Comparing Complex Syntax Across Popular Children's Television Shows

Abstract

Studies indicate that certain television shows, such as Sesame Street and Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood, can positively impact a child's thinking and social skills (Mares and Pan, 2015; Rasmussen, 2016). This study considers syntactic content of popular children's television shows to make predictions of their underlying linguistic value. Therefore, the research questions are: Does Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood have more complex syntactic utterances than Paw Patrol? Does the number of mental state verbs used correlate with complex syntax? Results indicate that Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood consistently uses more complex syntax and mental state verbs than Paw Patrol, and that mental state verb use does significantly correlate with complex syntax. Implications for child language learning are discussed.