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.

 

 

‘Young readers should be corrected whenever they make a mistake’

‘Young readers should be corrected whenever they make a mistake’

Early in the transcript there is evidence to support the idea that young readers should be corrected whenever they make a mistake; George struggles to pronounce the concrete noun ‘sandbags’ this is likely to be due to the fact that it is low-frequency lexis and appears to be an example of a consonant cluster with the letters ‘d’ and ‘b’. After his mother asks him to sound out how to correctly pronounce it, praise is given. According to Skinner’s operant conditioning theory, by using the terms ‘well done’, George’s mother is positively reinforcing his linguistic behaviour. By doing this he is more likely to repeat this behaviour, this shows that by correcting young readers it leads to better language development and therefore supports the question. However, it could be argued that it was the praise that George’s mother gave that is causes language development as oppose to the correction, therefore contradicting the statement in the question.

Linked to my first point is the idea that modelling and scaffolding causes development in linguistic ability. Later In the transcript George's mother models how to say the word 'sandbags' by splitting it into the two morphemes 'sand' and 'bags' and asking him to repeat what she says. This is evidence of the primary caregiver providing scaffolding to help the child reach Vygotsky's zone of proximal development. in essence, bridging the gap between what George does know and what he can know. Therefore, by George's mother scaffolding for him when he makes the mistake of mispronouncing the word 'sandbags' his linguistic ability is being developed, thus, supporting the phrase in the question.

Certain theories (with evidence from the text) appear to contradict the statement in the question, The fact that we know that George is 7 years old allows us to see the stage he is currently at in developmental theories. One such developmental theory is Piaget's critical stage hypothesis; according to Piaget's theory George is in concrete operational stage of language development. This is an innate stage of development which can't be effected by correction from making a mistake. At this stage George would be expected to think in a rational way but lack understanding of abstract or unclear topics and ideas. There is evidence from this in the text in that George spells words out phonetically to understand them but lacks understanding but often reverts to local topics and basic phonetics when he isn't sure on how to pronounce a word such as when he says 'upstairs' instead of 'upset'. because Piaget's theory is so well supported, this contradicts the statement in the question.

In summary, there is evidence to support and contradict the statement 'young readers should be corrected when the make a mistake'. It could certainly be argued that development of language is more innate and that correcting a child does not aid their linguistic development. Theorists such as Piaget and Noam Chomsky show this. However, it could also be argued that without being corrected, children will continue to make the same mistakes, evidence from George using correct forms after being corrected in the text shows this and it is further supported by theorists such as Skinner and Vygotsky

Word that has changed in meaning

Word that has changed in meaning

The adjective ‘awful’ used to have the complete opposite meaning to what it does now. The word awful used to describe something which is simply ‘full of awe’. This means that it would describe something positive, similar to the way that we use the adjective ‘awesome’ in modern day English. The word has changed to mean something which is ‘so terrible that it is worthy of awe’. This therefore means that prejoation has occurred as the word has become more negative.

Exemplified, nowadays if we used the phrase ‘that t-shirt looks awful’, we are saying that we very much dislike the t-shirt. However, many years ago if you were to say that the t-shirt looked awful, you’d be saying that you really like the t-shirt; similar to if you said you thought the t-shirt looks awesome nowadays.

The term has prejorated so much that it has become unheard of in modern English and would lead to great confusion if used in the way it used to be.

1600 comparison

1600’s Shakespearian	Modern English
He doth bestride the narrow world like a Colossus; and we petty men walk under his huge legs, and peep about to find ourselves dishonorable graves	He walks on the narrow world like a giant, and petty men like us walk under his huge legs and look forward only to dying dishonourably.

 

This is an extract from the Shakespearian play ‘Julius Ceaser’

Firstly, the context should be considered; the play is action-orientated and based on a leader who was known for being strong and brutal, therefore, Shakespeare might well have used language that sensationalise the tension and feeling of awe in the extract. The use of the verb ‘doth’ is a variation of the modern day verb ‘to do’, this is placed before the objective verb ‘bestride’ to increase a sense of majesty and vastness. In modern English we don’t use either of these verbs and instead would just use the one verb ‘walks’. Therefore, it would be fair to say that the phrase ‘doth bestride’ has become obsolete in modern English.

