Maternal affective input in mother–child interaction: A cross-cultural perspective

Contrastive analysis of Chinese and American maternal affective speech acts revealed significant differences in the quantity of child-directed positive and negative speech acts. There were also important qualitative differences in specific types of maternal affective input. Results are consistent with available knowledge of cross-cultural differences in parenting approaches, and have implications for cross-cultural emotion and pragmatic development. Differential cultural values were addressed to account for the observed linguistic behaviors.