Parenting and Early Language Development of Young Children in South Korea

Abstract

Following the social interactionist and language socialization theories, language development research points to the importance of parents’ role in shaping children’s early experiences and their development. Although there is an established body of research examining early language development in Western cultures, the need for a more nuanced understanding of variations across different cultures and languages remains. In my dissertation, I add to this growing effort to expand our knowledge about child development by conducting three studies that examine early experiences and development of children growing up in South Korea. In Study 1, I take a broad look at the early experiences of Korean children and examine the longitudinal relations between maternal characteristics, early home experiences, and children’s later language outcomes by analyzing a longitudinal dataset drawn from a national sample of 1,894 Korean families. In Study 2, I take a closer look at children’s daily experiences by examining parent-child interactions and investigating whether, in a sample of 31 Korean families, mothers’ and their 1-year-olds’ use of gesture is related to children’s vocabulary skills at age 3. In Study 3, I highlight variations within Korea by exploring how variations in parental cultural and linguistic backgrounds shape their language use during interactions with their preschool-aged children by examining data from 36 monolingual Korean families and 33 multilingual Korean families. Together, findings from these studies add to the emerging body of cross-cultural and international research and knowledge on parent-child interaction and early language development.