Interestingly, in the Shakespearian text, the word Colossus is used as a singular, common concrete noun. Although, this is sometimes still used in modern English in this way but the term Colossus is perhaps more commonly used a proper noun to describe a company such as Colossus Computers or Colossus Comics., this is an example of semantic shift and I believe it to be broadening.

Finally, the Shakespearian text uses the phrase ‘peep about’ where in modern English we use the phrase look forward. There is a correspondence in that both texts use a variation of the verb ‘to see’ (‘peep’ and ‘look’). However, the Shakespearian text uses the present tense preposition ‘about’ whereas in modern day English we use the future tense adverb ‘forward’. I feel as though this phrase has become amorliated in a semantic sense, because by using a word to do with the future you are connoting a sense of positivity.   

children's writing

Children’s writing

1) Pre–Phonemic stage

• Children write incoherent squiggles which aren’t separated into words

 

 2) Semi-phonetic stage

• They start to produce some form of letter shape, some are invented and some are mirrored from what they’ve seen.
•  It’s often not split into words

 

3) Phonetic stage

• They write words using phonetic spelling
• It refines as they develop and bad spelling shouldn’t be criticised, the communication should just be rewarded

 

4) Transitional stage

• They start to learn some key patterns, even some digraphs (two letters making one sound)

 

5) Conventional stage

• They learn to spell most words

• They then start to get an awareness of punctuation as their writing and reading begins to improve
• They start to use conventions of the different words they know
•  They start to become aware of differences in formality with reading and writing

Another theory of writing development by Kroll (1981)

Stage 1: Preparatory stage

• Masters the basic motor skills needed to write
• Learns the basic principles of the spelling system.

 
Stage 2: Consolidation stage (age up to 6)

• Child writes in the same way it speaks.
• Uses short declarative sentences which include mainly ‘and’ conjunctions.
• Incomplete sentences as they don’t know how to finish the sentence off.

 
Stage 3: Differentiation stage (age up to 9)

• Child becomes aware of the difference between speaking and writing.
• Recognises the different writing styles available e.g. letter, essay.
• Lots of mistakes.
• Use writing guides and frameworks to structure work.
• Write to reflect thoughts and feelings.

 
Stage 4: Integration stage (12+)

• Child develops a personal style.
• Child understands that you can change your style according to audience and purpose.

virtuous error is when a child makes a mistake because they've never learned the correct way.


These are examples:

Insertion - adding extra letters 

Omission - leaving out letters

Substitution - substituting one letter for another

Transposition - reversing the order of letters in words

Phonetic spelling - spelling words according to the standard phonemes that graphemes make

Over/undergeneralising of spelling rules - applying or not applying rules in inappropriate contexts or one specific context

Salient (key) sounds - only including the key sounds

Child's text


'Bird of prey


Bird of prey mean that
A bird of prey hunt's
thats why it has a pointed beake
A bird of prey is very special Bird
there Just not like any sparrow becous there bigger
a better and protective but not as loving


Bird of prey fliing'


- The child sometimes fails to pluralise some key words such as 'mean' to 'means', this is an example of omission.
- The child adds 'e' onto the word 'beak' creating the word 'beake', this is an example of insertion
- the child uses the determiner 'there' instead of 'they're'. This is an example of overgeneralising words
- the child says the word 'fliing' instead of 'flying' this shows phonetic spelling


   

Introduction of investigation

Introduction of investigation 


I chose to investigate names and terms of address after reading Richard Hudson's article on the online English and Media magazine. He describes how every name and term of address has a different social message and I want to discover whether people perceive this to be true. Grice's maxims of conversation link to this argument; Grice's maxim of quality states that we shouldn't portray information for which we have no evidence, does this mean that by calling someone by a title without first asking them what that title is would be flouting a maxim of conversation? I wanted to look deeper into this idea so I chose to investigate the hypothesis 'people's positive face needs are effected when they are being referred to by the wrong title'. To investigate this I used a questionnaire in which I will find out how/when people are offended by being called the wrong title (if at all).

