Looking at mode there are three forms, written, blended, and spoken. There are many aspects of mode that need to be recalled for exams, so I am just blogging my notes ready for tomorrow.
SPOKEN MODE
Accommodation: the process, according to H. Giles of adaptation of language when speaking to another person. This process can move speech either closer to the other participant(s) or further away from.
Face: when speaking we give off a persona, 'acting out' a role within the conversation. A theory developed by Goffman and extended by Brown and Levinson states that there are two faces used in conversation:
Positive face: where the person has a need to be liked and accepted.
Negative face: where the speaker needs to be independent and not imposed upon.
The positive and negative faces can lead to a face-threatening act (FTA) which can either challenge someone's face directly, such as 'you don't know what you are talking about', or threatens their positive/negative face needs, or both. This lead to the idea of positive and negative politeness, whereby in strategies are employed to off-set FTA and other variables such as social gaps.
Face work: allows people to work in co-operation to support the 'face needs' of the other participants in the conversation. A positive face need is the need to be liked and accepted as part of the social group. A negative face need is the requirement to feel independent and be free to be an individual.
Positive politeness: is the strategy used to emphasise a social closeness.
Negative politeness: is the strategy used to recognise the independence or social status of the person to whom you are speaking.
Pragmatics plays a part here, as it is often the real meaning of a text or message, the concept behind 'reading between the lines.
Although Received Pronunciation is not as common as it once was, it is still possible to hear individuals using Standard English, and this particular dialect continues to carry with it a certain amount of prestige. This is where divergence and convergence, both upwards and downwards comes into spoken mode.
Divergence: the process where an individuals speech pattern becomes particularly individualised, marking them as being further away from the other person(s) in the conversation.
Convergence: a process of adapting speech patterns, so that they are more in line with the other participant(s) in the conversation.
Both of these can go upwards or downwards. Upwards when applied here means to bring the speech pattern up towards Standard English. Downwards means that the speech moves away from S.E.
There are many lexical features within speech too:
Idioms and collocations are more frequent in spoken language, an idiom, or cliche such as 'at the end of the day' and collocation (pairs or triplets) e.g. hook. line and sinker are popular expressions from the media and are used in everyday speech.
In spoken language fillers are often involuntarily , it is generally a part of an individual's idiolect that causes them to use 'like' or 'OK' to fill a pause or a hesitant moment. Discourse markers are used to indicate a change of topic, or even the return to a previous topic 'well', 'so', 'anyway, getting back to' are all examples of a discourse marker. Hedges are also commonly used in spoken language and they are often used to soften something, this has lead to the idea that women use hedges more frequently than men, it is a part of Tannen's 'diversity' theory, phrase such as 'sort of', words such as 'maybe' and politeness strategy such as 'could you possibly' are all hedges. The use of hedges is seen as important in speech as they prevent things from seemingly being too blunt.
WRITTEN MODE
Verbs have different variants, there are stative, dynamic and modal auxiliaries. It is also important that the tense and aspect of a verb is recognised. The tense allows us to see the verb's action in relation to time e.g. present, past. An aspect relates to the verb's duration, as the verb can be in a perfective aspect suggesting that the action is complete or has been completed in the past tense, or is current or continuing in a progressive tense. A dynamic verb is used when describing a physical action or movement e.g. run, jump, fly. A stative verb is used to describe a state of being e.g. be, know, understand. Modal auxiliary verbs, support or aide others and have the purpose to give permission, possibility, probability, necessity, ability, desire and obligation. Modal auxiliary verbs are words such as; can, could, may, might, must, shall, should, will, and would.
Ellipsis: the missing out of word(s) in a sentence. This is relevant when analysing text or spoken language, is there a reason why this word(s) has been omitted? Very common in newspaper headlines and articles. As are tag questions, when a phrase is 'tagged' onto a statement that can turn it into a question e.g. it is a lovely day, isn't it?
Comparatives: adjectives combined with -er or used with 'more' to created a comparison e.g. she is bigger
Superlatives: adjective combined with -est or most (definite article 'the' is usually added too) e.g. she is the biggest
Nominalisation: the process where an action or event that is normally expressed with a verb is turned into a noun, and is often used as the head of a noun phrase. e.g. Mayor's outburst provokes outrage. This process is often used by journalists as a form of compressed syntax.
The passive voice The active voice retains the subject of the clause as the agent e.g. X slammed the door.
BLENDED MODE
This is texts such as SMS, e-mails and instant messages. These have different communication forms, whilst instant messages are synchronous communication, as the participants are present, e-mails and sms are an asynchronous form as the participants do not all need to be present.
Right then, I have had enough now, if I don't know it there is little I can do now, just have to wait now, fingers are crossed with 18 hours to go, eeeeekkkk!
