Child Language Acquisition Flashcards
Parentese
The name given to the “gentle sing-song voice” that parents adopt when talking to their babies.
Examples of naming functions
Mummy, daddy, she, ball, milk ,dog, baby, this
An example of an action function
Give, sit, stop, put, go
Personal/social function
Hi, bye-bye, yes, no
Examples of modifying function
Dirty, nice, more, all gone, up, down
Mehler (1988)
French new born babies were able to distinguish French from other languages. Babies as young as 4 days old sucked harder on their dummies, a sign of increased interest, when listening to French rather than English or Italian.
Vegetative stage
0-4 months. Crying, coughing, burping. Child expresses itself vocally through crying. Signals hunger, distress or pleasure. Instinctive noise not language.
Cooing
4-7 months. Gurgling, laughter,consonant and vowel sounds, pitch and loudness. Child develops increasing control over vocal chords. “Ga-ga”
Babbling
6-12 months. Sounds begin to resemble adult sounds more closely. Making more noise but the sounds don’t have any meaning. Exercises and experiments with articulators and babies are likely to blow bubbles and splutter.
Protowords
Word-like vocalisations, not matching actual words but used consistently for the same meaning e.g. “mmmm” to mean “give me that” with accompanying gestures such as pointing, supporting, the verbal message.
‘Made up’ words that a child will use to represent a word they cannot pronounce e.g. ‘rayray’ for ‘raisin’
these are not true first words as they have no semantic content
Bilabial
Sounds most common i.e. Using lips
Reduplicated monosyllable
When common sounds are repeated e.g. “baba” and “mama”
Articulators
Parts of the body that make sounds e.g. mouth and tongue
Holophrastic stage
Usually between 12 and 18 months child conveys a whole sentence in one word. Deliberately conveying meanings through word choice.
Caregiver must interpret the child’s meaning, based on the word used and other non-verbal cues; the caregiver will often expand on a child’s utterance to model the accurate form and lend clarity to what the child has said.
Phoneme
Smallest element of sounds in a language that can display contrast and hence change meaning or function of a word.
Phonemic expansion
When the number of different phonemes produces in babbling increases.
Phonemic contraction
9-10 months. Number of phonemes produced reduces to those found in the native language. The baby discards sounds not required.
Reduplicated babbling
Where sounds are repeated e.g. mama
Variegated babbling
Where the vowel sound changes e.g. dada to doda
Deletion
Dropping final consonants e.g. “ta” for “tap”
Unstressed syllable deletion
Unstressed syllables are often deleted e.g. “nana” instead of “banana”
An example of a consonant cluster reduction
“Pider” instead of “spider”
Substitution
Harder sounds are substituted for easier ones e.g. “r” becomes “w”
Diminutives
A suffix which is added to a words to show affection or to indicate something is small enough.g. Doggie
Addition
Adding an additional suffix to the end of the word to change the way in which the word is pronounced and interpreted i.e. doggie for dog
LAD (Language Acquisition Device)
As proposed by Chomsky, the idea that all humans are born with an innate language learning capacity
Tabula rasa
Latin for “blank slate” and the term used to describe the idea that children are born with underdeveloped, fresh brains
Universal grammar
Term coined by Chomsky - the notion that all human languages possess similar grammatical properties which the brain is hardwired to be able to decode
Virtuous errors
Grammatical errors that are understandable and logical through an incorrect assumption being made about grammar and rules
Child-directed speech
The academic term for the language used by adults/caregivers when addressing children
Vygotsky (play)
- Young children often used props as “pivets” to support their play but when older, use their imagination instead
- He observed children role play adult behaviour as part of exploring their environment
Catherine Garvey (1977)
- She considered the importance of play on language development, focusing particularly on pretend play which can help vocabulary growth
- Children play because it is enjoyable as well as it practises social interaction and negotiation skills (sociodramatic play)
- Starts at about 4 years old - using field specific lexis and following adult structures /behaviour patterns
Susan Ervin Tripp (1991)
- Importance of play to language development since children learn from each other and have to work in a way that does not occur in adult/child interactions
- She argued that imaginative play is critical for children to experiment with language in unfamiliar and different ways
Skinner (pragmatics)
- Social interactions lead to advances in the child’s pragmatic understanding so to learn pragmatics a child must interact with adults
Chomsky
- Children have an innate ability to learn language and pragmatics
Piaget (in relation to Halliday and Dore’s models)
- Halliday and Dore’s models focus on the child’s use of language as a way to discover the world and so support Piaget’s ideas that children learn by discovery “doing”
Brown and Levinson
- Suggested two main aspects of face in communicative interactions
Positive: where the individual desires social approval and being included
Negative: where the individual asserts their need to be independent and make their own decisions
Yousef (1991)
- Group of children in Trinidad
- Children responded to different social situations by using different varieties of English
Janet (3 years, 9 months)
- Conversation with mother - 100% standard English
- Family helper (a Trinidadian English speaker) - decreasing amounts of SE
- Brother/same age children - decreasing amounts of SE
Bancroft (1996)
- Peek-a-boo helps children to learn
- Turn taking
- Response
- Common purpose and understand the sequence
- Pleasure
IRF structure - Sinclair and Coulthard (1975)
Initiation
Response
Feedback
Initiation (IRF)
Mother asks a child a question e.g. “What do we say to Granny?”
Response (IRF)
Child provides a response to the question e.g. “Thank you for the sweets Granny”
Feedback (IRF)
Mother praises child for giving an appropriate answer e.g. “well done John”
Halliday’s Taxonomy (1975)
Halliday stated that there are 7 pragmatic functions of speech:
- Instrumental
- Regulatory
- Interactional
- Personal
- Representational
- Imaginative
- Heuristic
Instrumental (H)
Language is used to fulfil a need e.g. ‘want milk’
Regulatory (H)
Language is used to influence the behaviour of others e.g. ‘pick up’
Interactional (H)
Language is used to develop and maintain social relationships e.g.’hello’
Personal (H)
Language is used to convey individual opinions, idea and personal identity e.g. ‘me like Charlie and Lola’
Representational (H)
Language is used to convey facts and information e.g. ‘it hot’
Imaginative (H)
Language is used to create an imaginary world maybe seen in play predominantly e.g. ‘me shopkeeper’
Heuristic (H)
Language used to learn about the environment e.g. ‘why?’
John Dore’s pragmatics language functions
- Labelling
- Repeating
- Answering
- Requesting action
- Calling
- Greeting
- Protesting
- Practising
Labelling (D)
Naming a person object or thing
Repeating (D)
Repeating an adult word or utterance
Answering (D)
Responding to an utterance of another speaker
Requesting action (D)
Asking for something to be done for them
Calling (D)
Getting attention by shouting
Greeting (D)
Greeting someone or something
Protesting
Objecting to requests from others
Practising (D)
Using language when no adult is present
Evaluation of Halliday and Dore’s models
- Both provide useful models for analysing utterance used by children
- Dore’s model is broader
- It is often hard to apply either model accurately without information on context