Children and kinship terms

Abstract

How does one come to acquire the meaning of kinship terms like mummy or grandma? Are factors such as age and gender significant in the attainment of these terms? Does the sentence "I have three brothers: Paul, Ernest and myself' (Piaget 1928: 63) make sense? If I have a sibling, does that make me one? How do children fare with respect to these last two questions? This thesis delves into the work of eminent researchers in this field, including Piaget (1928), Haviland and Clark (1974), Chambers and Tavuchis (1974), Deutsch (1978) and Macaskill (1981), and elicits the stages children are suggested to go through in their attainment of kinship terms as well as factors that may influence their acquisition of these words. The comprehension of kinship terms of a number of Maltese children is subsequently analysed in the light of a number of factors and compared to that of their foreign peers. One hundred and twelve children aged between 6 and 9 years old were all individually interviewed by the present researcher at their respective M.U.S.E.U.M. (acronym of Magister Utinam Sequatur Evangelium Universum Mundum) centres in Birkirkara (town), San Gwann (town), Ghaxaq (village) and Siggiewi (village) for the purposes of this study. An equal number of boys and girls from urban and rural localities were selected. A parent or caregiver of each of these children was also interviewed by telephone to obtain information about the socio-economic categories the children's parents belonged to, their family composition, their frequency of interaction with particular relatives, and the leisure activities (if any) the investigated children participated in. The data was accumulated using a quantitative approach, and the children were selected through the process of stratified random sampling. A set of kinship terms was selected and inquired about using both open-ended and closed ended questions. This format was proposed by Professor Lydia Sciriha, the tutor of the current study, who over the years has accumulated a large amount of data about the acquisition of kinship terms by Maltese children (Sciriha 2002, 2003, 2004). The ingenuity of this format lies in its ability to test both the children's articulation as well as their level of knowledge about kinship terms.