Comparison of transcripts

Comparison of transcripts

In the 2;4 transcript Zach shows premature signs of the multiword stage; at Zach’s age (28 months) we would expect to see the telegraphic stage of language acquisition as more dominant in Zach’s speech. However phrases such as ‘I got food on the floor’ show evidence that he has entered the multi-word stage, an equivalent phrase that we would expect in the telegraphic phase would read more like ‘got food on floor’.  Zach’s early entrance into the multi-word stage would appear to disprove Piaget’s ideas that we have to reach certain ages to move through learning development and that language acquisition is somewhat destined to occur at innate junctures.  Linked to this is the idea that language development is not a linear process and that despite Zach’s language being more sophisticated than expected at 28 months regression is still a natural phase in learning, arguably the fact there are more false starts in the second transcript (3 to the first transcript’s 1) show that Zach is going back to language he is more comfortable with (i.e. regressing) in order to develop. However, an alternative explanation of this is that at 41 months he has a wider vocabulary and therefore more words to choose from causing more false starting.

In the second transcript a lot more emphasis is given by the caregiver to politeness than accuracy, this is shown by the idea that although there are various grammatical mistakes in Zach’s speech which Halla doesn’t correct him for, when he fails to say please, he is prompted by Halla’s use of the cloaked interrogative ‘I think you might need the magic word then’. His failure to use the adverb ‘please’ might be due to his high level of comfort at home with his primary caregiver where he will not be judged. However, the earlier transcript doesn’t show any evidence of correction for either politeness or grammatical error. According to Halliday’s language functions the earlier transcript appears to show more interactional speech from Halla (compared with more dominant regulatory speech in the latter transcript). It could be argued that this is because younger age children can get away with both grammatical mistakes and lack of politeness but as the child gets older the social and cultural context means that parents wouldn’t want their child to appear rude as it would reflect badly on them however grammatical mistakes will be seen as part of the child’s development and accepted, this could differ across different cultures.  

There is a clear morphological development over the 2 transcripts; in the first transcript the mean length of utterance is 5.6, whereas in the second transcript it is 12.45 (both much higher than expected). This development in MLU shows not only development in morphological skills but also syntactic development, this development reduces the level of ambiguity in the child’s language, reduction in ambiguity is very important in language acquisition and this is shown in Zach’s language. For example, in the first transcript Zach says ‘I cutting round the edge’ the lack of pluralisation on ‘I’m’ shows lower morphological development than the second transcript; phrases such as ‘so I put lots of sellotape…’ shows how morphological development can lead to more maturity in phonetics and general acquisition of language.

According to John Dore’s language functions, the first transcript shows a much heavier focus on answering, i.e. answering questions. Examples include utterances such as ‘yes’ and ‘I think I don’t’. This is contrasted by the second transcript which shows a much a wider range of functions such as requesting action’ – ‘can you do it mummy’ and protesting – ‘we don’t need breakfast’. It could be argued that this range in language functions shows development in Zach’s language, it could also be argued that the context of just Zach and his primary caregiver at home has given Zach the confidence to try and use a wider range of language functions.

Something common in both transcripts is the scaffolding put in place by Halla to help Zach to widen his linguistic ability. Scaffolding is the process by which adults such as parents and teachers help children to learn language by prompting and asking questions such as 'what have we eaten today' in the first transcript. This allows the child to mature and develop their language use. The idea of scaffolding was developed by vygotsky, he stated in his theory of cognitive development that children have a zone of proximal development, this is the gap between what a child knows and what they can know with the help of a caregiver; in the transcript Halla enables Zach to bridge this gap with the help of prompts such as 'what else have we had?' in the first transcript and 'because' in the second transcript. This helps Zach to grow his knowledge of language and effectively make his linguistic ability eat into his current zone of proximal development.

 

Investigation methodology


Richard Hudson's theory about names and how every name carries a different social message, he says that if you call someone by their first name then you see them as someone you know well and your social equal and if you refer to them using a title such as 'Mr' 'Dr' or 'Professor' then you show that they're a stranger.


I am going to investigate whether names do carry different social messages in our culture & whether calling people by the incorrect title affects our positive face needs?


