Word associations of rural German children

JOURNAL

OF VERBAL

LEARNING

Word

AND

VERBAL

7,196-200 (1968)

BEHAVIOR

Associations

of Rural

German

Children1

DORIS R. ENTWBLE The Johns Hopkins

University,

Baltimore,

Maryland

21218

AND ROLF Muuss Goucher

College,

Towson,

Maryland

21204

Word associations of rural German children at first-, third-, patterns of paradigmatic responding like those seen in American that German children develop more slowly. Sex differences are in American children. Residential locus (rural vs. urban) may differences between languages.

Several large samples (Russell and Jenkins, 1954; Palermo and Jenkins, 1964; Jones and Fillenbaum, 1964; and Entwisle, 1966a) attest to the tendency of English-speaking adults to give predominantly paradigmatic responses in a word-association procedure. Comparisons among adult speakers of several other languages (Russell and Meseck, 1959; Rosenzweig, 196 1, 1964) indicate considerable agreement among primary associations in English, French, German, and Italian. For adult speakers of the same language residing in different countries (United States, Australia, England), there is even more noticeable agreement (Rosenzweig and Miller, 1966). Lately research with American elementaryschool children shows clear-cut stages by associations evolve which paradigmatic (Brown and Berko, 1960; Ervin, 1961; Entwisle, Forsyth and MUUSS, 1964; Entwisle, 1966a, 1966b). The pattern of form-class development seems invariant across different sub-cultural groups in the United States, all of whom speak English, but some groups appear to develop faster than others. Naturally it is of great interest to know how general this evolution is across different languages. Much 1 This work was supported by the National Institute of Child Health and Development, HD-00921-02-05.

and fifth-grade levels show children, although it seems much more noticeable than explain more variance than

less is known about associations of foreign children than about those of adults, the only modern data being for Parisian children (Rosenzweig and Menahem, 1962). To extend this research two samples of rural German children of elementary-school age have been studied. Word associations of children from High- and Low-Germanspeaking rural homes are compared with those of various American subcultural groups, especially rural ones. In some of these comparisons it is possible to hold school grade and IQ constant. METHOD Individual interviews were used to gather associations to 96 word stimuli, with German elementaryschool teachers as interviewers. The interviewer said a stimulus word aloud, and then wrote down the child’s oral response. The 96 stimulus words were translations of words previously used with American children (Entwisle, 1966a).* Parallel samples of children in whose homes High German or Low German is spoken were collected from four elementary schools: Altenholz, Langenhorn, Stedesand, and Claus-Rixen, located in SchleswigHolstein, themost northern provinceof West Germany. Samples consist of 20 children (10 boys, 10 girls) of each dialect (High and Low German), and grade 2 The German equivalents are available from the authors on request. 196

CHILDREN'S WORD ASSOCIATIONS (1,3,5), 120 Ss altogether. It was not possible to select Ss according to IQ, but the Goodenough Draw-A-Man test was administered by us, and IQ’s were obtained for most children. Low-German Subjects. The 60 Low-German-speaking Ss came exclusively from the schools of Langenhorn (44s~) and Stedesand (16Ss), two neighboring rural communities about 5 miles from the North Sea and 15 miles from the Danish border. The language spoken in stores, playgrounds and streets is Low German, but the official language is High German. The socioeconomic level of these communities is rather unique. They are similar to the small American farm community at the turn of the century, and to Amish farm communities found in Pennsylvania today. Most families are economically independent in that they own their own farms, shops or businesses. Radios, newspapers and some weekly magazines are found in all homes and some homes have TV. The Low-German-speaking Ss have been exposed predominantly to the Low-German language during their preschool years. The transition from Low German to High German in the first grade is generally smooth, since the two languages show noticeable similarities. As one might expect, children from Low-Germanspeaking homes make frequent errors in word usage and sentence structure. A few first-grade Ss respond occasionally with a Low-German answer to a HighGerman stimulus word (about 5% of responses), but most of these Low-German responses come from two

