Child Language Acquisition PDF

Child Language Acquisition Table of Contents Stages of Child Language Acquisition Stages of Cognitive Development - Jean Piaget The development of children’s understanding of grammar Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Cognitive Theory B. F. Skinner’s theory of operant conditionin...

Child Language Acquisition Table of Contents Stages of Child Language Acquisition Stages of Cognitive Development - Jean Piaget The development of children’s understanding of grammar Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Cognitive Theory B. F. Skinner’s theory of operant conditioning Sinclair’s Initiation-Response-Feedback Model (1975) Tomasello’s usage based theory (2003) Halliday’s functions of language (1975) Halliady’s theory of child language learning (1975) Barry Kroll’s Theory of writing development (1981) Joan Rothery's (1994) 4 categories for evaluating children's writing Aitchison’s Stages of Children’s Linguistic Development (1987) Glossary Stages of Child Language Acquisition 6 stages of CLA, according to this theory: Pre-Linguistic From 0-6 months, noises in this stage include crying, whimpering, and cooing. These noises aren’t considered as language as they are involuntary responses to stimuli. During this stage, the vocal tracts are more like animals than an adult human. The tongue fills the entire mouth and is controlled by external muscles, this extrinsic control only allows for the tongue to be shoved in and out, and up and down, as a whole. This explains the nature of cooing. Babbling From 6-8 months, the child begins to hear speech syllables from its environment and caregivers and attempts to imitate by repeating them. Infants begin to ‘babble’ and make noises and syllables. Two types of babbling in this stage: Canonical/Repetitive babbling: The type of babbling that emerges first, consists of the same syllables being repeated. Variegated Babbling: Instead of one syllable being repeated, the child uses a variety of syllables, often occurring 2 months after canonical/repetitive starts. Children may begin to use intonation resembling actual speech, while still only producing random noises. Universality of the Babbling Inventory: Essentially, all children use the same sounds when they babble, no matter what the language around them is. The universality of babbling makes sense when you realise that the easiest way to make a sound is to simply open and close the mouth. It is not surprising that stops will be highly prevalent in the inventory since they are produced by closing the oral cavity, which happens when closing the mouth occurs. The rest of the difference between the stops is where in the mouth the tongue contacts the other parts of the vocal tract. All the child has to do is open and close the mouth, and different sounds will be made. Think of the words (we'll use English here) that we use to refer to many baby items and caretakers: Baba (bottle) Mama (mother) Nana (grandmother) Papa (father) Dada (daddy) 1 These utterances show repetitive babbling of the low central vowel with stop consonants. Now add the high back rounded vowel: Bubu (hurt) Mumu Nunu Pupu (poopoo) Dudu (doodoo) These utterances also show repetitive babbling, but with a different vowel sound. The two different syllables can be mixed together: Mami (mommy) Papi (Poppy, often used for grandfather) Pupi (poopy) These utterances show variegated babbling Baby Talk Baby talk has two different meanings: 1. It is the way that babies themselves talk, and when baby talk is used with this meaning, it refers in particular to the babbling stage and the first words stage of language acquisition, universal stages for all infants in all languages. 2. It is the way that adults talk when they talk to babies. When baby talk is used with this meaning, it captures the fact that adults accommodate their speaking style to that of the child. They help the child attach meaning to their utterances by using the same utterances with the meaning attached. Deaf children babble as well, the hand gestures of the deaf occur in repetitive patterns, the way a hearing child babbles. Deaf children babble in sounds too, but it’s different from that of hearing children. Basically, hearing children babble with their mouths and use gestures as extralinguistic communication, where the deaf use their gestures as babbling while using their mouths as extralinguistic communication. Desmond Morris (2008) suggested that for the first six months of a baby’s life these gurgles and babbles will be the same regardless of the baby’s nationality or how much parental input the child has had. Holophrastic From 12 to 18 months, will be a child’s earliest recognisable language, when one word can convey a complete idea or a large amount of meaning. 2 This early lexical development, when language is distilled into individual words to convey units of meaning, inevitably comes before words are placed together and interrelated to create more complex meaning. Katherine Nelson (1973) found that first words were most commonly nouns (60 percent of first words) followed then by actions, modifiers or what might be called social and personal words (for example, ‘hello’ and ‘bye bye’). These first words will usually be associated with the child’s immediate environment. Even if a preposition (Prepositions, such as "in," "at," "on," "of," and "to," are words or groups of words used before nouns, pronouns, or noun phrases to convey direction, time, place, location, spatial relationships, or introduce an object.) is used, it is likely to be used as a verb (for example, ‘in’ to explain the movement of an object to a particular place, as opposed to ‘put’ which is less clear). Early words will often be reduplicated for ease of articulation and the child might pick this up from the caregiver who has simplified words in this way (for example, ‘bobos’ for ‘bedtime’ or ‘mama’ for ‘mother’). Diminutives might also be used by caregivers and then appear in a child’s early vocabulary (for example, ‘kitty’, ‘doggie’, ‘dolly’), acquiring an unnecessary -y suffix to suggest the diminutive nature of the object but perhaps also to provide a vocally pleasing word. Whilst initial acquisition of key words will focus on those items or people most important to the child, it is not long before a spurt in vocabulary use occurs. Jean Aitchison (1997) suggested that at about 18 months, a child will realise that every object, person or place has a word or label attached to it and therefore will develop a ‘naming insight’. This is then followed by a ‘naming explosion’ when children rapidly develop new vocabulary, in order to fill the gaps in their lexical knowledge. Although much of the vocabulary building is done by the age of three, a child will continue to acquire new words into adolescence and beyond Two-word Not only is there a vocabulary explosion as a child approaches approximately 18 months, but a development in grammar also emerges. Up to about the age of two, the child will be in the two-word stage of development when there is an emerging recognition of some syntactic relationship between two words being uttered. These two words will usually be the most significant content words that convey essential information rather than grammatical words that appear later. Examples of these utterances might be ‘dolly gone’, ‘water out’ or ‘milk table’. Usually the words are accurately positioned as they would be in a more complete sentence. Roger Brown (1973) conducted a longitudinal study focusing on three American children and their grammatical development. Through this, he identified the syntactic structures of two word utterances, analysing the function of one word to the other. 