Interactionism CLD

Question 1

What do interactionalists believe in?

Answer 1

But a Child is born tabula rasa (blank slate) and learns language based on their interaction with caregivers.

Question 2

Child directed speech (CDS)

Answer 2

Process of talking to a child

Question 3

Who is the main interactionalist?

Answer 3

Bruner

Question 4

What did Bruner create?

Answer 4

The language acquisition support system (LASS)
Designed to “scaffold” a child in learning language, structuring responses in order to help a child used language more accurately.

Question 5

Catherine Snow

Answer 5

Argues that language acquisition happens as a result of the interaction, which takes place between a mother and a child.

Question 6

What did term did Catherine Snow coin?

Answer 6

“Motherese” -describe the language used by mothers to talk to their children.

Also interactions with Fathers use “fatherese” and anybody else uses “otherwise”.

Question 7

John Snarey

Answer 7

States that fathers interact with their children in different ways to the way their mothers do.

‘roughhousing’- father teaches that biting, kicking and other forms of violence are unacceptable and how to gain self-control.

Question 8

Who did Bard and Sachs study?

Answer 8

Jim who’s parents were deaf.

Question 9

Jim the case study

Answer 9

Exposed to various uses of language like the TV and the radio, but he passed the critical period (coined by Lenneberg). After passing this time, it is believed a child will often struggle to acquire language.

Question 10

Why does Jim support interactionalism?

Answer 10

Interactions with a speech therapist helped him to acquire language, proving that there is a need for interaction.

Question 11

What strategies do Snow and Burner argue caregivers may use to scaffold language acquisition?

Answer 11

Retesting and reformulation.
Expansion.
Exaggerated prosodic cues.
Expatriation.
Overarticulation.

Question 12

Recasting and reformulation

Answer 12

caregiver repeats what the child said containing anything missing and needed to make a grammatically standard utterance.

E.G. a child might say ‘ball’ and the caregiver may respond with ‘you want the ball?’.

Question 13

Expansion

Answer 13

The caregiver makes the utterance more complex by expanding on what the child said.

E.G. ‘Amy runned’ might be expanded to form ‘Amy ran the race’.

Question 14

Exaggerated prosodic cues

Answer 14

exaggerating intonation, varying pitch and using higher intonations.

Question 15

Expatiation

Answer 15

expressing what the child said giving more information.

E.G. ‘food hot’ might be expatiated to ‘the food is too hot! We’ll let it cool down first’.

Question 16

Over-articulation

Answer 16

the caregiver stretches out vowel sounds in words.

E.G. ‘mummy’s going to get a drink of teeeeeeeeea’.

Question 17

What does Rhoades add towards the strategies caregivers use to scaffold children’s language acquisition?

Answer 17

Short and simple sentences which are melodic.
Focus on what the child is doing.
Repetition of what the child and caregiver say.
Pausing between words.
Higher frequency of interrogatives and imperatives.
Slower speech.

Question 18

How can Grice and his set of maxims support interactionism?

Answer 18

Caregivers may try to influence a child to use these maxims.

Question 19

What were Grice’s 4 maxims?

Answer 19

The maximum of quantity.
The maximum of quality .
The maximum of relation .
The maximum of manner.

Question 20

What did Grice’s Maxims present?

Answer 20

Features of conversation.
Cooperative principles, which people must do to cooperate in conversation.

Question 21

Who challenges Bruner’s work in particular?

Answer 21

Chomsky

Question 22

How did Chomsky criticise Bruner?

Answer 22

Chomsky questions how children produce utterances that are grammatically non-standard to the point where no caregiver would have said them.

Question 23

Cliff Pye’s criticism to interactionist theory

Answer 23

Children around the world, acquire language at roughly the same time, but not all cultures use CDS.

E.G. Samoan families. Do not speak to the children until they are around 18 months old implying that language acquisition may be more innate.

Question 24

What might CDS help other than linguistic development?

Answer 24

Social development.

E.G. it may teach children turn taking in conversation but not aid their ability to use correct forms.

Question 25

What does Bruner’s theory look like?

Answer 25

• Parents reinforcing their children’s attempts to speak by responding in an encouraging/positive way.
• Conversation skills+ pragmatic awareness being modelled/taught/learnt through convo between child and adult.
  -child enjoying/ benefitting interaction.

Question 26

FOR Bruner

Answer 26

• routine/rituals teach children about spoken discourse structures e.g. turn-taking.
• pragmatic development suggests children do learn politeness+ verbally accepted behaviour.
• Role-play+ pretend play suggest that more interaction with carers can affect vocab.

Question 27

AGAINST Bruner

Answer 27

• Cliff Pye’s theory
  -Children of all backgrounds/langs go through similar stages around the same time- supporting nativism.
• Cant be the only factor in CLD as children receive widely different levels of input.