Sunday 9 January 2011
Saturday 8 January 2011
Note
All the information about Child Language Acquisition has come from English for Beginners by Michelle Lowe and Ben Graham. AQA English Language A AS level course textbook by Dan Clayton and Beth Kemp, plus information found on Wikipedia.
Child Language - The theories and theorists
There are many theories and theorists who have researched the acquisition of language by children, a good understanding of all of them is necessary for anyone taking A-levels.
Nativist theories - These theories suggest that all humans have an inbuilt or innate capacity for language acquisition.
Social Interaction theories - These theories suggest that to acquire and develop language skills a child must have social and verbal interaction.
Cognitive theorists - The cognitive theorist believes that language is acquired as part of a wider development of understanding and cognitive ability.
BF Skinner (1957) having performed experiments using rats and pigeons discovered that they could perform a variety of tasks, as long as they were broken into stages, and received rewards for 'correct' actions. From this Skinner formed his 'Operant Conditioning Theory'. This was then applied to human learning, claiming that children learn language through the simple process of imitation and reinforcement. Skinner also claimed that no complicated internal mechanisms were needed for language acquisition and that children learning language was virtually the same as lab rats learning to complete tasks.
Kit's opinion - "Children are most certainly not the same as lab rats. Yes I think perhaps they do learn by copying their parents. Some of the language I have heard from young children is terrible, but could have only come from them hearing their parents say it, which in my mind is disgraceful. Believing that animals performing 'tricks' is the equivalent of a human child learning how to talk seems utter nonsense to me, but he was a scientist so perhaps I should not argue."
Clearly there are objections to this theory. If this is truly how children acquire language, how does Skinner account for virtuous errors, and the fact that all children despite their race, gender, culture or native language all acquire language at the same speed, despite cultural variations in child rearing. The hypothesis put forward by Skinner suggests that according to these variables, children should learn language at different rates due to these environmental factors. There is no allowance for a child to make virtuous errors in Skinner's theory. Children make logical errors based on rules that they have learnt through interaction, not because they are simply repeating and imitating adults, as no adult would have made this error.
Interactional theorists, such as Jerome Brunner believe that the CDS (Child Directed Speech) used by parents 'scaffolds' a child's language acquisition and supports its development, and gave this system the title of LASS (language Acquisition Support System), which actually links to Chomsky's nativist theory of the LAD. The social interaction theorists such as Skinner, Brunner and Snow believe that the collaborative and almost ritualised exchanges that occur during the pre-verbal stages of language development, aid the child to develop an understanding of the rules and learn concepts such as turn taking. However, there are areas of the world where CDS is not used by care givers, yet the children still acquire language at the same rate as children who are exposed to CDS.
Eric Lenneburg (1962) argued against Skinner's theory, in that children who are unable to speak due to illness are able to gain a normal comprehension of language without the ability to imitate adults, or by having their utterances reinforced. Hart and Risley (1995) argued that differences in social classes in the USA and the verbal interaction received by children in these classes can have an influence on their social and economic development in their later life.
Noam Chomsky - is a linguist and nativist theorist. He argued against Skinner's interactional theory and suggested that children acquire language because all humans have an innate ability to speak. Essentially he stated that the human brain is 'hard-wired' for language. The LAD (Language Acquisition Device) enables a child to hear and extrapolate the rules of their own language and understand the words and structures. Chomsky suggested that all languages have a Universal Grammar, stating that under the surface of all languages a similar grammatical structure is present. Looking at features of child language acquisition, such as virtuous errors and overgeneralisation, Chomsky noted that all children created these features without having heard adults use the same language and he concluded that there must be more than interaction and imitation at work to explain this phenomenon.
Theorist Steven Pinker, looked at Chomsky's work and further developed the LAD idea and created his own PPT ( Principles and Parameter Theory). This theory essentially states that by hearing the principles and parameters of the individuals native language, the rules become fixed. In a sense Pinker is saying that the PPT is the software used by the LAD hardware to create language. Once the parameters are defined through hearing speech, the principles become defined and are retained. In the light of cognitive theories about child language acquisition, Chomsky has reflected on his own work and moved towards the ideas put forward by cognitive theorists.
Lenneburg, who worked as Chomsky's colleague added to the LAD theory stating that there must also be a 'critical period' when the LAD needs to be 'activated' with a sufficient amount of input, or the child's language development may be impaired. This relates to 'feral - children', such as 'Genie'. A child who was 'found' in 1970 and who had never had any positive interaction to develop language acquisition. Forced to keep quiet, she never developed the ability to vocalise langauge properly, suggesting as per Lenneburg's idea, that she had passed the 'critical period' of activation and input; however, it should be noted that she did acquire the ability to communicate through sign language. ASL (American Sign Language) does have grammatical rules, not the same as English, but still as Genie was able to acquire this ability and communicate with those around her, the interactional theory by Skinner is given more weight, as she would have learnt ASL through imitation and positive reinforcement by her care givers.