3  Combination Example Agent + action ‘Daddy go’ Action + object ‘Make cake’ Agent + object ‘Billy bike’ Action + location ‘Run garden’ Object + location ‘Teddy chair’ Possessor + possession ‘Granny gloves’ Object + attribute ‘Coat soft’ Demonstrative + object ‘Here chair’ The utterances are different because they lack full syntactic markings and because the limited vocabulary size is insufficient to capture an adult perspective of the world. What is uncertain, however, is whether the child's perspective is constrained by the lack of vocabulary or whether the size of the vocabulary is constrained by the childish perspective. (Sapir Whorf Hypothesis) Overextensions may not be a misunderstanding of a word on a child's part, but may be a compensatory technique to overcome vocabulary limitations. The process of overextending a word's meaning plugs a hole until the child can learn the proper word. Underextension may also occur. In underextension, a child doesn't use a word for enough particular cases. It's the opposite of overextension where a child uses a word for too many different cases. Underextensions may occur because a general word (like kitty) is almost taken as a name, not as a word. It could also be related to the prototype concept of word meaning. The prototype theory suggests that people have mental concepts of a word's meaning and attach a word to the concept. The concept is developed through interaction with the world. If the family pet is what a child interacts with, but it is unusual, then a child might not see the word for the family cat as appropriate to another cat that lacks the unusual features of the source of the concept. Telegraphic From 2-3 years. The telegraphic stage is the point at which sentences make sense but are not grammatically complete. Language at this point resembles a telegram (a form of communication once used to convey important information briefly and promptly). Utterances are likely to incorporate key content words that are needed to convey meaning but some of the grammatical words will still be omitted. 4 They also begin to utilise lexical morphemes to make the words they use fit the sentence. For example, they understand to use the plural form of “boys” instead of “boy” when referring to a group of boys. Articulation of sounds continues to develop in order described in earlier stages. 20 consonants are articulated, and all vowels are articulated by approximately 3 years of age. All vocabulary development processes continue, and more words are added. Utterances exhibit phrase structure, that is, they tend to follow the grammatical rules of the language. Multiword The Multiword stage begins around the age of 3 years and continues into fully developed language skills. Vocabulary development continues, including its strategies of overextension. In fact, a similar pattern of overgeneralization is used for morpheme development: -ed, meaning past, shows up in such utterances as goed, or putted. Derivational affixes (the word-formation that creates the new meaning by addition or affixation of a word whose noun is derived from verb, slow → slowness) and compounding show up early in this stage: age 3 or 4. Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development (1936) Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development suggests that children move through four different stages of learning. His theory focuses not only on understanding how children acquire knowledge, but also on understanding the nature of intelligence. Schemas are actions or mental representations that organise knowledge and are premonitions on how certain things are and how they behave. A baby’s schemas are structured by simple actions that can be performed on objects, such as sucking, looking, and grasping. Older children have schemas that include strategies and plans for solving problems. Assimilation and Accommodation are ways in which children adapt their schemas in order to have it fit into new information or experience they live through. Think about a toddler who has learned the word car to identify the family’s car. The toddler might call all moving vehicles on roads “cars,” including motorcycles and trucks; the child has assimilated these objects into his or her existing scheme. But the child soon learns that motorcycles and trucks are not cars and then finetunes the category to exclude motorcycles and trucks, accommodating the scheme. 5 Piaget's stages are: Sensorimotor stage: Birth to 2 years Preoperational stage: Ages 2 to 7 Concrete operational stage: Ages 7 to 11 Formal operational stage: Ages 12 and up Sensorimotor Stage The sensorimotor stage lasts from birth to about 2 years of age. In this stage, infants construct an understanding of the world by coordinating sensory experiences (such as seeing and hearing) with physical, motoric actions—hence the term “sensorimotor.” At the beginning of this stage, newborns have little more than reflexive patterns with which to work. At the end of the sensorimotor stage, 2-year-olds can produce complex sensorimotor patterns and use primitive symbols. Object permanence is the understanding that objects and events continue to exist even when they cannot be seen, heard, or touched. Acquiring the sense of object permanence is one of the infant’s most important accomplishments. During much of infancy, of course, a child can only barely talk, so sensorimotor development initially happens without the support of language. It might therefore seem hard to know what infants are thinking. The Preoperational Stage The preoperational stage lasts from 2 to about 7 years of age. In the preoperational stage, children use their new ability to represent objects in a wide variety of activities, but they do not yet do it in ways that are organised or fully logical. One of the most obvious examples of this kind of cognition is dramatic play, or the improvised make-believe of preschool children. Their language use becomes more mature. They also develop memory and imagination, which allows them to understand the difference between past and future, and engage in make-believe. But their thinking is based on intuition and still not completely logical. They cannot yet grasp more complex concepts such as cause and effect, time, and comparison. The Symbolic Function Substage The symbolic function substage is the first substage of preoperational thought, occurring roughly between the ages of 2 and 4. In this substage, the young child gains the ability to mentally represent an object that is not present. This ability vastly expands the child’s mental world. 