To investigate this I will design a questionnaire to give to people on how they feel when they are referred to in different ways for example, how a person feels when they are called a title which makes them seem less educated, for example Dr instead of Mr.


The use of a questionnaire can provide me with large amounts of data in a reasonably small space of time


Questionnaire design
- I will use a mix of open and closed questions to gain all relevant information
- before my main questionnaire is sent out I will run a small scale pilot study
- I will start the questionnaire with shorter, easier questions and develop it into the longer, more difficult ones
- I will ensure that all my questions are concisely and accurately worded to provide reliable results


Ethicality
-  I will let people remain anonymous and tell them that their results will be published in my investigation. I will ensure them that details such as their name and address will remain confidential.


Reliability
- I will keep my questions worded in a simple, readable way
- I will make sure that my questionnaire looks neat and well presented to improve the chances of the person thinking that the results they're giving is important
- I will give out my real questionnaire soon after my pilot one to ensure nothing changes
- I will ensure when reading answers that similar questions provide me with similar answers, if they are different then I might have to disregard the results of that questionnaire
- I will have to make sure that my questions provide results which, although qualitative, give measurable results for me to discuss in my report


comparability

Investigation ideas

Language investigation 


Deborah Tannen's advice versus understanding idea


I will investigate whether it's true that men look at a problem as a challenge and women look at a problem as a an opportunity to offer sympathy.




“When my mother tells my father she doesn't feel well, he invariably offers to take her to the doctor. Invariably, she is disappointed with his reaction. Like many men, he is focused on what he can do, whereas she wants sympathy.”




beth kemps ideas that taboo language towards females is becoming a joke




https://aggslanguage.wordpress.com/language-theorists-put-to-the-test/

http://www.universalteacher.org.uk/contents.htm#langa


notes from this website


Notes on accent and dialect
dialect levelling and standardisation has occurred over the last 100 years


some important features of speech which I should revise

Affective features

Agenda

Adjacency pairs

Adverbials

Back-channelling

Backtracking

Closing conversation

Co-operative signals

Deictics

Disagreement

Facilitating mechanisms

Feedback

Fillers

Foregrounding

High considerateness/high involvement speakers

Humour

Implicatures (implication)

Introducing new topics

Metamessages

Monitoring talk

Opening conversation: request, question, offer

Overlap (co-operative)

Pauses

Rapport talk/report talk

Relevance

Repetition

Simultaneous speech

Tag questions

Turn-taking

Types of conversation: child/adult, gender related, power related (e.g. doctor-patient)

Uncompleted sentences

Utterance types: statement (declarative); question (interrogative); command (imperative); exclamation

Word of mouth link

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qtnz/episodes/player

Halliday and Dore


Halliday


These are Halliday's 6 functions of language in the child language acquisition


1)  Regulatory: Language used to influence the behaviour of others. Concerned with persuading / commanding / requesting other people to do things you want.


2) Interactional: Language used to develop social relationships and ease the process of interaction. Concerned with the phatic dimension of talk.


3) Personal: Language used to express the personal preferences and identity of the speaker. Sometimes referred to as the ‘Here I am!’ function – announcing oneself to the world.


4) Representational: Language used to exchange information. Concerned with relaying or requesting information.


5) Heuristic: Language used to learn and explore the environment. Child uses language to learn; this may be questions and answers, or the kind of running commentary that frequently accompanies children’s play.


6) Imaginative: Language used to explore the imagination. May also accompany play as children create imaginary worlds, or may arise from storytelling.


John Dore


John Dore created an alternative to Halliday's theory of language functions
He focused more in interactional utterances, below are the Language functions


1) Labelling: This is naming a person, object or place


2) Repeating: This is repeating an adult word or utterance


3) Answering: Responding to an utterance of another speaker


4) Requesting action: asking for something to be done for them


5) Calling: greeting someone's attention


6) Greeting: greeting someone


7) Protesting: objecting to another person's request


8) Practising: using language when no adult is present  

Analysis of Zach 2;4 transcript


Contextual factors which might effect the language used are Age, gender, social class, the place in which the interaction takes place and the time of day.


