ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on a characteristic of narrative style that is associated with gender. It describes the gendered difference in storytelling and to explore the possible reasons for its occurrence, focusing in particular on parent–child interaction in a longitudinal study of 10 families. The chapter draws on some of earlier studies of language socialization, including work on parents’ use of prohibitives and diminutives in speech to girls and boys. It examines diminutives in parents’ speech to little girls and boys, that the parents used more of these affectionate terms with little girls. The chapter also examines reported speech in the dinnertime conversations of 22 White middle-class families with at least one preschool child. Mothers reported memories of past speech at twice the rate of fathers and four times the rate of children. Among children, girls quoted past speech at twice the rate of boys, although the difference was not statistically different because of the small numbers involved.