6 Egocentrism is the inability to distinguish between one’s own perspective and someone else’s perspective. The following telephone conversation between 4-year old Mary, who is at home, and her father, who is at work, typifies Mary’s egocentric thought: Father: Mary, is Mommy there? Mary: (Silently nods) Father: Mary, may I speak to Mommy? Mary: (Nods again silently) Mary’s response is egocentric in that she fails to consider her father’s perspective before replying. Animism, another limitation of preoperational thought, is the belief that inanimate objects have lifelike qualities and are capable of action. A young child might show animism by saying, “That tree pushed the leaf off, and it fell down” or “The sidewalk made me mad; it made me fall down.” A young child who uses animism fails to distinguish the appropriate occasions for using human and nonhuman perspectives. The Intuitive Thought Substage The intuitive thought substage is the second substage of preoperational thought, occurring between approximately 4 and 7 years of age. In this substage, children begin to use primitive reasoning and want to know the answers to all sorts of questions. Consider a 4-year-old, who is at the beginning of the intuitive thought substage. Although he is starting to develop his own ideas about the world he lives in, his ideas are still simple, and he is not very good at thinking things out. He has difficulty understanding events that he knows are taking place but which he cannot see. One limitation of preoperational thought is centration, a centering of attention on one characteristic to the exclusion of all others. Centration is most clearly evidenced in young children’s lack of conservation, the awareness that altering an object’s or a substance’s appearance does not change its basic properties. For example, to adults, it is obvious that a certain amount of liquid stays the same, regardless of a container’s shape. But this is not at all obvious to young children. Instead, they are struck by the height of the liquid in the container; they focus on that characteristic to the exclusion of others. The Concrete Operational Stage The concrete operational stage, which lasts approximately from 7 to 11 years of age, is the third Piagetian stage. In this stage, logical reasoning replaces intuitive reasoning as long as the reasoning can be applied to specific or concrete examples. For instance, concrete operational thinkers cannot imagine the steps necessary to complete an algebraic equation, which is too abstract for thinking at this stage of development. Children at this stage can performs concrete operations, which are reversible mental actions on real, concrete objects. 7 Children's thinking becomes less focused on themselves. They're increasingly aware of external events. They begin to realise that their own thoughts and feelings are unique and may not be shared by others or may not even be part of reality. But during this stage, most children still can't think abstractly or hypothetically. The passive voice is a grammatical form where the object of an action becomes the subject of the sentence, placing emphasis on the receiver of the action rather than the one performing it. Reversibility refers to the understanding that numbers or objects can be changed or manipulated and then returned back to their original state. This concept involves understanding that actions can be reversed, and it’s a fundamental part of logical thinking. Children understand that numbers or objects can be changed, then returned back to their original state. For example, if you pour water from a short, wide cup into a tall, thin glass, a child in the concrete operational stage will understand that the amount of water can be reversed by pouring it back into the original cup. According to Noval, 1974, during this stage, children encounter and start understanding the structure of passive voice sentences. These sentences often involve rearranging the subject and object, along with introducing the auxiliary verb "to be" followed by the past participle. However, the introduction of passive constructions can pose some linguistic challenges for children. The complexity arises from the fact that passive voice sentences involve a reversal of the usual subject-verb-object order. Children need to grasp the idea that the receiver of the action (object) becomes the main focus of the sentence. This shift in sentence structure can be more intricate compared to active voice sentences. Research studies suggest a connection between the comprehension of passive voice structures and cognitive development during the concrete operational stage. Some studies propose that understanding reversibility, a cognitive skill associated with this developmental stage, may precede accurate comprehension of passive voice forms. Reversibility, in this context, refers to the understanding that certain actions or transformations can be undone or reversed. The Formal Operational Stage The formal operational stage, which after 11 years of age. In this stage, individuals move beyond concrete experiences and think in abstract and more logical ways. As part of thinking more abstractly, adolescents develop images of ideal circumstances. The abstract quality of the adolescent’s thought at the formal operational level is evident in the adolescent’s verbal problem-solving ability. The concrete operational thinker needs to see the concrete elements A, B, and C to be able to make the logical inference that if A = B and B = C, then A = C. The formal operational thinker can solve this problem merely through verbal 8 presentation. Another indication of the abstract quality of adolescents’ thought is their increased tendency to think about thought itself. As adolescents are learning to think more abstractly and idealistically, they are also learning to think more logically. Children are likely to solve problems in a trial and-error fashion. Adolescents begin to think more as a scientist thinks, devising plans to solve problems and systematically test solutions. They use hypothetical deductive reasoning, which means that they develop hypotheses, or best guesses, and systematically deduce, or conclude, which is the best path to follow in solving the problem. Assimilation (incorporating new information into existing knowledge) dominates the initial development of formal operational thought, and these thinkers perceive the world subjectively and idealistically. The development of children’s understanding of grammar Phonology Phonology and phonotactics are terms that are used to refer to the knowledge that a speaker possesses the sound patterns of his or her native language. For example, in English, speakers readily distinguish sounds like [b] as in ‘bat’ from sounds like [p] as in ‘pat. - Command of all the vowels is achieved before command of the consonants. - At 2 years the average child has mastered all of the vowels and around two thirds of consonants. - At 4 years the child is likely to be having difficulty with only a few consonants. - Consonants are first used correctly at the beginnings of words, whereas consonants at the end of words present more difficulty. Morphology A ‘morpheme’ is a unit of speech that has meaning. A grammatical morpheme is a unit of speech that modifies the meaning of the word to which it is added, such as ‘ed’ when added to the end of a word like ‘kick’. Morphology is the term used to refer to the knowledge a speaker possesses regarding the manner in which new words can be created from existing words or other meaningful units of language. There are many aspects to morphology, so we will introduce you to just two here for the purposes of illustration. The first of these is known as compounding. This is the combinatorial capacity in a language whereby two existing words are glued together to form a new word. For example, in English the nouns ‘lady’ and ‘bird’ can be combined to form the new word ‘ladybird’. Sometimes, as with this example, the meaning of the new word is not predictable from its origins. 