child language acquisition test

1. Cooing, babbling, holophrastic, two word, telegraphic, post telegraphic
2. Interactional – children learn through the input of their careers, correcting and supporting their linguistic development – J Bruner
3. Critical period – children have a limited period during which their language can develop rapidly. After this, language development is much harder – E Lenneberg
4. Nativist – children are born with a language acquisition device. They have an innate ability to acquire language – N Chomsky
5. Cognitive – children develop their linguistic competence alongside their ability to understand the world around them – J Piaget
6. Behaviourist – children learn primarily through imitation and patterns of positive and negative reinforcement their careers – BF Skinner
7. A child refers to an apple, orange and grapefruit as ‘ball’.  What process is at work and what might be the reasons for this?  
   Overextension – child sees similar shapes to an object she knows and overextends the term she knows to include these objects
8. A child refers to her boots as ‘shoes’ but will not use this term to describe any other shoes, apart from her own.  What process is at work and what might be the reasons for this?
   Underextension – child cannot relate the term she knows to any other similar item
9. A child says ‘I falled over’ or ‘I runned away’.  What process is at work and what might be the reasons for this? 
   Overgeneralisation – child applies regular rules to irregular verbs
10.  A child says ‘Daddy go work’ as his father leaves for work.  At what stage of development might we suggest the child is?  Which clause elements has the child used and which are missing?
    Telegraphic stage – child has used subject verb and part of the prepositional phrase (to) work but has missed the auxiliary verb is going
11. A child says ‘Me like ice cream’.  In what way is she/he using some elements of grammar correctly and in what ways is she making errors?
    Correct syntax/ word order but misusing pronoun.  She uses first person object pronoun me instead of first person subject pronoun
12. A child says ‘timney’ instead of ‘chimney’.  What process is at work and what might be the reason for this?
    Substitution – child is replacing the ch sound with a simpler t sound
13. A child says ‘ca’ instead of ‘cat’.  What process is at work and what might be the reason for this?
    Deletion – child is either not hearing or not producing the last consonant sound ‘t’
14. A child says ‘nana’ instead of ‘banana’.  What process is at work and what might be the reasons for this?
    Deletion of unstressed syllable – child deletes ba syllable
15. Michael Halliday researched functions of language in child development. What were the six functions and how might they be illustrated?  (Give an example for each function.)
    * Instrumental – to satisfy needs and wants: ‘Juice!’ 
    * Regulatory – to control others: ‘Lift me up, daddy’ 
    * Interactional – to create interactions with others: ‘Bye bye’ 
    * Personal – to express personal thoughts and opinions: ‘I no like custard’ 
    * Imaginative – to create imaginary worlds: ‘I’m a dragon – roarrr’ 
    * Heuristic – to seek information: ‘What’s that, mummy?’ 
    * Informative – to communicate information: ‘We had fish for lunch.’ 
     
16. What are ‘wugs’?  Who researched them?  What did she discover?
    Jean Berko  - Using a made-up animal, she tested the children’s application of the ‘-s’ plural rule and found that nearly all of them applied it to a noun they’d never heard before
17. Out of the average child’s first 50 words, the most common word class will probably be what?  Why might this be?
    Nouns (mostly concrete nouns) – the most common items around the child and easily understood link between object and label
18. In what ways might turn-taking be established between a carer and a child?
    Conversations with child as if they are a full participant
    Games such as peek-a-boo
    Setting up question and answer structures in basic conversation
19. List the ways in which a parent or carer can make their use of language easier for a child to understand.  What might this type of language be termed?
    Child-Directed Speech (CDS), caretaker language, motherese, parentese
    * more pronounced intonation that draws attention to key morphemes or lexemes
    * simplified vocabulary that helps establish key words (‘dog’ rather than ‘pitbull terrier’)
    * repeated grammatical ‘frames’ that help draw attention to new elements within those frames (e.g. ‘What animal lives in a kennel?  What animal lives in a stable?  What animal lives in a sty?’)
    * simplified grammar – shorter utterances
    * tag questions used to initiate turn-taking
    * actions that accompany speech: pointing, smiling, shrugging shoulders etc.
    * more obvious lip and mouth movement to help younger children copy
     
20. Who was Genie and what might she prove?
    A ‘feral’ or ‘wild’ girl discovered by social workers in California in 1970.  At 13 her vocabulary was limited to 20 words.  Her case study is often used to support the Critical Learning Period Hypothesis, while others use it to support the Interactive Theory.
21. Who was Jim and what might he prove?
    A boy noted in the Devilliers & Devilliers study in 1978.  He was born to deaf parents and placed in front of a TV in the hope he would pick up language by watching it.  His language acquisition was hampered and it’s often used to support the Interactive Theory.
22. Apart from the main theorists mentioned above, which other researchers could you refer to when talking about child language?
    Some suggestions: Roger Brown, Steven Pinker, Jean Aitchison and David Crystal
23. What do the initials L.A.D. stand for?
    Language Acquisition Device
24. At the telegraphic stage, children often combine content words in the correct sequence (syntax) but miss out certain grammatical words. Give two word classes (and an example of each) that children often omit.
25. Determiners (the, a) and Auxiliary verbs (is doing, am running)