197

of the response was tallied. Methods of classification are given in detail in Entwisle (1966a). The percentages of paradigmatic responses to nouns, adjectives, and verbs are given for High- and Low-German-speaking children in Table 1. The IQ’s of the High-Germanspeaking children average a few points above 100, and the IQ’s of the Low-German-speaking children are a few points below 100. Comparable data are presented there also for three samples of Maryland children: (a) a group of average IQ who dwell in rural areas of Baltimore County (average IQ for rural Maryland); (b) a similar rural Maryland group with lower average IQ (85 for first grade and 93 for third grade); and (c) an Amish group, with IQ level very close to that of the second Maryland group, who dwell in rural areas of Pennsylvania. All samples have equal numbers of males and females (10 each), and grade levels are equivalent for each cultural group. The same general trends are present in the German data that have been previously SS. observed in large samples of American data. High-German Subjects. The High-German Ss came (a) There is an increase in paradigmatic from three schools: from Altenholz (49 Ss); from responding to adjectives and verbs between Claus-Rixen (4 Ss), almost an annex to the Altenholz first and fifth grades, but not much change in school; and from Stedesand (7 Ss), discussed above, responses to nouns. The High-German and the only school which contributes both Low-German (16 Ss) and High-German (7 Ss) children. Amish data look very similar except for Altenholz is located on the Baltic side of Schleswigadjectives at the first grade level. (b) Adjectives Holstein, approximately 10 miles north of Kiel, the elicit more matching responses than verbs, capital of the province. Originally Altenholz too was a but the German children give fewer matching farming community and is still considered rural, responses generally than rural Maryland although some housing developments are present and a suburban way of life is slowly encroaching. Fathers’ children (77 and 72 % vs. 80% for adjectives; occupations include crane operator, boat builder, 56 and 46% vs. 60% for verbs.) Amish factory worker, engineer and others. Even though children have previously been shown to lag Low German is spoken in some homes in Altenholz, behind parallel groups of rural Maryland it is considered a High-German-speaking community. children in giving matching responses to verbs (Entwisle, 1966a). The fifth-grade verb RESULTS data for High-German-speaking children are The German responses were recorded almost identical with the Amish fifth-grade verbatim and later translated3 and classified. data. The Low-German-speaking children are Besides frequency of response, the form class considerably below other groups in verb 3 We are grateful to Gertrud Schubart for the matching. An analysis of variance based on the variables of form class, dialect, grade, and translations.

198

ENTWISLE

AND

MUUSS

TABLE

1

PER CENT OF PARADIGMATIC RESPONSES” High Grade

Nouns Adj. Verbs

German

1

Grade

Grade

5

Male

Female

Total

Male

Female

Total

Male

Female

Total

72.1 45.8 32.1

70.0 37.5 21.7

71.1 41.6 26.9

57.5 43.3 34.6

65.8 47.9 34.2

61.6 45.6 34.4

60.4 67.5 55.0

76.2 85.8 57.1

68.3 76.7 56.0

62.9 64.6 43.3

64.8 60.6 44.1

68.3 69.6 42.5

67.9 73.7 48.7

68.1 71.6 45.6

66.2 47.9 36.7

65.8 48.8 35.6

74.6 69.6 51.2

68.3 74.6 60.8

71.4 72.1 56.0

Low Nouns Adj. Verbs

3

60.0 20.4 15.8

57.5 29.2 28.7

58.8 24.8 22.2

German

66.7 56.7 45.0 Amish

Nouns Adj. Verbs

63.3 25.4 20.4

59.6 32.9 25.8

61.4 29.2 23.1 Rural

Nouns Adj. Verbs

62.9 17.9 16.7

55.0 19.6 22.9

65.4 49.6 34.6 Maryland

59.0 18.8 19.8 Rural

Nouns Adj. Verbs ’ Each percentage

56.7 15.0 13.3

67.9 27.5 14.8

Amish

69.2 63.8 41.3

71.3 65.4 52.5

Maryland

(Average

65.0 67.1 40.0

73.7 67.9 49.2

62.3 21.2 14.6

is based on responses

(Matching

of 10

in IQ) 70.2 64.6 46.9

Same as Rural Maryland Average IQ

69.4 67.5 44.6

79.6 80.0 58.7

IQ) 78.3 79.6 61.2

79.0 79.8 60.0

personsto 24 wordsof theindicatedform class.

sex was carried out on numbers of paradigmatic responses for groups of Ss. Dialect differences are pointed up by a significant Form Class x Dialect x Grade interaction, F(4, 72) = 2.72, p < .05. The differences between the sexesare much greater in the German data than in the Amish or other American data, and there are significant interactions involving sex-Grade x Sex x Dialect, F(2, 72) = 5.48, p < .Ol ; and Form Class x Sex x Dialect, F(2, 72) = 3.56, p < .05. It appears that the rather large sex

differences in the High-German samples are due to different tendencies in contrast responses.For high-frequency adjectives, where the comparison between English and German is most straightforward, German females give many more contrast responses than males. This sex difference is not found in American rural samples. Sex differences in American urban sampleswere very small. The finding of large sex differences in German children differs from results with both rural and urban American children and also from results with

CHILDREN’S

WORD

urban French children (Rosenzweig and Menahem, 1962). There is no information about intelligence level in the French group, and the German group is not as homogeneous in IQ as one would like. These results must, therefore, be taken as tentative. There are dialect differences in paradigmatic responding that border on significance, F(1, 72) = 2.81, p < .lO, as well as a highly significant interaction between grade and dialect, F(2, 72) = 18.43,~ < .Ol. [Social class, which is directly related to dialect, has been linked to large differences between French workers and students (Rosenzweig, 1964).] This dialect difference could be in actuality an IQ difference, however, because IQ has been shown to be a potent influence on associations (Entwisle, 1966a) and the HighGerman-speaking children are consistently higher in IQ than the Low. Another comparison can be made between German and American children in terms of syntactic patterns. Both verb-responses to nouns and noun-responses to adjectives decrease with age. There are more verbresponses to nouns for German children, although nowhere near the number reported for American children fifty years ago (Woodrow and Lowell, 19 16). At the third-grade level the German children are giving more noun responses to adjectives than their American peers (40 and 30% vs. 32 and 19 %). By the fifth grade this adjective-noun linkage has declined to the low levels observed in American children, and the German children resemble modern American children more than American children a half century ago. DISCUSSION

It appears that rural German children from High-German homes are developing in much the same way as Amish children. Those from Low-German homes are developing more slowly than either High-German or Amish, and lag at the fifth grade level in terms of verbs, the last form class to develop.