9 In other cases, the meaning of the newly created word is more transparent, like ‘lighthouse’. Young children frequently demonstrate sensitivity to morphology in the way that they invent their own compound words that are meaningful to them. For example, one child that we know spontaneously invented the noun ‘moregranny’ to refer to one of her grandmothers, and to differentiate her from her other ‘granny’. The logic of ‘granny’ and ‘moregranny’ is undeniable and appealing, and all the more remarkable because this shows us that children are not merely imitating what they hear adults saying: they are generating their own ideas about the rules that govern how language is constructed. Instances where children incorrectly add /s/ to the end of a word to indicate plurality (e.g. ‘sheeps’), or apply the ‘add /ed/’ rule for indicating that something has happened in the past are known as overregularization errors. Lexis Concrete nouns are followed by verbs, then adjectives. Abstract nouns are not generally used until the ages of 5-7. Words which are for grammatical purposes including determiners (the, this) and prepositions are often excluded (to, in). Katherine Nelson (1973) identified four categories for early acquisition: - Naming - Actions/events - Describing/modifying - Personal/social. Eve Clark also found that common adjectives such as ‘nice’ and ‘big’ are among children’s first fifty words, but spatial adjectives for example ‘wide’ and ‘narrow’ or ‘thick’ or ‘thin’ are acquired later. Semantics Under-extension is a common semantic ‘error’ by children. It occurs when a word is given a narrower meaning than it has in adult language i.e ‘ball’ is used for their ball, and no other balls. Over-extension is the opposite. For example the word ‘dog’ may be used for all four legged animals. This happens more frequently than under-extension. It is estimated that out of the 50 words a child may have learned, up to a third of these will be over-extended Eve Clark’s study of first words (1977) found that children base overextension on: - the physical qualities of objects - features such as taste, sound, movement, shape, size and texture i.e. ‘more moon’ for stars. 10 Syntax Syntax is the term used to refer to the knowledge that a speaker possesses regarding the manner in which words can be combined to form sentences. In English, syntax provides the information needed to determine who did what to whom. One word at a time Words that are suited to interacting with and directing a conversational partner also appear early in the child’s lexical repertoire (e.g. ‘look’, ‘no’, ‘more’). Sometimes, children use words in unusual ways, such as saying ‘up’ to request being picked up. Or ‘Daddy’ is uttered when the postman or milkman delivers in the morning. One year olds are able to make effective use of a limited vocabulary to achieve a remarkable number of goals. This communicative flexibility is all the more surprising given the fact that early utterances usually consist of just a single word. The utility of single word utterances derives from the manner in which the one year old manages to exploit the context in which the words are produced. Saying ‘up’ while making eye contact with an adult and reaching out her hands provides the child’s conversational partner with unambiguous cues as to her intention, even though she has simply uttered a single word that describes a direction of movement. Intonation is also used to enhance or modulate the communicative force of the utterance: ‘More!’ may be produced in a demanding tone or a more enquiring tone (‘More?’), perhaps depending on the child’s confidence that she is going to get what she is asking for. Manual gestures and facial expressions combine with the utterance, assisting the listener’s comprehension of the child’s intended communication. 18 months – approximately 50 words 2 years – approximately 200 words 5 years – approximately 2,000 words 7 years – approximately 4,000 words Early combinations At around 21 months of age many infants show a ‘vocabulary spurt’ where the rate of vocabulary growth increases dramatically. Shortly before this developmental landmark the earliest word combinations begin to appear. 11 Some of these combinations are markedly hesitant – ‘Look... Doggy’ – as if they were two single word utterances strung together. Indeed, the disconnected intonation of these early two-word phrases reinforces their disjointed character. Each word is produced with its own rise-and-fall contour. The words bond together through their appropriateness to the communicative situation. They also usually conform to the word order constraints honoured by adult speakers, although they lack the function words (‘the’, ‘of’, ‘is’, ‘and’, etc.) that act as the grammatical glue in adult speech. Studies demonstrate that there are predictable patterns in the words and types of words first acquired by children: Names daddy, mummy Common nouns referring to food/drink/humans/clothes/animals/toys Properties big, blue Actions sit, kick Personal and social me, bye These early word combinations are often referred to as telegraphic speech (hence telegraphic stage). However, not all early word combinations are disfluent. Common phrases used by adults are often used by children too. ‘What’s that?’ may be uttered fluently in an appropriate context and with a questioning intonation by pre-vocabulary spurt children, suggesting a greater mastery of multi-word combinatorial speech than their telegraphic utterances reveal. Often these expressions are produced in a rather inarticulate manner by children, as if they are trying to squeeze more sounds into an utterance than their memory will allow. However, the multi-word status of these fluent productions is open to question. They are frequently referred to as formulaic speech or amalgams, the prevailing assumption being that they constitute chunks of speech that have simply been memorised by the child as a single unit. For example, the child who says ‘What’s that?’ may be treating this phrase as if it were one word. By the time children pass through their vocabulary spurt, telegraphic speech is produced in a more fluent manner, and formulaic expressions become less abundant in their productions. Utterance length as a measure of complexity The standard way of measuring the grammatical complexity of children’s language is called Mean Length of Utterance (MLU) MLU is calculated by taking the first 100 utterances from a transcription of a child’s speech and then finding the average length of those utterances in morphemes (units of meaning). Consequently, if a child is producing exclusively single-word utterances, his or her MLU will be just 1.0 (the minimum level of complexity). Once he or she begins to combine words and other morphemes, his or