1) What is a ‘question and answer’ or ‘statement and response’ called?
Adjacency pair
2) What is the term for saying “yeah” or “uh huh” while someone else is talking?
back-channel agreement
3) What is it called when talk flows swiftly from one turn to the next?
Latched talk
4) What’s it called when you affect the data you are studying by investigating it?
The observer’s paradox
5) Your investigation data needs to be ethical, comparable and..?
 Reliable
6) What does AO3 award marks for?
context
7) What does GRAPE stand for?
 Genre, reception, audience, purpose, expectations
8) You need to analyse texts for how they make meanings and..?
 representations
9) Name two terms from the framework ‘lexis’.
E.g. connotations, lexical field, metaphor etc.
10) Which of the Ds was Tannen’s theory?
Difference
11) Name three deficit features.
 E.g. empty adjectives, intensifiers, hedges, tag questions etc.
12) What did Cameron say – fill in the blanks:      
 “Your   GENES don’t determine your  JEANS .”
13) Where did Trudgill do his NORMS research?
Norwich
14) Did the island locals in Martha’s Vineyard show overt or covert prestige?
covert
15) Was there more or less pronunciation of the post-vocalic R sound in more expensive stores in Labov’s ‘fourth floor’ study?
more
16) What is it called when children apply standard grammatical rules to irregular verbs and nouns? overgeneralisation
17) How many morphemes are in the following quote? “now you can’t exactly be like Jesus (0.5) instead you just get some help”
15
18) What is the stage after the two-word stage called?
 telegraphic
19) What was Halliday’s function for getting your needs met?
instrumental
20) Who did the research on his son and discovered that caregivers simplify the utterances around a word that is about to be learned?
Deb Roy

Stephen Fry : Planet word - origins of language

• over 7000 languages
• 2 year olds tend to start speaking - listen for two years, listening in the womb
• first words - mumma, dada
• human language for collaboration - food, hunting
• could have been leant via song - alphabet
• fox p2 - medical research- part of dna - incharge of language
• a window or language development which closes around puberty
• Dr deb roy - recored his child for three years - tracked the pronounciation of 'water' over 7 months
• Stephen pinker - children are born with the ability to speak as they 'make up' words to replace the correct ones
• jean berko gleason developed the 'WUG' test (1955) - strong evidence born to speak - 'this is a Wug, now there are two '...'
• parents need to provide context, different opportunities to speak in different contexts
• the childs semantic awarenesses outstrips their phonological ability highlighted by deb roy

michael rosen : word of mouth

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

child language devlopment

Theory:

• Deb Roy set up his house as a lad to record his childs language until he was three
• Dr Kathy Price - key elements in the brain that have language use - born with it?
• Noam Chomsky (godfather of linguistics)

Language:

• despite decades of research, how we learnt to talk remains a mystery
• Fox p2 is innate as its in the genes

language theory:

• parents simplify their language to suit the child (as they develop sentences so do the parents) (convergence)
• care giver language
• all animals would have the ability to talk
• picking up sounds whilst in the womb - recognise mums voice/tone
• innate ability for language  - born with the ability to speak
• L.A.D - language acquisition device
• we all have blueprints to language but need to be exposed to it early on
• children learnt to speak with minimal effort

AQA A2 Specification

http://filestore.aqa.org.uk/resources/english/AQA-7701-7702-GLOSSARY.PDF

a2 coursework ideas

Child development

John Holt - How Children Learn    (1967)
Foreword: children have a style of learning that fits their conditions and which they use naturally until we train them out of it


Holt.JH.1967.how children learn.1st.USA.pitman publishing corporation

Power

Dale Spencer - Men Made Language   (1980)
Thorne & Henley 1975: the correct way of speaking for women - page37










HOW TEENAGERS LANGUAGE CHANGE AS THEY GROW UP?
-accent and dialect
                                                                                            relate to music?
                                                                                            the use of swear words?
                                                                                               -black vs white - racist?

• dialect levelling?
• Milroy:Belfast
• Bernstein's codes

Bee and Boyd - Lifespan development
-21/2 years average vocab = 600         - Pinker 1994
-5-6 years average = 15000


-3 years acquired basic tools needed to form sentences and make conversation    - Bloom 1991