Jean Piaget - a cognitive theorist suggested that language development is due to a wider development in cognitive ability and that a child cannot articulate ides or concepts that they are uanble to understand. Piaget argued that if a child needs to understand a concept such as the past, to be able to use language terms to refer to it. Also the concept of seriation ( the ability to place items in a series, such as ascending or decending orders) needs to be understood before a child could learn to use superlatives and comparatives. Object permenance features in this idea too. The idea that the object still exists even if it is not visible needs to be understood too, so that the child comprehends that everything has it's own separate identity and will still exist even when the child cannot see it.
Lee Vygotsky - a Russian pyschologist had similar views to Piaget. He stated that langauge has two roles, one for communication and the other as a tool for further developing understanding, as he believed that language and thought become related in a relatively short period of time. He also believed that collaborative play has an influence and essential part in a child's early development. In instances where the emphasis is put more on play than teaching a child is required to stretch their cognitive abilities in and understanding new concepts or ideas without even realising they are being taught. Vygotsky said "What a child can do in co-operation today, he can do alone tomorrow".
The theories of Piaget and Vygotsky have been highly influential, but do however have some exceptions. Children with impaired cognitive ability sometimes are able to use language beyond their apparent cognitive ability; whereas children with apparently high cognitive abilities sometimes struggle with language.
In conclusion all of the theories, social interaction, nativist and cognitive have clearly been researched, but all of them have exceptions to the rules. Feral children can still acquire some form of language even though they may have missed the critical input period for their LAD. Children with cognitive impairment can still acquire a good level of language. While children do learn through imitation and reinforcement they are still capable of making errors based on their own understanding of their own language's grammatical rules. To truly understand the nature of child language acquisition it is necessary to keep an open mind and see that each theory can be justified and rationalised, but the fact that each type of theory also has loop holes suggests that language acquisition is only truly understood each individual child, who finds their own way to communicating by trial and error. "There are more things in heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in your philiosphy, Horatio" (Hamlet Act 1 Scene 5)
Nativist theories - These theories suggest that all humans have an inbuilt or innate capacity for language acquisition.
Social Interaction theories - These theories suggest that to acquire and develop language skills a child must have social and verbal interaction.
Cognitive theorists - The cognitive theorist believes that language is acquired as part of a wider development of understanding and cognitive ability.
BF Skinner (1957) having performed experiments using rats and pigeons discovered that they could perform a variety of tasks, as long as they were broken into stages, and received rewards for 'correct' actions. From this Skinner formed his 'Operant Conditioning Theory'. This was then applied to human learning, claiming that children learn language through the simple process of imitation and reinforcement. Skinner also claimed that no complicated internal mechanisms were needed for language acquisition and that children learning language was virtually the same as lab rats learning to complete tasks.
Kit's opinion - "Children are most certainly not the same as lab rats. Yes I think perhaps they do learn by copying their parents. Some of the language I have heard from young children is terrible, but could have only come from them hearing their parents say it, which in my mind is disgraceful. Believing that animals performing 'tricks' is the equivalent of a human child learning how to talk seems utter nonsense to me, but he was a scientist so perhaps I should not argue."
Clearly there are objections to this theory. If this is truly how children acquire language, how does Skinner account for virtuous errors, and the fact that all children despite their race, gender, culture or native language all acquire language at the same speed, despite cultural variations in child rearing. The hypothesis put forward by Skinner suggests that according to these variables, children should learn language at different rates due to these environmental factors. There is no allowance for a child to make virtuous errors in Skinner's theory. Children make logical errors based on rules that they have learnt through interaction, not because they are simply repeating and imitating adults, as no adult would have made this error.
Interactional theorists, such as Jerome Brunner believe that the CDS (Child Directed Speech) used by parents 'scaffolds' a child's language acquisition and supports its development, and gave this system the title of LASS (language Acquisition Support System), which actually links to Chomsky's nativist theory of the LAD. The social interaction theorists such as Skinner, Brunner and Snow believe that the collaborative and almost ritualised exchanges that occur during the pre-verbal stages of language development, aid the child to develop an understanding of the rules and learn concepts such as turn taking. However, there are areas of the world where CDS is not used by care givers, yet the children still acquire language at the same rate as children who are exposed to CDS.
Eric Lenneburg (1962) argued against Skinner's theory, in that children who are unable to speak due to illness are able to gain a normal comprehension of language without the ability to imitate adults, or by having their utterances reinforced. Hart and Risley (1995) argued that differences in social classes in the USA and the verbal interaction received by children in these classes can have an influence on their social and economic development in their later life.