her MLU will be greater than 1.0. Brown (1973) identified stages in language development in terms of the child’s MLU. 12 Stage MLU Forms I 1.75 Telegraphic speech II 2.25 Use of -ing, plural endings, in, and on III 2.75 uses of the verb ‘to be’, ‘the’, ‘a’, IV 3.5 Regular past tense of verbs, third person V 4.0 Use of auxiliary verbs Individual variation in patterns of linguistic development also cautions against using MLU as an unambiguous indication of the emergence of particular words or grammatical forms in the way implied by Brown. For example, not all children will learn irregular past tense forms (e.g. ‘went’) before they learn regular ones (e.g. ‘walked’). Likewise, some children may use the indefinite or definite articles (‘a’ and ‘the’ respectively) before they use plural forms. Nevertheless, Brown’s observations offer a useful rule of thumb for gauging the emergence of different grammatical forms during the second and third years of life. Full blown grammar The transition from early child-like word combinations to full blown grammar is rapid. By the time children reach their fourth birthday, they have mastered an impressive range of grammatical devices. For example, they know how to ask questions, make statements and issue commands. Although children are continuously bombarded during their waking hours with a stream of richly structured linguistic input, they seem to assimilate the structures of their native language without explicit instruction or correction (Brown and Hanlon, 1970). The ease with which all this seems to occur belies the underlying complexity of the skill acquired. As is often the case with many complex abilities, a lot can be learned from observing the order in which parts of the skill are acquired, and tracking down the rare mistakes that individuals make in exercising their skills. This is precisely what will be discussed in the next two sections. The discussions in these sections will help you to evaluate the extent to which it can be said that language acquisition is driven by innate cognitive mechanisms (like Universal Grammar) or experience of a linguistic environment. 13 Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Cognitive Theory (1962) Vygotsky was another cognitive theorist who developed Piaget’s ideas of the stages of child development. In doing so, Vygotsky challenged some of Piaget’s theories by stating that social learning, particularly using language, is a stimulus to cognitive development. Piaget stressed the central importance of universal stages of child development gathered through independent experiences and active self-discovery. He felt that a child had to be ready to learn. For Vygotsky, the social interaction and guidance that a child receives determines their thinking and learning. He believed that learning could be accelerated through guidance and support. The more knowledgeable other (MKO) is someone who has a higher level of ability or greater understanding than the learner regarding a particular task, process, or concept. The MKO can be a teacher, parent, coach, or even a peer who provides guidance and modeling to enable the child to learn skills within their zone of proximal development (the gap between what a child can do independently and what they can achieve with guidance). The interactions with more knowledgeable others significantly increase not only the quantity of information and the number of skills a child develops, but also affects the development of higher-order mental functions such as formal reasoning. Vygotsky argued that higher mental abilities could only develop through interaction with more advanced others. Zone Of Proximal Development The concept of the more knowledgeable other relates to the second important principle of Vygotsky’s work, the zone of proximal development. This important concept relates to the difference between what a child can achieve independently and what a child can achieve with guidance and encouragement from a skilled partner. Vygotsky consequently focuses much more closely on social interaction as an aid to learning, arguing that, left alone, children will develop – but not to their full potential. He refers to the gap between actual and potential learning as the zone of proximal development (ZPD) – and argues that it is only through collaboration with adults and other learners that this gap can be bridged. The zone of proximal development is the gap between the level of actual development, what the child can do on his own, and the level of potential development, what a child can do with the assistance of more advanced and competent individuals. 14 Social interaction, therefore, supports the child’s cognitive development in the ZPD, leading to a higher level of reasoning. It is generally believed that social dialogues have two important features. The first is intersubjectivity, where two individuals who might have different understandings of a task, arrive at a shared understanding by adjusting to the perspective of the other. The second feature is referred to as scaffolding. Adults may begin with direct instruction, but as children’s mastery of a task increases, the adult tends to withdraw their own contributions in recognition of the child’s increasing success. For example, the child could not solve the jigsaw puzzle (in the example above) by itself and would have taken a long time to do so (if at all), but was able to solve it following interaction with the father, and has developed competence at this skill that will be applied to future jigsaws. ZPD is the zone where instruction is the most beneficial, as it is when the task is just beyond the individual’s capabilities. To learn, we must be presented with tasks just out of our ability range. Challenging tasks promote maximum cognitive growth. B. F. Skinner’s theory of operant conditioning (1957) Skinner(1957) defined verbal behaviour as behaviour that is reinforced through the mediation of a listener. Verbal behaviour implies a social and reciprocal relationship between a speaker and a listener, whereby the speaker gets access to reinforcement through the behaviour of the listener. Skinner defined verbal behaviour as actions that are strengthened through feedback or reinforcement. Unlike traditional views that emphasised the structure of language (like phonetics and grammar), Skinner focused on understanding the purpose or function of language. He believed it's more important to consider how language is influenced by its context rather than just its form. Skinner suggested that a child imitates the language of its parents or carers. Successful attempts are rewarded because an adult who recognises a word spoken by a child will praise the child and/or give it what it is asking for. Successful utterances are therefore reinforced while unsuccessful ones are forgotten. The forms of reinforcement come in a number of ways. Positive reinforcement is exemplified when a child utters a request, perhaps simple words like "Milk" or "boo boo," and witnesses the fulfilment of that request. In this context, the child experiences a direct correlation between their verbal expression and a favourable outcome. The 15 act of vocalising needs or desires becomes intrinsically linked to the positive reinforcement of having those needs met. Over