Introduction:
In this evaluation I will attempt to analyse the difference
between how adults of different genders communicate with a five year old as
opposed to a two year old, and the difference between the developments of the
two. This will relate to Child Language Acquisition and focus on both grammar
and lexis. The people I will use in my investigation will be my mum, dad,
Shylah (two years) and Megan (five years).The linguistic ability will change
drastically between two and five- There is evidence for Shylah being in the two
word stage, as opposed to Megan who is thought to be in the post telegraphic
stage. My hypothesis is that I will find linguistic features such as
interruptions and interrogatives to include enthusiasm and encouragement, and
there will be more complex grammar and lexis with Megan. Shylah is likely to
use more single syllabic words and onomatopoeias. I would expect to find
complications in my investigation due to the quantity of my data and linguistic
features being missed out in my analysis.
Methodology:
During my investigation, I needed to collect data while
around the family, which was spontaneous speech. I recorded six transcripts; three
from Megan and three from Shylah, with a mix in gender of caregivers, and chose
the best transcript for each child. This made the investigation a lot more
reliable and I was able to pick out the best aspects of the transcripts that
would relate to accurate child language acquisition theorists/theories.
Lexis:
There are several different aspects of lexis to be
acknowledged. Due to their age gap of three years, Megan and Shylah use
different linguistic features, and Megan interprets most aspects of language a
lot better than Shylah. For example, definite and indefinite articles are
separated with Megan, whereas the determiners are sometimes confused for one
another with Shylah. For example, Megan says 'the balloon fiesta' rather than
'a balloon fiesta', as opposed to Shylah who sometimes mixes the two, or
completely misses out the definite/indefinite article, only stating the subject
and object in the sentence. Shylah does not understand that the word ‘the’
indicates only one object, and ‘a’ indicates the possibility of more than one.
This may be because Megan has begun school and is constantly surrounded by
people talking; she is more able to grasp the language. At only two years of
age, Shylah is concentrating on single words and their meanings, rather than
the complex part to do with singular nouns and plurals. Shylah appears to
understand what people say to her, but struggle to say what she wants. The fact
that she is able to understand things already and have a response with body
language reflects back to Chomsky’s theory that all children are born with
language to a certain extent already in their heads.
Another example of grammar difference between
Megan and Shylah is the understanding of possessive pronouns. Whereas Megan
will say 'my Barbie’s and 'my karaoke', Shylah uses single syllabic words or
dual syllabic words, but on their own. This is due to the fact that Shylah and
Megan are at opposite ends of the cognitive development stages. Grice' maxims
are highly relevant to my CLA investigation; especially the third and fourth
maxims. Maxim 3 is the maxim of relation, where one always tries to relate to
the topic of discussion- this relates to Megan. Because she is able to
understand the basic rules of a conversation, she understands that whatever she
says must at least slightly relate to what the person before her has said; she
is subconsciously aware to do this in situations where she holds less power and
is unable to make discourse markers. Maxim 4 is maxim of manner, which is
basically the idea of getting a point across as simply and clearly as possible.
This relates to Shylah- she aims for others to understand her, not to be
elaborating. For example, Shylah says simple words like ‘kiss?’ and ‘mummy
gone’ rather than using a more structured declarative/interrogative such as
‘can I have a kiss?’ or ‘my mummy has gone upstairs.’ This supports B.F
Skinner’s theory, that children focus more on meaning and truth, rather than
grammatical correctness. Shylah tends to portray to her caregiver what she
means by the use of minimal language, and mainly body language. This is simply
because she appears to be in the two-word stage, where she is much less
developed than Megan is.
As opposed to Shylah,
Megan is in the telegraphic stage of development where she understands most
things said around her and is able to form a perfectly acceptable compound sentence.