An example of a theory that could have a bearing on the transcript is Bernstein's restricted and elaborated code; Bernstein showed that people who only have access to restricted code will speak in a highly predictable way, with a fairly high proportion of pronouns, tag questions, and the use of gestures and intonation to convey meaning. People who have access to restricted and elaborated code will use more subordinate clauses, adjectives, more use of the pronoun the pronoun 'I' and passives. This applies to Zach's language because if he has access to elaborated code, his language will have more variety and be more sophisticated.


Another theory which could effect the language use is Zimmerman and West's dominance theory. This applies because it shows that the fact that Zach is male might mean that he would interrupt more than if he was female, however, Geoffrey Beattie's theory would contradict this and state that interruptions wouldn't be effected by gender.




Test of Zimmerman and West's theory for interruptions

Skinner's operant conditioning/behavioural theory for how children learn language

Skinner's operant conditioning/behavioural theory for how children learn language

Skinner came up with the idea of positive and negative reinforcement and how this leads to behaviours being learned. Skinner viewed babies as 'empty vessels' which needed to be 'put into'.

Early in the baby's life, an example of positive reinforcement will be attention given to the baby when they babble, this will increase the frequency in the amount of times they babble, leading to increased vocalisation.  

 After rewarding vocalisations for a while, parents become used to a child’s babbling and pay less attention to it. This motivates the infant to vary the babbling. Sometimes, by accident, the child produces more recognisable speech sounds, for example, if an infant accidentally says 'dada', the parents might respond excitedly (positive reinforcement). Therefore, skinner did not claim that parents intentionally shape the language of children but that it happens naturally.

Later in the child's development thought that when a child said a word correctly they were positively reinforced. For example, when the child says ‘milk’ and the mother will smile and give her some as a result, the child will find this outcome rewarding, enhancing the child's language development (Ambridge & Lieven, 2011).






However, this theory assumes that without reinforcement, imitation will not result in learning. Brown and Hanlon's case study shows that during parent-child conversations, parents rarely reinforce correct grammar in a child's speech. But instead focus on truthfulness and accuracy of statements.   

Stages of child language acquisition

Stages of child language acquisition






1) The first stage of the child language acquisition is babbling, this occurs at 6-8 months and involves producing a full range of possible speech sounds, even when these sounds don't appear in the child's living environment.






2) The second stage is the holophrastic 'one word' stage, it occurs at 12-14 months and you don't just get any word. You get words such as 'bad', 'go', 'fast' 'drink' but you will never get words such as 'and', 'in', 'the'.






3) The third stage is the two word stage this occurs at 18-24 months, there are still no closed class words, the closed classes in English include pronouns, determiners, conjunctions, and prepositions. However, there are some pronouns used such as 'me' and 'you'.






4) The fourth stage is known as the telegraph stage this occurs between 24 and 30 months. There is no 3 word stage in language, there is basically full sentences but without closed class words. There are some affixes used.






5) The fifth stage is the later multiword stage this occurs after 30 months and in this stage grammatical or functional structures emerge.




-  Babbling
-  Holophrastic
-  Two word
-  Telegraph
-  Later multiword

Stages of child language acquisition

Stages of child language acquisition




1) The first stage of the child language acquisition is babbling, this occurs at 6-8 months and involves producing a full range of possible speech sounds, even when these sounds don't appear in the child's living environment.




2) The second stage is the holophrastic 'one word' stage, it occurs at 12-14 months and you don't just get any word. You get words such as 'bad', 'go', 'fast' 'drink' but you will never get words such as 'and', 'in', 'the'.




3) The third stage is the two word stage this occurs at 18-24 months, there are still no closed class words, the closed classes in English include pronouns, determiners, conjunctions, and prepositions. However, there are some pronouns used such as 'me' and 'you'.




4) The fourth stage is known as the telegraph stage this occurs between 24 and 30 months. There is no 3 word stage in language, there is basically full sentences but without closed class words. There are some affixes used.




5) The fifth stage is the later multiword stage this occurs after 30 months and in this stage grammatical or functional structures emerge.


-  Babbling
-  Holophrastic
-  Two word
-  Telegraph
-  Later multiword