CLA questions

CLA questions

1. Phonemic expansion is when the variety of sounds a child makes increases (for example, children move from cooing to babbling). Phonemic contraction is the variety of sounds reducing.
2. Turn taking is encouraged in children by the adult setting the agenda, this is a feature of CDS
3. A phoneme is a unit of sound and the grapheme is the letter which represents this sound
4. Berko and Brown’s ‘Fis’ study shows a child saying ‘that’s a fis’, and adult replies saying ‘is it a fis’ and then the child says ‘no it’s a fis’ meaning that the child can understand the ‘sh’ phoneme but is just unable to articulate it
5. A proto word is similar to a real word but not quite, i.e. when a child says ‘baba’ to ask for their bottle they are using words but they’re just unable to articulate the phoneme
6. A holophrase is a single word that is used to express a whole meaningful thought
7. Katherine Nelson’s 4 categories of words in children’s speech are naming ‘ball’, actions/events ‘ stop’, personal ‘yes’ , modifying actions ‘dirty’
8. Positive reinforcement is the idea of repeating behaviour because it has positive consequences e.g. a child will continue to say the word ‘ food’ if it means they will get fed
9. Negative reinforcement is the idea of performing a behaviour to avoid a negative consequence e.g. a child will say the word ‘food’ to avoid being hungry
10. Jean Aitchison looked at connections between children’s semantic and linguistic development. She theorised the following stages.  1. Labelling- linking words to the objects they refer to. 2. Packaging- exploring what certain labels can apply to. 3. Network building- making connections between words
11. Piaget looked at correlations between children’s speech development and their cognitive development. He split their development into 4 stages- sensorimotor, pre-operational, concrete operational and formal operational.
12. Mean length of utterance is the average amount of morphemes in a child’s utterance, the more morphemes a child uses per utterance, the more complex their utterance is.
13. Holophrastic= one word is used. Two-word = two words are used. Telegraphic = sentences without closed class words. Post-telegraphic = normal speech
14. Ursula Bellugi identified 3 stages of negation – 1) child puts ‘no’ in front of phrase. 2) no/not inside of utterance 3) correct form is achieved
15. Chomsky created LAD – the language acquisition device, this is a grammatical device which we are all born with which helps us to learn language
16. A virtuous error is an error that a child makes because they have never learnt the correct way that something should be said, not because they have heard it then using it wrong. Basically the child cannot be held responsible for making the error as it was out of their control.
17. Over-extension is when a child extends something of a certain category to something else e.g. calling all animals ‘dog’.
18. Universal grammar is Chomsky’s idea that language has a genetic factor i.e. language is hard-wired to the brain. This is supported by the idea that there are areas of the brain which light up in brain-imaging studies when being investigated for language.
19. Bruner and Vygotsky's theories both incorporate the idea of interaction in learning. They advocate the idea that we pick up language from our environment as opposed to it being innate
20. 
    

a modest proposal

Meanings and representations

The text shows a Sermon by the Clergyman John Swift. The purpose of the Sermon appears to be to shock his audience of parishioners into not having children. It is surprising that a priest would use such emotionally charged imagery to make his portray his point as he supposed to be in a position of care and support. However, Swift uses language to make his otherwise very absurd and shocking point seem more understandable and fair to his audience; Swift embeds clauses such as '...instead of being able to work for their honest livelihood...' and '...and frequently of their fathers...' to try and make the reader understand his point of view so they aren't so shocked by it. Similarly, Swift uses stative verbs such as 'want' and 'shame'. At this period in Ireland there was great poverty so the audience will be able to relate to Swift's use of these stative verbs causing the impact of them to be greater. This will further aid Swift in helping to proverbially cushion the blow of such a grotesque speech. This represents Swift as a giver of tough-love to his parish.

Swift uses the triadic structure ' the streets, the roads and cabin doors' to connote abundance. This is at a time when the people of Ireland had very little of anything so it is arguable that Swift is using his audience's poverty to help get what he wants from his audience. This represents Swift as manipulative which is, again, surprising from a priest figure. In addition, Swift uses the concrete noun 'dam' to describe the mother's womb. This represents these parents (i.e. the audience) as having animalistic traits. This use of zoomorphism will have a particularly big impact at a time when animals would have been likely to roam the streets, giving the parish a visual idea of what Swift is talking about. It is likely due to setting that Swift may be using paralinguistic features when giving the sermon to guide his Parish's attention towards the animals he compares them to.

Language change research

Language change








Reasons for language change

• Individuals -Shakespeare helped to drive evolution of language and actually coined many new terms which we use today e.g. "accommodation", "bubble", "obscene", "lack-luster" and "premeditated"
• Technology - invention of the printing press in 1476 began to standardise language use
• Society - cultural changes and shifts such as the introduction of political correctness
• Foreign influence - Norman invasion, more recently the introduction of Americanisms
• Science- New inventions requiring new words
• Colonisation- Picking up words from different cultures when they're colonised
• Globalisation of trade - English becoming the global language of trade

Attitudes towards language change

• Prescriptivism – dictate how language should be used
• Want language to remain same and refrain from change
• Descriptivism – accept language change is inevitable and accept change

Words from other languages


Borrowings –

• words taken from foreign languages 
• E.g. ‘Judge’ from French and ‘Opera’ from Latin