Because of this, Megan toys with her language and speaks a lot more often,
while using several connectives and fillers such as ‘and’ or ‘umm’, rather than
pausing and starting a new sentence. For example Megan says ‘I knooow and it
was pink and blue and green and orange’- her use of the word and demonstrates
her difficulty of the use of pauses. Rather than saying ‘pink, blue, green and
orange’, she places ‘and’ between every colour. At her age, it is quite
acceptable that she is unaware that she should be taking pauses to acknowledge
where a comma should be placed. Skinner says that children reformulate what
their parents say, and this is part of their cognitive development. Megan is a
good example of this, due to the fact that she has clearly picked up the idea
that different subjects can be connected together in one sentence by the use of
the word ‘and’. Megan probably believes this is the easiest way to phrase the utterance,
rather than making four separate utterances for each colour.
After analysing the transcripts collected, it could be
argued that Shylah understands most of the language used around her, but finds
it much harder to respond to it and speak the language. This is a good
demonstration of Chomsky and Deb Roy’s theory that semantic understanding
outweighs linguistic ability. Shylah understands her caregiver when she is ordered
to ‘give me a kiss’- but she is unable to say the declarative ‘give me a kiss’-
Shylah is not in this stage of her cognitive development yet.
Grammar:
Grammar is a large area of CLA, and there are plenty of
examples in my data to evaluate. One example is the use of simple utterances;
this is used a lot with both children, but the compound structure is used more by
Megan. Megan will say 'I want you to play hopscotch but hopscotch is for boys'-
which is a compound sentence. As opposed to this, Shylah would say 'hopscotch,
girls'- if we're lucky. This is due to the fact that children in the post
telegraphic stage are more likely to use a higher frequency of compound syntax.
Also, interrogatives are used a lot more frequently by the person in power, to
guide a conversation and to encourage an answer from the subordinate person. Not
only do interrogatives guide a conversation and encourage a child, but they
give the child attention, which according to Vegotsky, they need whilst they
learn. Vegotsky says children are ego centric and self-centred, which is
natural for them until they begin to mature. Children love to have all eyes on
them, and so questions are a great opportunity for attention-giving. Another
example of this theory is Megan’s use of overlapping in the transcript. This is
a common feature of spontaneous speech, and so it was expected. As the
caregiver (my mum) quotes ‘you know what else girls love?’ Megan overlaps by
replying ‘what?’ This demonstrates Megan’s enthusiasm in the conversation by
her ignorance of the use of adjacency pairs. This feature of spontaneous speech
could demonstrate Megan is comfortably in the post telegraphic stage and
understands that it is not always rude to overlap.
Another thing I evaluated is that Shylah uses less
non-verbal fillers than Megan. Megan will use non-verbal fillers such as ‘um’
or ‘uhhh’ to give herself time to think about the grammatical structure of her
sentence she is about to say. Shylah, being of a younger age, does not
understand the use of non-verbal fillers, so instead of using these kinds of
words to allow thinking time, she just takes pauses. This leads on to the idea
that Shylah will not understand the concept of adjacency pairs as well as
Megan. For example, in conversation, Megan understands that speech must sway
from one person to another, and so attempts to fill all the gaps in a
conversation where there is no or minimal speech from the opposite person. As opposed to this, Shylah makes less effort
to speak frequently. Depending on the context, children will pick up language
fairly quickly. Chomsky argues we all have a Language Acquisition Device (LAD)
already in our heads- we know language, but according to Chomsky, we need
encouragement and upbringing to develop this. However, Chomsky argues that if
the child is not exposed to their native language before the age of five, they
will not be able to act upon their LAD.