time, this reinforcement strengthens the child's inclination to use language as a means of effective communication. Positive reinforcement, therefore, acts as a catalyst, fostering the development of expressive language skills. Conversely, negative reinforcement comes into play when certain requests go unfulfilled due to a lack of understanding. In instances where the child's verbalizations are met with an absence of response, the lack of acknowledgment serves as a form of negative reinforcement. The child, seeking comprehension and connection, learns to refine their linguistic expressions based on the feedback received. The absence of a desired outcome acts as a subtle signal, prompting the child to adjust and modify their verbal expressions to increase the likelihood of understanding and acknowledgment. When a child produces language that is accurate, sophisticated, or developmentally advanced, receiving praise or appreciation serves as positive reinforcement. This positive feedback reinforces the association between using language effectively and receiving positive recognition, encouraging the child to continue refining their linguistic skills. Conversely, the correction or lack of acknowledgment for incorrect utterances operates as the inverse – a form of negative reinforcement. When a child's verbal expressions are met with correction or go unnoticed, they receive feedback that suggests adjustments are needed. This prompts the child to refine their language use based on the cues provided, enhancing the chances of being understood and acknowledged in subsequent attempts. Noam Chomsky Innate theory of language acquisition (1957) Linguist Noam Chomsky (1957) proposed that humans are biologically prewired to learn language at a certain time and in a certain way. He said that children are born into the world with a language acquisition device (LAD), a biological endowment that enables the child to detect certain features and rules of language, including phonology, syntax, and semantics. Children are prepared by nature with the ability to detect the sounds of language, for example, and follow rules such as how to form plurals and ask questions. Chomsky’s LAD is a theoretical construct, not a physical part of the brain. Jerome Bruner’s Interactionist Theory (1983) Jerome Bruner (1961) believed that children are born with an ability to develop language but they require regular interaction with their caregivers or teachers to learn and understand it to a level of full fluency. This idea is known as the Language Acquisition Support System (LASS). Caregivers tend to correct mistakes that children make when using language and also regularly teach them what objects are and what their purposes are. Bruner suggests that this helps to build the scaffolding that children will later rely on when further developing language. 16 Child directed speech Language spoken in a higher pitch than normal with simple words and sentences (Clark, 2009). It is hard to use child-directed speech when not in the presence of a baby. As soon as you start talking to a baby, though, you shift into child-directed speech. Much of this is automatic and something most parents are not aware they are doing. Even 4-year-olds speak in simpler ways to 2-year-olds than to their 4-year old friends. Child-directed speech has the important function of capturing the infant’s attention and maintaining communication (Jaswal & Fernald, 2007). Adults often use strategies other than child-directed speech to enhance the child’s acquisition of language, including recasting, expanding, and labelling: Recasting is rephrasing something the child has said, perhaps turning it into a question or restating the child’s immature utterance in the form of a fully grammatical sentence. For example, if the child says, “The dog was barking,” the adult can respond by asking, “When was the dog barking?” Effective recasting lets the child indicate an interest and then elaborates on that interest. Expanding is restating, in a linguistically sophisticated form, what a child has said. For example, a child says, “Doggie eat,” and the parent replies, “Yes, the doggie is eating.” Labelling is identifying the names of objects. Young children are forever being asked to identify the names of objects. Roger Brown (1958) called this “the original word game” and claimed that much of a child’s early vocabulary is motivated by this adult pressure to identify the words associated with objects. Parents use these strategies naturally and in meaningful conversations. Parents do not (and should not) use any deliberate method to teach their children to talk, even for children who are slow in learning language. Children usually benefit when parents guide their children’s discovery of language rather than overloading them with language; “following in order to lead” helps a child learn language. If children are not ready to take in some information, they are likely to tell you (perhaps by turning away). Thus, giving the child more information is not always better. Sinclair’s Initiation-Response-Feedback Model (1975) Sinclair and Coulthard created a model to analyse and explain the discourse that took place in a classroom between the teacher and the student. Their theory was that most interactions 17 followed the same pattern - initiation of discourse by the teacher, a response from the student, and, finally, some form of feedback from the teacher. From this observation, Sinclair and Coulthard proposed the IRF model. Today, the IRF model is used as a framework for teaching and as a way of analysing discourse in the classroom. Sinclair and Explanation Coulthard's Model's Exchanges Informing exchange This exchange is used when the teacher wishes to inform their students of something (new information, a fact etc.). In this exchange, the teacher initiates, and the students can respond if they wish. Therefore, it is categorised as I(R) (Initiation + optional response). Eg. Teacher: Did you know, the blue whale can weigh up to 200 tons! Students: Cool! (optional response) Directing exchange A directing exchange is used when the teacher wants the students to do something (eg. put their books away). In this case, the response is non-verbal and refers to an action that students commit. The teacher can choose to give feedback if they wish, meaning this exchange is categorised as IR(F) (Initiation + response + optional feedback). Eg. Teacher: Okay children, please go get your book. Students: [go and get their books] Teacher: Well done everybody. (optional response) Eliciting exchange These are arguably the most common classroom exchanges and follow the complete IRF exchange. The teacher asks a question, the students respond, and the teacher gives them some feedback. Eg. Teacher: How many vowels are in the alphabet? Student: 5 Teacher: That’s correct. Well done! Tomasello’s usage based theory (2003) According to this theory language structure emerges from language use, and children build their language relying on their general cognitive skills. These skills help children to identify the intentions of adult speakers as well as the distributional patterns of the language. After 18 establishing and entrenching patterns, young children generalise those patterns to form abstract linguistic