Language and Socialization of the Child in African Families Living in France

Certain forms of communicative, perceptive, postural, and cognitive activities of the young child have universal structural features, as do the parental elicitations of these activities. In contrast, other forms vary with social context and social environment. Observed regularities can be due to cognitive constraints or the presence of communicative universals, whereas observed differences can be attributed, from the standpoint of cultural ecology (Berry, 1976; Dasen & Heron, 1981; LeVine, 1977), to specific cultural emphasis.