English Language Paper 2 - OCR

The stages of child language acquisition

The stages of child language acquisition

1. Vegetative crying (0-4 months)

2. Cooing (4-7 months)

3. Babbling (6-12 months)

4. Proto-words (9-12 months)

5. Holophrastic (12-18 months)

6. Two-word (18-24 months)

7. Telegraphic (24-36 months)

8. Post-telegraphic (36+ months)

Vegetative crying stage

The first stage of child language acquisition between 0-4 months characterised by coughing, burping, sucking and crying. Verbal expressions are used to indicate fear/hunger/pleasure.

Cooing stage

The second stage of child language acquisition between 4-7 months characterised by an increased control over vocal cords and a child's grunts become softer and they start to make vowel sounds like 'coo'.

Babbling stage

The third stage of child language acquisition between 6-12 months where a child can now make consonant clusters and vowel sounds like 'ga', 'ba' and 'ma'. Sounds also start to sound like language but have no meaning.

Proto-words stage

The fourth stage of child language acquisition between 9-12 months characterised by word-like vocalisations and increased non-verbal communication. The child also has 'proto-conversation' with their parent where a basic scaffolding of interaction i sued to communicate.

Holophrastic stage

The fifth stage of child language acquisition between 12-18 months characterised by one word utterance to represent more complex though, e.g. "juice" = 'I want more juice'.

Two-word stage

The sixth stage of child language acquisition between 18-24 months characterised by two word utterances to create simple syntactical structures often consisting of 'subject+verb', e.g. "doggie gone".

Telegraphic stage

The seventh stage of child language acquisition between 24-36 months characterised by three or more words joined together in increasingly more complex and accurate orders, e.g. "daddy get milk", "Ben feed ducks".

Post-telegraphic stage

The eighth stage of child language acquisition at 36+ months characterised by an increasing awareness of grammatical rules and lexical use, e.g. "mummy is in the car".

Aitchinson's (1978) three stages of semantic development

1. Labelling- linking words to objects to which they refer.

2. Packing- understanding a word's range of meaning.

3. Network building- grasping the connections between words.

Bellugi's stages of negation development

1. "No" is put at the beginning or end of a sentence.

2. "No" is used in the middle of sentences. Modal verbs "can't" and "don't" are also used.

3. More variety in the tense of modal verbs, e.g. "didn't".

4. Uses "do not" correctly.

Bellugi's stages of pronoun development

1. The child uses their own name, e.g. "Tom play".

2. The child recognises I/me pronouns and uses them, e.g. "I play toy", "me do that"

3. This child uses pronouns accordingly to whether they are the subject or object in the sentence, e.g. "I play with the toy", "give it to me".

Bellugi's stages of question development

1. Uses intonation

2. Uses words such as "what", "where" and "when"

3. Uses "can" and "do" correctly

B.F Skinner's approach to language development

He was is behaviourist. He believed language is learnt through imitation/modelling of adults and peers, and positive and negative reinforcement.

Noan Chomsky's approach to language development

He was is a nativist. He believed language was learnt via a Language Acquisition Device (LAD) and universal grammar.

Jerome Bruner's approach to language development

He was a social interactionist. He believed language was learnt through a Language Acquisition Support System (LASS) and child directed speech.

Language Acquisition Device (LAD)

An idea proposed by Chomsky which is a hypothetical module of the human mind which accounts for a child's innate predisposition for language acquisition.

Universal grammar

A theory proposed by Chomsky which explains that all languages possess universal syntactical rules in order to communicate.

Language Acquisition Support System (LASS)

An idea proposed by Bruner which is that caregivers support development by interacting with and encouraging a child to respond.

Child directed speech

Speech patterns used by parents and carers when communicating with young children to facilitate speech.

Child directed speech techniques

Exaggerating prosodic cues, recasting, echoing, expansion, expatiation, labelling and over-articulating.

Exaggerating prosodic cues

A child directed speech technique where a carer uses more exaggerated intonation patterns, slightly higher frequencies and greater pitch variations. E.g. "uh oh!"

Recasting

A child directed speech technique where a carer phrases sentences in different ways, such as making it a question. E.g. "bye, bye daddy...is daddy going by bye?"

Echoing

A child directed speech technique where a carer repeats what a child has said.

Expansion

A child directed speech technique where a carer restates what the child said in a more linguistically sophisticated form.

Expatiation

A child directed speech technique where a carer expands further on the word by giving more information.

Labelling

A child directed speech technique where a carer provides the name of objects, using simplified vocabulary. E.g. "water" instead of 'glass of water'.

Overarticulating

A child directed speech technique where a carer uses more precise sounds contained in the words, stretching out sounds, sounding out 'super vowels'.

Uncontractible auxiliary

A full form of the verb 'to be' when it is an auxiliary verb in a sentence. E.g. "he is". This is mastered at about age 29-48 months.

Contractible auxiliary

The shortened form of the verb 'to be' when it is an auxiliary verb in a sentence. E.g. "Daddy's eating", "She's walking". This is mastered at about age 30-50 months.

Contractible copula

The shortened form of the verb 'to be' when it is the only verb in the sentence. E.g. "he's big", "she's scary". This is mastered at about age 29-49 months.