categories specific to their language. Tomasello (2003), proposed a usage-based theory of language acquisition. He stated that children acquire language equipped with two sets of cognitive skills: intention-reading, and pattern-finding. ‘Intention-reading’ is what children must do to determine the goals or intentions of mature speakers when they use linguistic conventions to achieve social ends, and thereby to learn these conventions from them culturally, in accordance with the functional approach mentioned above. ‘Pattern-finding’ is what children must do in order to extract abstract linguistic schemas or constructions from the individual utterances, in accordance with the grammatical approach mentioned above. Therefore, this theory has two main dimensions: functional and grammatical. Halliday’s functions of language (1975) Halliday's seven functions of language: instrumental, personal, regulatory, interactional, imaginative, representational, and heuristic. Halliday's functions of language Function of Description Examples language Instrumental Language used to fulfil needs or "I want," "Can I have," "I need" desires, such as requesting food or comfort. Regulatory Language used to command, "Let's go home now," "You need to persuade, or request someone to do finish that work by tomorrow," "Can something, controlling their behaviour. you give me the report from yesterday?" Interactive Language used to form relationships, "I love you, mom," "Thank you so express emotions, and strengthen much" bonds with others. Personal Language used to express personal "Me good," "Me happy," "What's opinions, emotions, and identity, as that?" well as to seek information about the world. 19 Heuristic Language associated with discovery "The horsey goes over to the and explanation, often through dinosaur and says hello," "What's questions and self-narration. that?" Representatio Language used to request and relay "What's that?" "What does that do?" "I nal information between people, was walking down the street and a exchanging facts and experiences. cat jumped out in front of me." Imaginative Language used in storytelling and Pretending to be in a house, imaginative play, creating fictional spaceship, or adopting different scenarios and characters. characters during play. Halliady’s theory of child language learning (1975) Halliday states that, “what the child hears … is functionally related to observable features of the situation around him.” That social interaction is a necessary condition for language learning has been indicated by unfortunate cases of children deprived of it. Through engaging with parents and caregivers the child not only learns the language, but learns the culture through that language. Interaction with caregivers begins very soon after the child is born. As soon as the child begins to make meaningful expressions like smiling or crying, then communication is taking place and language is present. It may sometimes be difficult to interpret what children are saying before they have recognizable words and structures. This is partly because the types of meaning that children make are typically different from the ones produced by adults. Halliday describes three main stages that children traverse in learning language: Phase I is the first language system that the child has. Phase II is the transition from the child’s system to the adult language. Phase III is the learning of the adult language. Phase I: The First Language System The first phase is when the child is about six to eighteen months old. At this stage we can describe approximately seven basic purposes or functions for which the child uses language, known as ‘developmental functions’ or ‘micro functions’. It is important to note here that Phase 1 language is not necessarily connected to the mother tongue; the combinations of sounds may have no resemblance to words in the child’s first language. 20 Instrumental Function Children use language to get what they want. The child may have a particular group of sounds that they use to show that they want something where it is obvious what they are asking for, such as their teddy bear which is on the table. Or they may have a more specific combination of sounds for a particular object or toy. There might also be a form to answer adult “Do you want...?” questions. Regulatory Function Language used to regulate or control other people’s behaviour, an all too obvious function for anyone who has observed young children. Children realise very early that they can use language for this purpose, because other people do this to them so often, for example, to stop them touching things they should not. Interactional Function Language used by the child to interact with the people around them, as opposed to controlling their behaviour. Included in this are utterances such as greetings, or responding to being called. The caregiver’s name is usually first used in this interactional way. For instance, it is not unusual to hear children overgeneralising their father’s name in its Interactional function, when ‘Dadda’ becomes any male in the vicinity. Another way in which language can be used in its Interactional function is when the child wants to focus someone’s attention on something: for example, a small girl in the Halliday’s family would often take her on a tour of her garden, saying ‘Ook!’ whenever they came across another fascinating stone or twig. Personal Function A fourth function of the children’s language is that they use it to express their awareness of themselves and of the fact that they are separate from the surrounding environment. This function includes the expression of personal feelings, such as the noises children make when they find something interesting, or when it tastes nice. Heuristic Function Once children have recognised the boundary between themselves and the environment, then they can start exploring what is around them. An early use of this function is to use it to ask for the name of something. Later this develops into the whole range of questions a child uses; an example is when children go through a stage where they ask ‘why?’ about everything. Imaginative Function The Imaginative function is used by children to create an environment of their own. This may start off with requests for “peek-a-boo” (pretending someone is not there) and develops into use 21 in contexts such as story-telling and pretend games where the child takes on the role of someone else. Representational Function This function comes later than the others because it is actually quite a complicated idea to think that you can tell something to somebody who does not already have that information. Many young children are not yet able, for example, to tell one caregiver what has happened during a day spent with another caregiver. Phase II: Between Child and Adult Language Children use language to perform the Phase 1 functions well before they are at the stage of using recognisable words or phrases. Groups of sounds and intonation are used, but there is a lack of identifiable vocabulary or grammatical structures. Children are quite aware of what they can do with language, but they do not use it for the same purposes as adults do. During Phase II, children very quickly increase their vocabulary and use of structures, also