ASSOCIATIONS

199

Naturally, the next question is whether differences in rate of development are a function of differences between American and German child-rearing practices and general cultural levels, a function of intrinsic differences between the two languages, or attributable mainly to differences between the samples of Ss. No final answers can be given to these questions, but there is some information available. As far as differences between samples of Ss are concerned, the following facts are pertinent. The High-German-speaking Ss are all one-half year or more older than Low-German comparison groups, and the Low-German groups are in turn somewhat (up to 5 months) older than the American comparison groups. These age differences should favor the German groups. Also IQ differences favor the German groups, and IQ is positively related to prevalence of paradigmatic responses especially at the first-grade level. In every case where mean IQ’s are not closely matched, the German groups exceed the American. If anything, then, one would expect German children to be ahead of American children, whereas the results show just the opposite. It seems unlikely, then, that sampling differences have favored the American children. It is impossible to make a firm statement about the intrinsic differences between English and German and the impact of these on associative data. Work with adults suggests that roughly the same degree of similarity prevails between English and French and French and German (Rosenzweig, 1961). If anything, the Parisian children of similar age seem in advance of American children (Rosenzweig and Menahem, 1962). French children g-years old give more paradigmatic associations to adjectives (71% vs. 61 ‘A) and adverbs (55 % vs. 32 %) than do American children. It is of great interest that the French children are urban and the German children are rural, and that in America strong rural-urban differences have been observed (Entwisle, 1966b). It may be that

200

ENTWISLE

the rural-urban dimension, with all it implies about restrictions on verbal interaction and lack of mass media, or even genetic composition of that population owing to selective migration, is more important as an explanatory variable than interlanguage differences. In fact, if the child’s innate endowment is responsible for a considerable part of his early linguistic development (as many have come to feel), differences in development of his awareness of substitution privileges of common verbal concepts, like the ones on our stimulus list, would be hard to attribute to the languages per se. It is unfortunate that IQ levels in the two German-dialect samples are disparate, because the superiority of the High-German-speaking children, if firmly established, would further buttress conclusions about the importance of cultural factors. The difference is consistent but not conclusive. REFERENCES BROWN, R., AND BERKO, J. Word associations and the acquisition of grammar. Child Develpm., 1960, 31, 1-14. ENTWISLE, D. Word associations of young children. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, 1966 (a). ENTWISLE, D. Sociolinguistics: a developmental and comparative study in four subcultural settings. Sociometry, 1966, 29,67-84 (b). ENTWISLE, D. R., FORSYTH, D. F., AND Muuss, R. The syntactic-paradigmatic shift in children’s word associations. J. verb. Learn. verb. Behav., 1964,3,19-29.

AND

MUUSS

S. M. Changes with age in the verbal determinants of word association. Amer. J. Psychol., 1961, 74,361-72. JONES, L. V., AND FILLENBAUM, S. Grammatically classified word associations. Psychometric Laboratory, UNC, Res. Memo. No. 15, 1964. PALERMO, D. S., AND JENKINS, J. J. Word association norms grade schooI through college. Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press, 1964. ROSENZWEIG, M. R. Comparisons among wordassociation responses in English, French, German, and Italian. Amer. J. Psychol., 1961, 74, 347-360. ROSENZWEIG, M. R. Word associations of French workmen : comparisons with associations of French students and American workmen and students. J. verb. Learn. verb. Behav., 1964, 3, 57-69. ROSENZWEIG, M. R., AND MENAHEM, R. Age, sexe et niveau d’instruction comme facteurs determinants dans les associations de mots. L’Annee psycho/., 1962,62,45-61. ROSENZWEIG, M. R., AND MILLER, K. M. Comparisons of word association responses obtained in the United States, Australia and England. J. verb. Learn. verb. Eehav., 1966,5, 35-41. RUSSELL, W. A., AND JENKINS, J. J. The complete Minnesota norms for responses to 100 words from the Kent-Rosanoff word association test. Tech. Rep. No. 11, ONR Contract N onr-66216, August, 1954. RUSSELL, W. A., AND MESECK, 0. R. Der Einfluss der Assoziation auf das Erinnern von Worten in der Deutschen, Franzosischen, und Englischen Sprache. 2. exp. angew. Psycho/., 1959,6,191-211. WOODROW, H., AND LOWELL, F. Children’s association frequency tests, Psychol. Monogr., 1916, No. 22, l-l 10. ERVIN,

(Received September 19, 1966)