Does grammar matter? - Andreea S. Calude

Ted Talks Lesson 
https://ed.ted.com/on/BKYwjkkg 

Child Language Acquisition Test

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	3     N. Chomsky
B    Cognitive – children develop their linguistic competence alongside their ability to understand the world around them	4     J. Piaget
C    Behaviourist – children learn primarily through imitation and patterns of positive or negative reinforcement from their carers	5     B. F. Skinner
D    Interactional – children learn through the input of their carers, correcting and supporting their linguistic development	1     J. Bruner
E    Critical period – children have a limited period during which their language can develop rapidly. After this, language development is much harder	2     E. Lenneberg

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?

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 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.

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)

Useful English Language Blog

http://englishlangsfx.blogspot.co.uk/

Steven Pinker: Linguistics as a Window to Understanding the Brain

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-B_ONJIEcE


Language is not:
1. Written Language
2. Proper Grammar


Language is:
-Distinctive
-Essential
-Mysterious


-Words
-Rules: syntax, morphology, phonology,
-Interfaces

A2 Language Term One Test

A ‘question and answer’ or ‘statement and response’ is called an adjacency pair.


The term for saying “yeah” or “uh huh” while someone else is talking is called back-channelling agreement.


When talk flows swiftly from one turn to the next it is called latched talk.


Observers paradox is when you affect the data you are studying by investigating it.


The investigation data needs to be ethical, comparable and reliable.

AO3 award marks for context.

GRAPE stands for genre, reception, audience, purpose, expectations.

It is important to analyse texts for how they create meanings and representations.

Connotations, lexical field and metaphor etc., all come under the framework 'lexis'.

Deborah Tannen investigated the difference theory.


Deficit features include; empty adjectives, intensifiers, hedges, tag questions, super-polite forms etc.


Deborah Cameron said " Your GENES don't determine our JEANS".


Trudgill carried out his norms research in Norwich.


The island locals in Martha’s Vineyard showed covert prestige.


There was more pronunciation of the post-vocalic R sound in more expensive stores in Labov’s ‘fourth floor’ study.


Overgeneralisation is the term for when children apply standard grammatical rules to irregular verbs and nouns.


There are 15 morphemes in the following quote - “now you can’t exactly be like Jesus (0.5) instead you just get some help”

The stage after the two-word stage is called the telegraphic stage.


Amongst Halliday's functions, the instrumental function is for getting your needs met.


Dr Deb Roy carried out research on his son and discovered that caregivers simplify the utterances around a word that is about to be learned.

Child Language Acquisition, Michael Halliday's Functions of Speech

https://quizlet.com/21483539/child-language-acquisition-michael-hallidays-functions-of-speech-flash-cards/

Snotrils and Jumpolines: Kids' Invented Words

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07wsmrp