CLA Introduction Flashcards
What could affect a childs language?
The cutter the language is exposed to
Intellectual development
Muscular control
The family context
Exposure to language
Personality
What stage is 0-2 months?
Vegetative Stage
What happens in the Vegetative Stage?
Before babies understand meaning they begin to use crying sounds, sometimes in response to what they are experiencing around them or internal stimuli.
Babies usually come out of the womb crying and this is often what we take as a sign they are healthy. It is suggested that crying helps the baby to adjust to breathing in air rather than fluid.
Crying is important from an evolutionary perspective as it is babies’ only way of communicating and as adults we are programmed to respond.
What happens 4-7 months?
Cooing is sounds a baby will make like ‘goo’ and ‘ga-ga’, generally around the age of 6-8 weeks. It is believed that during this period the child is discovering their vocal chords.
First laughter.
Changes in pitches and loudness.
What happens 6-9 months?
As time goes on, the baby’s capacity to produce sound becomes more wide-ranging. This is known as phonemic expansion.
Babies tend to start to babble at this stage which is an extension of cooing. A common one is ‘baba’.
Baby Babbling - YouTube
As the voice box develops so does the muscular control increasing a greater diversity sounds.
A crucial age is 9 months- up until this age babies are potentially international in their range of sounds but after this stage the sounds they hear around them start to dominate- this is called phonemic contraction.
What implications may phonemic contraction have on bilingualism?
Slower development.
What happens 9-12 months?
Vowel sounds are easier to produce and tend to make these before consonants.
At this time, the baby starts using proto-words: clusters of sounds that represent the baby’s attempt to articulate specific words when their motor coordination is still in the early stages of development.
Paralinguistic features (e.g. pointing, facial expressions) may also support this.
Later, consonant sounds such as ‘b’ are formed.
Consonant clusters are more challenging (e.g. saying ‘gy’ instead of ‘sky’); these require more muscular control, and their capacity to form specific phonemes is not in place.
What happens 9-12 months?
Vowel sounds are easier to produce and tend to make these before consonants.
At this time, the baby starts using proto-words: clusters of sounds that represent the baby’s attempt to articulate specific words when their motor coordination is still in the early stages of development.
Paralinguistic features (e.g. pointing, facial expressions) may also support this.
Later, consonant sounds such as ‘b’ are formed.
Consonant clusters are more challenging (e.g. saying ‘gy’ instead of ‘sky’); these require more muscular control, and their capacity to form specific phonemes is not in place.
By 30-40 months, a baby is likely to have mastered only?
only two thirds of consonants.
What are proto-words?
clusters of sounds that represent the baby’s attempt to articulate specific words when their motor coordination is still in the early stages of development.
What are Consonant clusters?
are more challenging (e.g. saying ‘gy’ instead of ‘sky’); these require more muscular control, and their capacity to form specific phonemes is not in place.
What are general trends? Read for more background info! <3
By the age of 2 and a half the average child has mastered all of the vowels and around two thirds of the consonants.
At 4 the child is likely to be having difficulty with only a few consonants.
The child may be 6 or 7 before they are confident in using all vowels and consonants.
Consonants are first used correctly at the beginning of words but consonants at the end of words are more difficult. E.g. the ‘p’ and ‘b” sounds in ‘push’ and ‘bush’ will be easier to pronounce than ‘rip’ and‘rib’.
In general, sounds that occur frequently in a large number of words will be acquired before sounds that occur less frequently.
What is subsitution?
Easier sounds are substituted for harder ones:
‘r’ becomes ‘w’ – rabbit/wabbit
‘th’ becomes ‘d’, ‘n’ or ‘f’ – thing/ding/ning/fing
‘t’ becomes ‘d’ – talk/dalk
‘p’ becomes ‘b’ – pat/bat
What is addition?
Children sometimes break up consonant clusters not by deleting one of the consonants, but by adding a vowel to separate them.
For example, “blue” becomes “belu”. Sometimes they add syllables on the end of the word to re-create the CVCV pattern, e.g. ‘horsey’for ‘horse’.
What is deletion?
Children will often simplify pronunciation by deleting certain sounds:
Final consonants may be dropped eg) the ‘t’ soundin ‘hat’ and ‘cat’ v Unstressed syllables are often deleted eg) ‘banana’ becomes ‘nana’
Consonant clusters are reduced eg) ‘snake’ becomes ‘nake’ , ‘sleep’ becomes ‘seep’