Noam Chomsky - is a linguist and nativist theorist. He argued against Skinner's interactional theory and suggested that children acquire language because all humans have an innate ability to speak. Essentially he stated that the human brain is 'hard-wired' for language. The LAD (Language Acquisition Device) enables a child to hear and extrapolate the rules of their own language and understand the words and structures. Chomsky suggested that all languages have a Universal Grammar, stating that under the surface of all languages a similar grammatical structure is present. Looking at features of child language acquisition, such as virtuous errors and overgeneralisation, Chomsky noted that all children created these features without having heard adults use the same language and he concluded that there must be more than interaction and imitation at work to explain this phenomenon.
Theorist Steven Pinker, looked at Chomsky's work and further developed the LAD idea and created his own PPT ( Principles and Parameter Theory). This theory essentially states that by hearing the principles and parameters of the individuals native language, the rules become fixed. In a sense Pinker is saying that the PPT is the software used by the LAD hardware to create language. Once the parameters are defined through hearing speech, the principles become defined and are retained. In the light of cognitive theories about child language acquisition, Chomsky has reflected on his own work and moved towards the ideas put forward by cognitive theorists.
Lenneburg, who worked as Chomsky's colleague added to the LAD theory stating that there must also be a 'critical period' when the LAD needs to be 'activated' with a sufficient amount of input, or the child's language development may be impaired. This relates to 'feral - children', such as 'Genie'. A child who was 'found' in 1970 and who had never had any positive interaction to develop language acquisition. Forced to keep quiet, she never developed the ability to vocalise langauge properly, suggesting as per Lenneburg's idea, that she had passed the 'critical period' of activation and input; however, it should be noted that she did acquire the ability to communicate through sign language. ASL (American Sign Language) does have grammatical rules, not the same as English, but still as Genie was able to acquire this ability and communicate with those around her, the interactional theory by Skinner is given more weight, as she would have learnt ASL through imitation and positive reinforcement by her care givers.
Jean Piaget - a cognitive theorist suggested that language development is due to a wider development in cognitive ability and that a child cannot articulate ides or concepts that they are uanble to understand. Piaget argued that if a child needs to understand a concept such as the past, to be able to use language terms to refer to it. Also the concept of seriation ( the ability to place items in a series, such as ascending or decending orders) needs to be understood before a child could learn to use superlatives and comparatives. Object permenance features in this idea too. The idea that the object still exists even if it is not visible needs to be understood too, so that the child comprehends that everything has it's own separate identity and will still exist even when the child cannot see it.
Lee Vygotsky - a Russian pyschologist had similar views to Piaget. He stated that langauge has two roles, one for communication and the other as a tool for further developing understanding, as he believed that language and thought become related in a relatively short period of time. He also believed that collaborative play has an influence and essential part in a child's early development. In instances where the emphasis is put more on play than teaching a child is required to stretch their cognitive abilities in and understanding new concepts or ideas without even realising they are being taught. Vygotsky said "What a child can do in co-operation today, he can do alone tomorrow".
The theories of Piaget and Vygotsky have been highly influential, but do however have some exceptions. Children with impaired cognitive ability sometimes are able to use language beyond their apparent cognitive ability; whereas children with apparently high cognitive abilities sometimes struggle with language.
In conclusion all of the theories, social interaction, nativist and cognitive have clearly been researched, but all of them have exceptions to the rules. Feral children can still acquire some form of language even though they may have missed the critical input period for their LAD. Children with cognitive impairment can still acquire a good level of language. While children do learn through imitation and reinforcement they are still capable of making errors based on their own understanding of their own language's grammatical rules. To truly understand the nature of child language acquisition it is necessary to keep an open mind and see that each theory can be justified and rationalised, but the fact that each type of theory also has loop holes suggests that language acquisition is only truly understood each individual child, who finds their own way to communicating by trial and error. "There are more things in heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in your philiosphy, Horatio" (Hamlet Act 1 Scene 5)
Friday 7 January 2011
Child Language Acquisition Part 2
This section covers questions and negatives, morphology with overgeneralisation, phonology,pragmatic development and the wonderful WUGS!
Research by Bellugi and McNeill is summarised by David Crystal, and suggests that there are 3 stages of question development:
David Crystal states that using negatives has 6 stages:
MORPHOLOGY
MEAN LENGTH OF UTTERANCE (MLU): is a calculation based on the average number of morphemes used across a number of utterances.
This aspect of grammar becomes increasingly more important as the child's language develops:
Word endings create distinctions between:
FREE MORPHEME is a morpheme that can stand on its own as a meaningful unit e.g. eat.
BOUND MORPHEME is a morpheme that can only have meaning when joined with a free morpheme e.g. ing.
Example: the word eating consists of 2 morphemes (1 free and 1 bound) eat = free ing = bound
Inflectional Morphology - studies how morphemes are used to create different functions grammatically
Derviational Morphology - studies how morphemes can be used to create new words
3 patterns in derivational morphology:
Conversion - using one word as a different class of word e.g. I jammed the bread (the noun jam is used here as a verb).
