**7. Some final considerations**

Data from the dyads observed in Brazilian studies (Pessôa & Seidl-de-Moura, 2008; Pessôa & Seidl-de-Moura, 2011) indicated that mothers of these studies talk to their children about the situations in which they are involved. They speak about the babies themselves, about the activities carried out jointly by them, and, mainly, about the things and people in the context around them. However, it was possible to observe that almost all maternal emissions are preceded or followed by the children's signals. This means that mothers are not simply communicating information to their children, but are trying to engage them in dialogues. During the initial development, parents are the social agents who better understand children's intentions, attributing meanings to their behaviors, and providing the adequate support they need. Hence, they play an important role as mediators in the construction of children's social

As Keller (2007) points out, one of the components in the parental system of care is the narrative envelope. Babies are wrapped in this narrative envelope and their development processes are immersed on it, including language acquisition. A recent Brazilian research (Pessôa, Seidl-de-Moura, Ramos and Mendes, submitted) aimed to verify parenting values among different young children's caretakers, comparing the speech of differents caretakers (mothers, grand‐ mother, nanny and day-care center teacher) taking into account Keller's (2007) parental care systems (primary care, body contact, body stimulation, object stimulation and face to face interaction). The categories affection and physical contact were some of the most mentioned by all participants. These categories were associated with body contact and primary care systems. In all of the system it was found the category of affection. These analyses have served to illustrate that the affective aspects of speech, those which communicate affection and intimacy, were present in caretaker's speeches since early stages of development. Also we must consider the specific cultural characteristics that may be related to these findings. Different cultures may have different forms of communication and affective manifestations, and can vary in relation to the assigned value to each of these aspects in different moments of ontogeny.

As mentioned, according to a socio-cultural perspective to study human behavior, one cannot separate it from people's social and cultural contexts. Each culture has specific characteristics that need to be taken into account. Based on these assumptions, we believe in the importance of studying universal processes, such as initial language development and characteristics of maternal input in different cultures, to understand what may vary in the trajectories of these processes and what does not. The goal in these studies was to work with data from Brazilian dyads, Portuguese speakers and the trajectories observed, with the advantage of being a longitudinal investigation. Although not frequently used, longitudinal studies are particularly important. So, these studies bring a contribution to the literature on maternal speech and initial

Most of the studies presented in this chapter indicated that a large proportion of maternal speech occurs in response to signals from the child, and this seems to mean that mothers are not simply passing on information to their children, but are trying to engage them in conver‐ sations and giving affection. Adopting some specific hypotheses on the philogenetic and ontogenetic origins of the language, Tomasello (2003) suggests that the symbolic dimension of the language has its origin in the singular character of human biological adaptation for

language development with data from a Brazilian context.

and cultural world.

140 Parenting in South American and African Contexts

Our purpose in this chapter was to present and discuss theoretical and empirical evidence about the role of affection and emotion in parental care and its impacts in the early develop‐ ment. It was particularly taken into account, in addition to emotional development, a cognitive process, language acquisition. It should also be highlighted researchers' concern to underline the diversity of ecological and social-cultural contexts in which the studies had been devel‐ oped, as well as attention to the phylogeny.

According to an evolutionary view, complex behaviors such as language and emotional expressions rarely appear in an abrupt way and seldom present drastic modifications in a short period of time. It is plausible to think that they had their origins in other previous behaviors and simple biological mechanisms during a slow evolutionary history. Humans are social beings immersed in the socio-cultural context in which they live and are constituted by interacting with others. Therefore, some hypotheses for the origins of language, such as discussed by D. Falk (2004), even include the demands of child care in the environment of evolutionary adaptation and the motherese also can be seen as the result of selective pressures of our ancestral past. According to this view, the selection of vocal language occurred after the first mothers in hominids began to engage in emotional vocalizations directed to their babies. Emotional expressions and affective interactions can also be seen as adaptive processes that were selected by evolutionary mechanisms.

Affection and emotional expressions of the mother are important mediators for both emotional development and for language acquisition. As shown by the evidence presented in this chapter, particularly those regarding the Brazilian mothers residing in Rio de Janeiro, the dynamics of the mother-infant interactions from the beginning of life is characterized by adjustments in maternal behaviors, both emotional expression and speech, according to the possibilities and needs of the baby. Mothers intuitively adjust their speech directed to the baby and his emotional expression in order to promote communication between them and the baby's learning of such mechanisms of expression and interpersonal exchanges. In the Brazilian context, the parental ethnotheories are targeted for the presence of affective components on maternal speech and emotional contingency on mother-infant interaction, from the beginning of life.

It is important to bear in mind that the baby since birth has contact with emotional expressions and affective manifestations of his mother during the interactions established between both, through emotional manifestations of the mother in the body and face and through her speech direct to the baby. This is a cultural trait and how babies learn about others and about themselves. This way, it's reasonable to think that emotion, affection and maternal speech in parental care came together to constitute developmental trajectories for healthy children. We hope that this chapter may act as a motivating factor for future studies focusing on affection and emotion in parental care and its relevance to child development.

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### **Author details**

Deise Maria Leal Fernandes Mendes and Luciana Fontes Pessôa

Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Ja‐ neiro, Brazil