expanding their ability to engage in dialogue. This occurs from approximately the age of 18 months to two years. By the end of Phase I the child can express about 50 different meanings, but during Phase II this develops very rapidly. Most of the meanings are transmitted by recognisable words. At first they are on their own, so that a single word functions as a complete utterance, e.g., ‘blankie’ means “I want my sucking blanket”. But children soon start using more than one word. It is not particularly significant whether they say one, two or three words, although some writers seem to allocate great importance to this. The crucial point is what a child can do using language, not how many words it takes to do it. Phase III: Adult Language Painter states of the children whom she studied that, “By about two years of age, the children had adopted the defining features of the adult language.” The final stage of language learning is when the child not only can use language to do things and to find out about things, but can do both at the same time, as adults can do. This usually begins in the child after the age of about two years. To do this the child has to forget the strict distinction they have made between language for learning and language for doing. For example, asking someone for information is a way of getting them to do something (give you information), but it is also a way of finding out about the world. 22 Barry Kroll’s Theory of writing development (1981) In 1981, Barry M. Kroll theorised 4 stages of children's writing development to understand the relationship between oral and written language change. He believed that by understanding all of this, we, the adults, are in a better position to understand and promote students' writing growth. Stage 1: preparatory the child masters basic motor skills and learns the basic principles of spelling systems. Stage 2: consolidation (up to age 6) a child writes in the same way it speaks, short declarative, incomplete sentences. Stage 3: differentiation (up to age 9) Differences between speaking and writing appear, and can identify different writing styles/structures. lots of mistakes are made Stage 4: integration (12 years and above) Personal style is developed, there is understanding that style can be changed to cater to purpose or audience Joan Rothery's (1994) 4 categories for evaluating children's writing 1) Observation/comment: This is where the writer makes/states an observation, and follows with an evaluative comment straight after Ex: - observation: “I saw a flower” - evaluative comment: “It had 5 petals and it was red” 2) Recount: This is a piece of writing that is usually a chronological response/sequence of events written subjectively - set pattern: orientation-event-reorientation 3) Report: A more factual and objective description of the events that occurred, that’s not always in chronological order 4) Narrative: It’s a story genre where the scene is set for events to occur, which is then resolved at the very end. This also has a set pattern: orientation-complication-resolution-coda 23 Aitchison’s Stages of Children’s Linguistic Development (1987) Jean Aitchison looked at the connections between children’s lexical and semantic development.. Once children expand their vocabulary they use network building to sort the words. Aitchison believes that as all babies start communicating in the same way - through crying - that they must follow a similar pattern in acquiring language Aitchison identified three stages that occur during a child’s acquisition of vocabulary: Labelling This stage involves making the link between the sounds of particular words and the objects to which they refer e.g. understanding that “mummy” refers to the child’s mother. In other words, associating a name with something. Packaging This entails understanding a word’s range of meaning and where they can apply. Overextension (e.g. calling any four legged animal of a particular size a dog) and underextension (e.g. believing only their pet dog is called a dog) occurs in order to gain meaning. Network building Making connections between words, understanding similarities and opposites in meaning. They start with a hypernym (a general word that can have more specific words under it, e.g. fruit) and explore hyponyms (words that fall under a hypernym’s category, e.g. apple)\ 24 Glossary Utterance: A unit of speech or writing, usually a complete sentence. Unscripted conversation: Dialogue that occurs spontaneously without a pre-planned script. Turn-taking: The practice of alternating speaking roles between participants in a conversation. Adjacency pairs: Pairs of related utterances that work together, such as question-answer or greeting-response. Conversational floor: The speaker's right to continue speaking without interruption. Status: The relative social position or rank of participants in a conversation. Topic shift: Changing the subject of discussion in a conversation. Prosodic features: The rhythm, intonation, and stress in speech that convey meaning beyond the literal interpretation of words. Paralinguistic features: Non-verbal elements in communication, including tone of voice, facial expressions, and body language. Back-channelling: Verbal or non-verbal signals indicating active listening or engagement in a conversation. (‘uh huh’ ‘uhh’) Elision: Omitting certain sounds or syllables in speech. Ellipsis: The omission of words or phrases that are understood in context. Metalanguage: Language used to talk about language. Phatic communication: Communication focused on maintaining social relationships rather than conveying information. Phonemes: The smallest units of sound that can distinguish words in a language. Overextension: Using a word in a broader context than its conventional meaning. (could be the application of certain grammar rules for other words, “ladys”, alongside the use of certain words to refer to multiple things, all 4 legged animals are dogs. Underextension: Using a word in a more limited context than its conventional meaning. (The restriction of the use of a word only to a single or few objects, “Teddy” to only refer to their teddy bear and not any other. Hypernym: A word with a broad meaning that encompasses more specific words (e.g., "animal" is a hypernym for "cat" and "dog"). Hyponym: A word with a more specific meaning within a broader category (e.g., "cat" and "dog" are hyponyms of "animal"). Virtuous error: A mistake made by a child during language development that reflects a logical attempt to apply language rules. Restricted code: A communication style that relies on shared knowledge and context, often associated with close-knit groups. Elaborated code: A communication style that provides more detail and explanation, often associated with formal or unfamiliar settings. Context-bound: Language that is specific to a particular situation or context. 25 Consonant cluster: A sequence of consonant sounds in a word without any intervening vowels. Reduplication: The repetition of a part or the whole of a word for various linguistic purposes. Double negatives: The use of two negative elements in a sentence, which may be a feature of certain dialects or informal speech. Neologism: refers to a newly created or coined word or expression. 26