Affixation - when endings are applied to words to create new ones e.g. Its crowdy in here
Compounding - when two existing words are joined together to form new combinations e.g. horsey-man
OVERGENERALISATION
Is the over application of a grammatical rule; a form of 'virtuous error' (see below for definition) If children have not heard these combinations or rule applications how do they create them? One idea suggests that these rules are heard in adult or other people's language and then the children start to apply it to their own language. It is common for children to apply the regular verb ending for the past simple tense (-ed) to irregular verbs. Therefore, they are not creating nonsense, but making a logical error, as they rigidly, but logically apply an incorrect ending. This is an overgeneralisation of a grammatical rule.
Virtuous error - is a mistake that is made for logical reasons and helps to shed light on the progress and processes of a child's language development e.g. I runned, I eating - the tenses are incorrect but the errors have been made logically.
Children can also regress in their language development - as per ROGER BROWN's research. A child at three may correctly use a verb ending, but at a later stage, perhaps five, regress to an incorrect form. Brown suggests that this is caused by the child's own deductive and cognative powers are increasing and where previoulsy they may have copied an adult, purely an incident of repetiton, now they are actively applying known rules and then 'virtuous errors' appear.
PHONOLOGY
This looks at the sounds and not spelling.There are 7 phonological features that are common in child language acquistion.
Addition - The addition of an extra vowel sound to create a vowel, consonant, vowel consonant strucure e.g. horsey
Deletion - Leaving out the final consonant of a word, so mouse would be come simply mou
Reduplication - The repetition of partiular soundsand structures such as choochoo
Substitution - Where one sound is replaced or swapped for another e.g. rabbit becomes wabbit
Consonant Cluster Reduction - Children can find the production of consonant cluster difficult, so they have a tendancy to reduce them to smaller units e.g. dry becomes dai
Deletion of unstressed syllables - The removal of an entire unstressed syllable from a word e.g. banana simply becomes nana
Assimilation - The process where substiution occurs but sounds change due to other sounds around it, so the sound produced is closer to the other sounds around it e.g. doggie becomes goggie.
PRAGMATIC DEVELOPMENT
Michael Halliday created a 'taxonomy of language.' Halliday a grammarian in 1975 identified 7 functions of language that children have in their early years. Suggesting that children are motivated to learn language as it serves functions or purposes for them.
Instrumental - Child uses language to express their needs.
Regulatory - Language is used to tell others what to do.
Interactional - Here language is used to make contact and build relationships with others.
Personal - Where language is used to express emotion, feelins, opinions and a sense of individual identity.
The following aid children to come to terms with their personal environment:
Heuristic - Language is used to gain knowledge about the environment.
Imaginative - This language is used to create stories, imaginary environments, tell jokes.
Representaional - This conveys facts and information
WUGS
In 1958 pyscholinguist Jean Berko Gleason created an experiment to test the use of the -s plural. She created an imaginary creature called a WUG. Then using a simple statement children were tested to see if they could complete the following statement:
"This is a wug. Now there is another one. There are two of them. There are two..."
Upwards of 75% of the children tested correctly answering 'wugs'. Berko used other nonsense words to test this experiment with broadly similar results.
This is a bit dull I know, but necessary to hammer these details back into my mind ahead of my exam. I love the wugs test, I always imagine them to be a bit like the Gruffalo, a creature made up of parts of other animals, with shaggy fur and claws, but a friendly smile. The next post will look at theories and theorists who have ideas about how children acquire language whether it is innate or interactional. Personally I feel it needs to be a combination of both, but I think I might let Kit work that one out!
Research by Bellugi and McNeill is summarised by David Crystal, and suggests that there are 3 stages of question development:
- Use of intonation to signal a question. 'Dada' in rising intonation might suggest the child is asking the location of a parent.
- The use of questioning words e.g. what, where, when and why
- Manipulating syntax (word-order) to create longer more detailed questions eg where doggie going?
David Crystal states that using negatives has 6 stages:
- Use of a negative word on its own e.g. no, not
- Combining with other words in two word and telegraphic stages, most common at the start of an utterance e.g. no bed
- Using a negative in the middle of an utterance. e.g. me not like
- The increased accuracy of negative words within utterances, often in form of a contraction used with an auxiliary verb e.g. she isn't going
- Increased complexity and range of negative words e.g. I haven't got any
- Saying no without actually saying no - a trick that is used by adults that children can then pick up
MORPHOLOGY
MEAN LENGTH OF UTTERANCE (MLU): is a calculation based on the average number of morphemes used across a number of utterances.
