Child Language Acquisition

Child Language Acquisition

1. 1. First Year Stages

   • 1. Evidence suggests that even in the womb, the growing baby acclimatises to the sounds of its native language.
     • Child expresses itself usually through crying in the first few weeks
       • Signals hunger, distress or pleasure.
         • 6 - 8 weeks old
           • 'Coo', 'Gaga' and 'Co' are known as back spirants and vowels - Develps Vocal Cords
             • 6-9 months old
             • Sounds begin to resemble adult sounds more closely
               • Most important stage in the first year.
                 • Consonant and vowel combinations: ‘ba’, ‘ma’ and ‘da’.
                   • Bilabial - sounds most common (i.e. using the lips).
                     • These sounds have no meaning
   • 1. Before Birth
     • 2. Crying
       • 3. Cooeing
         • 4. Babbling
   • 5. Phonemic Contraction
     • 9-10 months old
       • Number of phonemes produced reduces to those found in the native language (contracts).
         • Evidence -Noises made by different children of different nationalities started to sound different
           • Experiments - Native adults have successfuly identified babies from own country
             • Innotation patterns begin to resemble speech
               • Common - rising innotation at the end of utterance such as 'No' and 'Bye-bye'
                 • rhythm/emphasis may suggest greeting or calling.
                   • Example: point to object and use facial expression, ‘What’s that?’.
                     • desire to communicate indicated through gesture.
     • 6. Innotation
       • 7. Gesture
         • 9. The first word takes place at 12 months.
           • 8. Word Recognition - understand meanings although can’t speak.

2. Year 2-3 Stages

   • 1. Holophrastic Stage - 12-18 months
     • Single Word Utterances such as 'Teddy' and 'Gone'
       • 60% of children’s first utterances are nouns – people, animals and things that the child sees such as 'mum', 'cat' etc
         • The child restricts the applications of a word eg. uses ‘white’ only to describe snow and is confused to hear the same word used to describe blank pages in a book.
           • the child uses a word in a wider context than an adult would, misunderstanding the precise application eg. uses ‘ball’ to describe not only a ball but also any round object such as a wheel or a marble.
     • 2. Errors
       • Underextension
         • Overextension
   • 3. Two word stage - TWO years
     • Around the age of two, children start to put words together
       • Most of there utterances only consists of two words such as "More Juice"
         • When a child starts stringing more than 2 words together, the utterances may be 2,3,4,5, words or longer.
           • They miss out the prepositions, conjunctions and the other functions
             • Utterances consist mainly of content words ie. nouns and verbs
               • For example - "Andrew want that" and "Megan build house"
     • 4. The Telegraphic Stage
   • 5. Pre - School Years
     • At around age 3 there is a dramatic change in children’s language, characterised by:
       • 1. Use of ‘and’ leading to use of compound/complex sentences
         • 2. Use of other conjunctions (around age 4) such as ‘because’, ‘when’, ‘while’
           • • Use of ‘and then’ as they start to tell stories

3. Phonological Development

   • how children develop the ability to use and understand the sounds of language.
     • 1. 1st year = First year stages
       • 2. Age 2 and half = all vowels and 2/3 of consonants mastered.
         • 3. Age 4 = difficulty with only a few consonants.
           • 4. Age 6-7: = Confident use.
     • 2, Deletion
       • Unstressed syllables are often deleted.
   • 3. Substitution
     • Harder sounds are replaced by easier ones
   • 4. Intonation
     • As a child grows older, a wider range of meanings is expressed through intonation.
       • Go away - go AWAY
         • That's mine - That's MINE

4. Pragmatic Development

   • 1. It covers skills such as:
     • Knowing when it is our turn to speak
       • Understanding different registers (e.g. when to speak formally, how to address adults or other children…)
     • 2. Pragmatic Development starts before a child speaks as adults encourage this by:
       • 3. Child-parent/carer interactions prepare the child for later participation in conversation.
         • 4. Games such as 'Peek-a-boo' parallel later conversation such as turn taking, response and pleasure.
       • Ask Questions
         • Express Agreement
   • 5. First conversations:
     • Typical conversations
       • - Initiated by adult
         • - Dependent on continued adult input to progress
           • 6. Age 2-4: significant development in conversational skills:
             • Turn taking
               • Adjacency pairs
                 • Response to questions
                   • Greetings
                     • Politeness forms
             • 7. Speech Convergence and Accommodation Theory
               • Valerie Youssef (1991)
                 • Group of children in Trinidad
                   • Children responded to different social situations by using different varieties of English
   • Haliday's Functions
     • Micheal Halliday (1975) identified 7 functions of children’s language
     • 1. Instrumental
       • Language used to fulfil a need on the part of the speaker. Directly concerned with obtaining food, drink and comfort.
       • 2. Regulatory
         • Language used to influence the behaviour of others. Concerned withﾊpersuading / commanding / requesting other people to do things you want.
         • 3. Interactional
           • Language used to develop social relationships and ease the process of interaction. Concerned with the phatic dimension of talk.
     • 4. 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.
       • 5. 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.
           • 6. IMAGINATIVE
             • Language used to explore the imagination. May also accompany play as children create imaginary worlds, or may arise from storytelling.
     • 7. REPRESENTATIONAL
       • Language used to exchange information. Concerned with relaying or requesting information.