Words formed from existing words 

Affixation –

• Adding affix (prefix or suffix) to an existing word - E.g. ‘Racism’ and ‘sexism’

Compounding –

• Two words are combined in their entirety to make a new word
• E.g. ‘Lap-top’ and ‘Happy-hour’

Blending –

• Two words parts are moulded together to form a new word, usually by adding the start of one word and the end of another
• E.g. ‘Smog’ – smoke and fog and ‘Motel’ – motor and hotel

Conversion –

• Changing of word class  - E.g. Noun to verb – ‘Text’ was noun now verb of ‘to text’

Words formed by shortening –


Shortening or abbreviation –

• Clipping part of a word
• E.g. Omnibus to ‘bus’ and Public house to ‘pub’

Words from proper names –

• Derived from names or places synonymous with the product
• Denim – place in France
• Sandwich – after Earl of Sandwich

Semantic change


Broadening -

•  Words keep their old meanings but gain new ones as well e.g. Mouse used to just mean the animal but you can now have a computer mouse

Narrowing

•  When words become more specific
• 'Meat' used to mean all foods but now just means the flesh of animals 

Amelioration

• When words become more positive in meaning
• 'pretty' meant sly or cunning in the middle ages but now means beautiful 

Pejoration

• Opposite of amelioration  

Idioms

• Formed from existing words but assume new meanings often as fixed frame forms
• Can only be interpreted by learning what the whole frame means
• e.g. 'over the moon' or 'in the dog house'

Origins of English paragraph

Shakespeare uses the rhetorical interrogative 'how weary, stale, flat and unprofitable seems to me all the uses of this world?' to describe his character Hamlet's wishes to take his own life. At the time this play was first shown, suicide would have been seen as a great sin as Catholicism was followed in such an orthodox fashion. It is likely due to this context that this would have left the audience very shocked that such an act was spoken about so casually. It could be argued from this that the expectations of text consumption are being fulfilled as the nature of such a text would be to entertain and use of such a taboo topic would have certainly caused unrest and entertainment. It could also be argued that for the same reason the expectations of the text are not being fulfilled because it is probable that many of the audience members wold have been outraged about such an act being somewhat normalised by a play. Furthermore, the phrase 'uses of this world' connotes a certain selfishness in that it refers to taking from the world as oppose to giving. This is likely to have further, shocked an audience who were likely to be religious and therefore brought up to believe in a giving, worshipping environment.  

article comparison

Article comparison

Section of an article that displays language change negatively

Section of an article that displays language change positively

Teens these days do not use their thumbs for hitching rides on the side of the road. They use their thumbs to text rapid-fast messages to their friends on their cellphones. But, because keypads on cellphones are so tiny and typically thumbs are not, and each number key represents multiple letters, the tight maneuvering can lead to quite a few spelling mistakes.
Mistakes that can lead to hilarity—and to neologisms.
That’s right. The rapid-fast world of text-messaging has lead to the coining of new words. Well, new slang words.
For instance, did you know that pwn means own and that noobs means newbies?
But how can a spelling mistake become a word added to our common lexicon? It has to do with staying power. And these days a slang word is more likely than ever before to stick around. That’s because of where the slang is being used—in the cybersphere—it has more chances to reach across age groups, demographics, cultures, and societies. It can permeate. It can get picked up in the main stream and suddenly, what was once a spelling mistake can now be overheard in conversations on the street being held by parents, business professionals and even grandparents.
But do we have to worry about how slang and short forms is affecting teens’ language development? Not if they are able to use whole forms and demonstrate complete and competent language skills in areas that they need to, like in proper speech or on an essay. This viewpoint on teens and text-messaging is a departure from our opinion of text messaging and language development in children who are in the lower-level grades and who are still are acquiring their language skills.
According to Katherine Barber of the Canadian Oxford Dictionary, the fact that teens are developing new slang words is a good thing. “If the kids are picking up new words and new meanings then that means that they’re playing with the language,” she says. Spelling mistakes and the slang words that develop from rapid-fast thumb texting mean that kids are thinking about words, spelling and meaning, and that teens are playing an active role in language development.
Teens thinking about language and new words? They deserve two thumbs up.

Comparison

It is interesting that the two articles are both stating that he same thing is occurring but one states that it is negative and the other that it is positive; I think that the difference in grammar is a big reason for the change in tone across the two articles. The first article has a common use of more compound and complex sentences such as ‘adjectives such as ‘fantastic’ and ‘disastrous’ are rarely heard, and when they are the speaker is often referred to as posh’ (compound). This appears to create a more descriptive, factual and less upbeat tone in comparison with the second article which uses more simple sentences and sentence fragments such as ‘teens these days do not use the thumbs for hitching rides on the side of the road’ (simple). This common use of more simple grammar is creating a more, relaxed, accepting tone, furthermore, by using more simple grammar it appeals to the audience by showing that simple (and perhaps different) language to what you would find in an article is not a Bad thing.

It is also relevant to consider lexical differences across the two texts, in contrast with the grammatical difference, the second text appears to use much more complex lexis than the first one, it could even be argued that a linguistic-based special lexicon is present due to words such as ‘neologisms’ ‘common lexicon’ and ‘demographics’. By using this exclusive lexis, it gives readers the idea that there is more evidence to support the idea that slang and young people’s language change is not a bad thing. It could even be argued that in this context the language is used as a phatic token, giving status and an educated tone to what might be thought of as a poorly supported argument.