This aspect of grammar becomes increasingly more important as the child's language develops:
Word endings create distinctions between:
- Singular and plural
- Present and past tense
- Comparative and superlative
FREE MORPHEME is a morpheme that can stand on its own as a meaningful unit e.g. eat.
BOUND MORPHEME is a morpheme that can only have meaning when joined with a free morpheme e.g. ing.
Example: the word eating consists of 2 morphemes (1 free and 1 bound) eat = free ing = bound
Inflectional Morphology - studies how morphemes are used to create different functions grammatically
Derviational Morphology - studies how morphemes can be used to create new words
3 patterns in derivational morphology:
Conversion - using one word as a different class of word e.g. I jammed the bread (the noun jam is used here as a verb).
Affixation - when endings are applied to words to create new ones e.g. Its crowdy in here
Compounding - when two existing words are joined together to form new combinations e.g. horsey-man
OVERGENERALISATION
Is the over application of a grammatical rule; a form of 'virtuous error' (see below for definition) If children have not heard these combinations or rule applications how do they create them? One idea suggests that these rules are heard in adult or other people's language and then the children start to apply it to their own language. It is common for children to apply the regular verb ending for the past simple tense (-ed) to irregular verbs. Therefore, they are not creating nonsense, but making a logical error, as they rigidly, but logically apply an incorrect ending. This is an overgeneralisation of a grammatical rule.
Virtuous error - is a mistake that is made for logical reasons and helps to shed light on the progress and processes of a child's language development e.g. I runned, I eating - the tenses are incorrect but the errors have been made logically.
Children can also regress in their language development - as per ROGER BROWN's research. A child at three may correctly use a verb ending, but at a later stage, perhaps five, regress to an incorrect form. Brown suggests that this is caused by the child's own deductive and cognative powers are increasing and where previoulsy they may have copied an adult, purely an incident of repetiton, now they are actively applying known rules and then 'virtuous errors' appear.
PHONOLOGY
This looks at the sounds and not spelling.There are 7 phonological features that are common in child language acquistion.
Addition - The addition of an extra vowel sound to create a vowel, consonant, vowel consonant strucure e.g. horsey
Deletion - Leaving out the final consonant of a word, so mouse would be come simply mou
Reduplication - The repetition of partiular soundsand structures such as choochoo
Substitution - Where one sound is replaced or swapped for another e.g. rabbit becomes wabbit
Consonant Cluster Reduction - Children can find the production of consonant cluster difficult, so they have a tendancy to reduce them to smaller units e.g. dry becomes dai
Deletion of unstressed syllables - The removal of an entire unstressed syllable from a word e.g. banana simply becomes nana
Assimilation - The process where substiution occurs but sounds change due to other sounds around it, so the sound produced is closer to the other sounds around it e.g. doggie becomes goggie.
PRAGMATIC DEVELOPMENT
Michael Halliday created a 'taxonomy of language.' Halliday a grammarian in 1975 identified 7 functions of language that children have in their early years. Suggesting that children are motivated to learn language as it serves functions or purposes for them.
Instrumental - Child uses language to express their needs.
Regulatory - Language is used to tell others what to do.
Interactional - Here language is used to make contact and build relationships with others.
Personal - Where language is used to express emotion, feelins, opinions and a sense of individual identity.
The following aid children to come to terms with their personal environment:
Heuristic - Language is used to gain knowledge about the environment.
Imaginative - This language is used to create stories, imaginary environments, tell jokes.
Representaional - This conveys facts and information
WUGS
In 1958 pyscholinguist Jean Berko Gleason created an experiment to test the use of the -s plural. She created an imaginary creature called a WUG. Then using a simple statement children were tested to see if they could complete the following statement:
"This is a wug. Now there is another one. There are two of them. There are two..."
Upwards of 75% of the children tested correctly answering 'wugs'. Berko used other nonsense words to test this experiment with broadly similar results.
This is a bit dull I know, but necessary to hammer these details back into my mind ahead of my exam. I love the wugs test, I always imagine them to be a bit like the Gruffalo, a creature made up of parts of other animals, with shaggy fur and claws, but a friendly smile. The next post will look at theories and theorists who have ideas about how children acquire language whether it is innate or interactional. Personally I feel it needs to be a combination of both, but I think I might let Kit work that one out!
Thursday 6 January 2011
Books recently read!!
Deborah Cameron - The Myth of Mars and Venus - very insightful look into the stereotypes that have become an accepted norm when considering language and gender, due to popular ideas such as John Gray - Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus.
Lynne Truss - Eats, Shoots and Leaves - very enjoyable, written with just enough self-deprecation to make it fun, and I now know how to use the apostrophe, and the Oxford comma.
Emagazine - Sept 2010 issue. - nice piece on texting and the effect on language use.
Jean Aitchison - Language Change: progress or decay - good overall presentation of the changes in English overtime and an insight into other languages, patios, pidgins and creoles.
