes and the addition of personification suffixes.Study 2 and 3 investigated personification in picture books as an aspect of developmental niches in which Japanese and American children form biological concepts. Study 2 revealed that of the picture books recommended in booklists for babies or toddlers, a higher proportion of Japanese books included personification than did American ones, when collections of nursery rhymes were excluded. Study 3 showed that of picture books frequently checked out from public libraries, a higher proportion of Japanese books included personification than did American ones, and this tendency was more salient in picture books for babies or toddlers than for preschoolers.The relationships between personification in Japanese linguistic and pictorial symbols and the empathy orientation of Japanese caregivers toward their children were discussed. Experimental studies need to investigate the effects of personification in linguistic and pictorial symbols on the formation of biological concepts, as a future direction.