AQA Child Language Acquisition

AQA English Language Paper 1

What is the pre-verbal stage and when does it occur?

• First stage of language - features include crying and cooing to discover mouth sounds and babbling as infants practice articulating sounds.

• Occurs at 0-12 Months

What is the holophrastic stage and when does it occur?

• Second stage of language acquisition - single words that convey entire ideas or intentions.

• Relying on concrete nouns and non-communication (gestures and pointing)

• Occurs at 12-18 months.

What is the two-word stage and when does it occur?

• Third stage of language - children are able to use two-word combinations like ‘want milk’

• Simple speech begins to show understanding of relationship between words

• Occurs at 18-24 months

What is the telegraphic stage and when does it occur?

• Fourth stage of language - children begin to use short sentences t produce more complex utterances.

• Includes essential words and has grammatical elements required for structural accuracy

• Occurs at 24-30 months (2 years)

What is the post-telegraphic stage and when does it occur?

• Fifth stage of language - child’s speech becomes increasingly like adult speech

• Features include formation of pronouns, auxiliary verbs, deeper understanding of pragmatics (politeness, turn-taking etc)

• Occurs at 30+ months

What are Halliday’s 7 functions of initial language (1973)

• Instrumental - Fulfilling a need (“up”/”dwink”)

• Regulatory - Commanding or persuading (“bed!”/”go away”)

• Interactional - Strengthening relations (“love you”/”mama”)

• Personal - Developing identity and opinions (“no like it”/”me is good”)

• Representational - Giving info and knowledge (“scared”/”help"/”where dada?”)

• Heuristic - Gaining knowledge about surroundings (“where it go?”)

• Imaginative - Play, imagination and jokes (“abwacadabwa”/”this my baby”)

Chomsky’s approach to language

• Nativist approach (1957) - children born with innate ability to learn any language

• Biological, not behavioural

Skinner’s approach to language

• Behavioural approach (1957) - acquire language through imitation

• Positive/negative reinforcement in language

• Operant conditioning

• Behavioural, not biological

Piaget’s approach to language

• The language and thought of a child (1926)

• Child cannot articulate concepts they don’t understand

Piaget’s stages

• Sensorimotor (0-2y) - Child is egocentric, interacts with environment

• Pre-operational (2-6/7y) - uses imagination, remains egocentric, doesn’t understand other’s POV

• Concrete operational (6/7-11/12) - No longer egocentric, capable of logical thought

• Formal operational (11-16+) - Abstract thinking, logical thoughts

Bruner’s approach to language

Social Interactionist (1983)

• Children learn to use language to get what they want

• Lang Acquisition Support System (LASS) - Parental support - provides imitation model

• Scaffolding - Support for child, enables child to gradually develop speech

Aitchison’s approach to language

Acquisition stages (1987)

1. Labelling - Link between word and sound used

2. Packaging - over/under extension leads to understanding range of a word

3. Network Building - Grasping concepts of words (hyper/hyponms)

Vygotsky’s Scaffolding theory

• Doing things for child allows them to develop and for adult to act as ‘more knowledgeable other’

• Adult can then direct child to move within zone of proximinal development

Tomasello (2003) language theory

• Ability t learn language is social AND cognitive

• 9-12 = children use pattern forming to learn functions and forms

• Able to build generalisations about how words form large syntactic constructions

What is assimilation?

Use sounds that are easier to produce to replace other sounds in a word (s instead of sh in fish) = substitution

What is consonant cluster reduction?

Subconsciously reducing consonant sounds in a word (lipstick becomes liptick)

What is weak syllable deletion?

Removing weak sounds in a word ( Porridge becomes Porge)

What is consonant deletion?

At beginning or end or a word, consonant is removed (fish becomes fis)

What are nasals?

• Sounds made by air forced through nasal cavity

• (n/m/ng sounds)

What are fricatives?

• Sounds made by turbulent air

• (z in zebra, f in fish)

What are affricates?

• Sound begins as a plosive and ends as fricative

• (J in joy, ch in church)

What are approximants?

• Consonant that can sound like a vowel

• (w in wet, r in right, y in yes)

What is articulatory ease?

Children will naturally choose words and sounds that are easiest to pronounce - shows why ‘dada’ is easier to pronounce than ‘mama’

What are proto words?

• Words that a child will use to represent something else

• Nana = banana / mama = mum / dada = dad

Types of babbling

• Reduplicated - Repeat same syllable (mamama)

• Variegated - Combine different syllables (googoobaa)

What is over/under extension?

• Over - Uses one word to refer to too many things (ball used to describe dog and squirrel)

• Under - Uses one word to refer to too little things (kitty used to describe family cat but not other cats)

What is CDS

• Child Directed Speech - Way of caregivers to speak to children, known as baby-talk.

  Features:

  • High pitched/melodic voice

  • Simpler sentences

  • Talking in 3rd person about self

  • tag questions and repeating q/a

  • Expansion - caregiver expands on child’s comment

  • Recast - adult agrees with proto word but corrects or repeats it

  • Multigated imperatives - shall we/ I wonder/ why don’t we