David Crystal - Texting: the gr8 db8 - not sure I spelt that right and too lazy to check! Sloppy, and could be said to be the 'damp spoon' effect! Well OK I checked and that is correct. I enjoyed this book, not sure all the research made sense, but I did enjoy the humour.
I am looking forward now to John Humphrys - Lost in words. I am curious about his prescriptivist views and think it might make an interesting read and a nice addition to my little collection of linguistic/language books. Would have loved to have put my paws on Bernard Lamb's Queen's English too, but Waterstones here is not chucking it out cheap....yet!!
Lynne Truss - Eats, Shoots and Leaves - very enjoyable, written with just enough self-deprecation to make it fun, and I now know how to use the apostrophe, and the Oxford comma.
Emagazine - Sept 2010 issue. - nice piece on texting and the effect on language use.
Jean Aitchison - Language Change: progress or decay - good overall presentation of the changes in English overtime and an insight into other languages, patios, pidgins and creoles.
David Crystal - Texting: the gr8 db8 - not sure I spelt that right and too lazy to check! Sloppy, and could be said to be the 'damp spoon' effect! Well OK I checked and that is correct. I enjoyed this book, not sure all the research made sense, but I did enjoy the humour.
I am looking forward now to John Humphrys - Lost in words. I am curious about his prescriptivist views and think it might make an interesting read and a nice addition to my little collection of linguistic/language books. Would have loved to have put my paws on Bernard Lamb's Queen's English too, but Waterstones here is not chucking it out cheap....yet!!
Aargh!! Exam resit - Child Language Acquisition Part 1
With only three days left to prepare for the resit of my AS English language exam I felt it prudent to do some revision. These are just my notes, due to illness and snow I managed to miss the entire module on child language acquisition last year, though surprisingly I felt this was the strongest section in my exam. As I hope (really hope) to improve my grade this time round I need a way to relearn the information, so these notes may descend into one of Kit's commentaries, as I am just spilling out information as I attempt to relearn it!!
Where to begin?
Well the beginning is a good place obviously! When a child is born it has no immediate capacity to speak in language, but is capable of making sound. I remember the sleepless nights well. Within 24 hours the child is able to competently recognise the voice of the primary care giver, usually mum.
After 6 weeks children discover that different sounds, or screams/crying, instigate different responses from care givers. This allows a child to learn the interactive nature of communication. The fact that parents react and respond to what are apparently meaningless utterances allows the child to become familiar with the idea of turn taking. In this period a child will learn to develop the control they have on their verbal equipment, experimenting with air flow through the vocal organs to create rhythmic sounds.
This is the initial period of the PRE-VERBAL STAGE leading into COOING - this is when the child creates open mouthed vowel sounds at around the approximate age of 3 -6 months.
At 6 - 12 months the child is into the BABBLING phase of this stage, making repeated consonant sounds and in combination. Children are also capable of responding to different tones and certain words. This stage often sees an increased use of body language and gesturing, which suggests that the child is developing an understanding of the language that they are not able to express verbally.
As this understanding of language begins to grow at 12 - 18 months children enter the PROTO-WORD phase. Making sounds that resemble actual words, but they are not always consistently applied in reference to the same object. This is also the phase where most children actually utter their first 'full' word often applied to a care giver e.g. mama, dada.
Once the proto-words begin to become words with meaning, the child enters the HOLOPHRASE (one word) phase. Here one word utterances are used to communicate in a variety of ways. e.g. 'cup', this could mean; "this is my cup", "I want a drink", "who's cup is that?" At this stage it is usually the primary care giver that understands this form of communication and responds to the child, as the vocabulary is quite small and often the words are unrecognisable as adult English words. It should also be noted that in this phase a child has a vocabulary of up to 50 words; however, research shows that children are capable of understanding 5 times as many in this phase.
From approximately 18 - 24 months the child enters the TWO WORD phase of development. This also marks the point where a child enters the GRAMMATICAL stage of language development. As the child develops a larger vocabulary, syntax comes into the language. Using a range of patterns consisting of two-word utterances. e.g. daddy go, where mummy? drink allgone. In this phase a child will begin to OVEREXTEND or UNDEREXTEND the meaning of these words. e.g. with overextension 'dog' may refer to any animal of a particular size with four legs e.g. cats, sheep, goats. With underextesion the same word may only apply to the family dog, as the child has not made the connection that there are many variants of creatures that have four legs and go 'woof'.
Hyponym - word within the category of a hypernym e.g. apple
Hypernym - category into which hyponyms fit e.g. fruit
LESLIE RESCORLA stated that there are 3 forms of overextension:
Categorical - most common form is when the label of apple is extended to other fruit, but as the other hyponyms are learnt within the hypernym the overextension begins to disappear.
