1.
Place the following stages in the correct order:
Cooing Babbling Holophrastic Two-word Telegraphic Post-telegraphic
2.
Match the theories with the theorists:
A Nativist – children are born with a language acquisition
device. They have an innate ability to acquire language
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3 N. Chomsky
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B Cognitive – children
develop their linguistic competence alongside their ability to understand the
world around them
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4 J. Piaget
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C Behaviourist – children learn primarily through
imitation and patterns of positive or negative reinforcement from their
carers
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5 B. F. Skinner
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D Interactional – children learn through the input
of their carers, correcting and
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1 J. Bruner
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E Critical period – children have a limited period
during which their language can develop rapidly. After this, language
development is much harder
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2 E. Lenneberg
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3.
A child refers to an apple, orange and grapefruit as ‘ball’. What process is at work and what might be the
reasons for this?
Over-extension – child sees
similar shapes to an object she knows and overextends the term she knows to
include these objects
4.
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?
Under-extension – child
cannot relate the term she knows to any other similar item
5.
A child says ‘I falled over’ or ‘I runned away’. What process is at work and what might be
the reasons for this?
the reasons for this?
Generalization – child
applies regular rules to irregular verbs
6.
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
7.
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
8.
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
9.
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’
10.
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
11.
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.’
12.
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
13.
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
14.
In what ways might turn-taking be established between a carer and a
child?
Suggestions are:
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
15.
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
16.
Who was Genie and what might she prove?
A ‘feral’ or ‘wild’ girl
discovered by social workers in California support the Critical
Learning Period Hypothesis, while others use it to support
the Interactive Theory.
17.
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.
18.
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
19.
What do the initials L.A.D. stand for?
Language Acquisition Device
20.
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.
Determiners (the, a)
Auxiliary verbs (is doing, am running)