Megan will also use a lot more interrogatives, as opposed to
Shylah who will use a lot more declaratives. For example, Megan says ‘shall I
show you my karaoke…?’ This indicates
that Megan is able to understand that she should ask what other peoples
preferences are- she is breaking out of Vegotsky’s self-centred theory in her
cognitive development, and is beginning to realise that the whole world is full
of people, equal to herself. While Megan was around three years of age and in
the two/three word stage like Shylah, it would be way more likely that she
would have just said ‘my karaoke’ and went to show it anyway. Declaratives are
generally much more popular with children in the two/three word stage of
language development, while interrogatives are much more popular with children
in the telegraphic/post telegraphic stage. This is because while they are
younger and the world revolves around them, they are subconsciously encouraged
to believe they have power in a situation, by their caregivers. In his third
Psychological Stage, Erik Erikson (1902-1994) says that “pre-schoolers begin to
assert their power and control over the world through directing play and other
social interaction, allowing them to feel capable and able to lead others”. For
example, Shylah quotes “pictures.” This is a demanding phrase which is also a
discourse marker in a conversation. This single noun not only demonstrates the
fact Shylah is unable to form a correct utterance, but it demonstrates her
power in the situation, despite of her age. Because she is young and receives a
lot of attention for the benefit of her development, it could be argued that
she has begun to believe she is of power, and is able to use discourse markers
to change the subject or demand something she wants. Erik’s theory that
children gain power through play also links to Halliday’s (1911) heuristic
function, that language is used to explore and learn about the environment.
This includes interrogatives and imperatives used by the child, and also the
running commentary children like to do whilst playing. Both Halliday and
Erikson’s theories suggest that the environment and play shape the language of
children and their ideas about power.
The last area of child language acquisition in my
investigation to analyse is the Child Directed Speech aspect. The caregivers
used within my data use several CDA features, but they use them at a different
frequency, using different features. For example, the female caregiver uses
less polar questions than the male. She uses interrogatives like ‘I don’t know
Meg, where are you going?’ This encourages a longer reply from Megan and allows
her to think a lot more than using a tag question at the end of a statement-
which the male caregiver tends to do a lot more. For example, dad says “Wow.
Mummy’s phone eh?” This shows that he may have less communication with Megan
than the female caregiver, and is unaware that he should allow her to elaborate
on her opinions rather than using a range of closed interrogatives. This is
evidence for Tannen’s theory that women are more emotive than men. The female
caregiver is interested in Megan’s opinions and shows interest in hearing more,
while dad generally speaks because he is spoken to. Because of this, the male
caregiver dominates the conversation and uses several discourse markers. For
example, he says “That sounds fun. Do you like learning in school?” This takes
control of the conversation, and he stamps his power over Megan- which is also
a common trait in men according to Tannen.
EVALUATION
In my investigation I managed to collect data that was full
of linguistic features to analyse, and I managed to link theorists into my
analysis. I would say, however, that I
collected too many transcripts for my investigation. I collected six
transcripts, and of these, I only analysed 4. I also should have got a more
advanced child than Shylah, because her linguistic ability is very limited and
I find myself analysing her actions rather than her speech. To change my
methodology I would have collected the data in a patterned order- for example, different
times of the day. This way I wouldn’t have been recording Shylah’s spontaneous
speech only when she is sleepy. This would have made the results more reliable.
CONCLUSION
In my investigation I found that language used by different
ages differs in formality, complexity and quantity. This was expected, but the
difference between the two girls’ grammar is quite drastic. Shylah, being only
two years old, tends to use one-three words in a single utterance to get her
point across, whereas Megan will use very complex utterance structures and is
able to participate in a flowing conversation. Shylah will use phonology
techniques to indicate she is using an interrogative, whereas Megan will go
into detail with her questions. Overall, Megan’s grammatical ability is much better
than that of Shylah’s; simply because they are three years apart and Megan has
had more stimulation in her crucial development stage (Deb Roy & Chomsky)
than Shylah has yet.
I also found that the lexical choice was very different
between Shylah and Megan. In general, Megan tends to be able to keep a
conversation going, using words that consistently stay within the semantic
field. She is also able to pick up on slang on specific words, by cutting the ‘g’
from the suffix of some words, or missing out ‘tt’ in some words- again, it is
clear that Megan is reformulating what she has heard, and is picking up
sociolect. As opposed to this, Shylah is still exploring language and realising
what new words mean- it is evident that she is still playing with her words;
she is not yet at the stage of being comfortable enough with her language to
understand slang and colloquialism/regional dialect.