Analogical - association of unrelated objects due to similarity of features e.g. a cement mixer and a ball, as both have a round appearance.
Predicate - conveys a form of abstract meaning e.g. looking into an empty play cot a child might utter 'dolly', which suggests that the child knew that a doll should be present.
From 24 - 40 months children move into the TELEGRAPHIC phase able to use 3,4, 5 and six word combinations, these phrases often omit grammatical words, such as determiners, auxiliaries and prepositions, but lexical items such as nouns, verbs and adjectives are present. From 36 months onwards children move into the POST-TELGRAPHIC phase, similar to the previous phase, but more grammatically complete.
Theorist JEAN AITCHISON states there are 3 model stages in language acquisition:
Labelling - The association of sounds with objects in the immediate world of the child - allows words to be linked to everyday objects, gives an understanding of the concept of labels.
Packaging - Starting to explore the extent of the label - often the point where overextension and underextension occurs most frequently.
Network Building - Making connection between the labels they have developed. Allows an understanding of opposites, similarities, relationships and contrasts.
Where to begin?
Well the beginning is a good place obviously! When a child is born it has no immediate capacity to speak in language, but is capable of making sound. I remember the sleepless nights well. Within 24 hours the child is able to competently recognise the voice of the primary care giver, usually mum.
After 6 weeks children discover that different sounds, or screams/crying, instigate different responses from care givers. This allows a child to learn the interactive nature of communication. The fact that parents react and respond to what are apparently meaningless utterances allows the child to become familiar with the idea of turn taking. In this period a child will learn to develop the control they have on their verbal equipment, experimenting with air flow through the vocal organs to create rhythmic sounds.
This is the initial period of the PRE-VERBAL STAGE leading into COOING - this is when the child creates open mouthed vowel sounds at around the approximate age of 3 -6 months.
At 6 - 12 months the child is into the BABBLING phase of this stage, making repeated consonant sounds and in combination. Children are also capable of responding to different tones and certain words. This stage often sees an increased use of body language and gesturing, which suggests that the child is developing an understanding of the language that they are not able to express verbally.
As this understanding of language begins to grow at 12 - 18 months children enter the PROTO-WORD phase. Making sounds that resemble actual words, but they are not always consistently applied in reference to the same object. This is also the phase where most children actually utter their first 'full' word often applied to a care giver e.g. mama, dada.
Once the proto-words begin to become words with meaning, the child enters the HOLOPHRASE (one word) phase. Here one word utterances are used to communicate in a variety of ways. e.g. 'cup', this could mean; "this is my cup", "I want a drink", "who's cup is that?" At this stage it is usually the primary care giver that understands this form of communication and responds to the child, as the vocabulary is quite small and often the words are unrecognisable as adult English words. It should also be noted that in this phase a child has a vocabulary of up to 50 words; however, research shows that children are capable of understanding 5 times as many in this phase.
From approximately 18 - 24 months the child enters the TWO WORD phase of development. This also marks the point where a child enters the GRAMMATICAL stage of language development. As the child develops a larger vocabulary, syntax comes into the language. Using a range of patterns consisting of two-word utterances. e.g. daddy go, where mummy? drink allgone. In this phase a child will begin to OVEREXTEND or UNDEREXTEND the meaning of these words. e.g. with overextension 'dog' may refer to any animal of a particular size with four legs e.g. cats, sheep, goats. With underextesion the same word may only apply to the family dog, as the child has not made the connection that there are many variants of creatures that have four legs and go 'woof'.
Hyponym - word within the category of a hypernym e.g. apple
Hypernym - category into which hyponyms fit e.g. fruit
LESLIE RESCORLA stated that there are 3 forms of overextension:
Categorical - most common form is when the label of apple is extended to other fruit, but as the other hyponyms are learnt within the hypernym the overextension begins to disappear.
Analogical - association of unrelated objects due to similarity of features e.g. a cement mixer and a ball, as both have a round appearance.
Predicate - conveys a form of abstract meaning e.g. looking into an empty play cot a child might utter 'dolly', which suggests that the child knew that a doll should be present.
From 24 - 40 months children move into the TELEGRAPHIC phase able to use 3,4, 5 and six word combinations, these phrases often omit grammatical words, such as determiners, auxiliaries and prepositions, but lexical items such as nouns, verbs and adjectives are present. From 36 months onwards children move into the POST-TELGRAPHIC phase, similar to the previous phase, but more grammatically complete.
Theorist JEAN AITCHISON states there are 3 model stages in language acquisition:
Labelling - The association of sounds with objects in the immediate world of the child - allows words to be linked to everyday objects, gives an understanding of the concept of labels.
Packaging - Starting to explore the extent of the label - often the point where overextension and underextension occurs most frequently.
Network Building - Making connection between the labels they have developed. Allows an understanding of opposites, similarities, relationships and contrasts.
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