Family talk about talk: Mothers lead the way

Reporting past speech is an important but little studied discourse skill. The speech mothers, fathers, and children spontaneously quote at dinnertime was analyzed in this study. Subjects were 22 middle‐class families, each with a child between 2 years, 3 months and 5 years, 2 months of age. Reported speech was found in the dinnertime conversations of most families. Mothers used reported speech far more frequently than did fathers or children. When reported speech was used, mothers used more indirect speech and less narratized speech, fathers used more narratized speech, and children used more direct speech. Finally, there was a positive correlation between mothers’ (but not fathers') use of reported speech and children's use of reported speech.