Phoneme addition

Addition of phonemes, which a child does usually to avoid difficult sounds. E.g. "doggie", "moomoo", "dada"

Phoneme deletion

When a child deletes certain phonemes from a word due to an unstable ability to create sounds. E.g. "ca" instead of "cat", "nana" instead of "banana", "seep" instead of "sleep".

Phoneme substitution

When a child replaces a sound in a word for something simpler/easier to say. E.g. "big" instead of 'pig', "wed" instead of 'red'.

Assimilation

A form of phoneme substitution where a phoneme is switched for a neighbouring sound. E.g. "goggie" instead of "doggie", "donchu" instead of "don't you".

Under extension

A term coined by Clarke (1977) which describes when a child gives a word a narrower meaning than it has in adult language. E.g. "ball" is used for their ball but no one else's.

Over extension

A term coined by Clarke (1977) which describes when a child applies a word to a wider collection of instances than is appropriate. E.g. "doggie" used to refer to all animals.

Virtuous errors

An idea proposed by Chomsky that argues that a child's innate understanding of grammatical rules is evidenced through non-standard vocabulary. E.g. "mans" instead of 'men', "falled" instead of 'fell'.

Jean Berko's 'Fis phenomenon'

A term used to explain what happens when a child thinks they are saying something right but can't produce the right sounds to say it (cognition proceeds production).

Halliday's 7 functions of language

-Heuristic - find out about the environment

-Imaginative - creates an imaginary world

-Interactional - relationship forming

-Representational - conveys information

-Regulatory - tells someone what to do

-Instrumental - expresses needs

-Personal - expresses opinions/identity

Socio economic situation (SES) and how it effects language

High SES mothers tend to talk more and use longer, more difficult utterances with their children compared to low SES mothers, leading to the child having a larger vocabulary.

Cognitive theory (Piaget)

The idea that language will grow when children's ideas of the world develop. For example, to understand tenses, you need to understand time.

Object permanence

The understanding that objects continue to exist even when out of view. This requires the mental capacity to from a mental representation of it. Piaget believes that children acquire this skill at about 8 months.

More Knowledgeable Other

An idea created by Vygotsky which is that a child has someone with a higher ability of language to them which helps them develop linguistically.

Zone of Proximal Development

A theory proposed by Vygotsky which refers to the range between children's present level of knowledge and their potential knowledge state if they receive proper guidance and instruction.

Poverty of stimulus

An argument proposed by Chomsky that the linguistic input received by young children is in itself insufficient to explain their detailed knowledge of their first language, so people must be born with an innate ability to learn a language. This leads to creativity in language.

Inflective morpheme

A suffix that's added to a word to assign a particular grammatical property to that word, such as its tense, number, possession, or comparison. These include -s (or -es); 's (or s'); -ed; -en; -er; -est; and -ing.

Hegemony

Leadership or dominance of a particular social group over others. It supports the status-quo and solidifies the idea that 'how it is' is 'how it should be'.

Ideology

A belief system, attitude and world view that an individual or collective might hold. This is displayed trough the use of language.

Manufactured consent (Chomsky)

The phenomenon that a small ruling elite can shape public opinion in their favour by controlling the media. The media is filtered by - media ownerships (economic profit), advertising (how media is funded), media elite (owners of media), flack (pushing anything not agreed with to the side) and the common enemy (brings people together).

Three types of reader (Hall)

Dominant, negotiated and oppositional

Dominant reader

Someone who fully accepts what they are reading and interprets it in the way the writer intended them to.

Negotiated reader

Someone who partially believes the information they are reading but thinks some parts may be inaccurate or biased.

Oppositional reader

Someone who's social position and moral values influence their belief on the content they are reading, causing the to disregard and reject the information presented.

Power in discourse (Fairclough)

The ways in which power is manifested in situations through language.

Power behind discourse (Fairclough)

The focus on the social, contextual and ideological reasons behind the enactment of power.

Types of power (Wareing)

Political (politicians, police etc.), personal (power as a result of occupation, e.g. teachers) and social (power as a result of social variables such as class, gender, age).

Instrumental power

Power used to maintain and enforce authority.

Influential power

Power used to influence or persuade others.

Syntactical victimisation (Clarke)

When women are either: the passively acted upon, or the agent in the sentence- removing the blame for the perpetrator.

Omission

Phoneme deletion where a word is shortened. E.g. "hangin'" instead of 'hanging'.

Metonym

A word/phrase used to symbolise another entity. E.g. "my heart" = 'love', "10 Downing Street" = 'the priminister'.

Active voice

When a sentence has a subject that acts upon its verb. E.g. "A boy caught a fish".

Ethos

A persuasive technique that appeals to an audience by highlighting credibility and ethics. For example, by using scientific evidence or statistics.

Pathos

A persuasive technique that tries to appeal to an audience through emotions.

Logos

A persuasive technique that aims to convince an audience by using logic and reason. For example, the citation of statistics, facts, charts, and graphs.

Hyperbole

Exaggerated statements or claims.

Jargon

Special words or expressions used by a profession or group that may be difficult for others to understand.

Glossing

To provide an explanation for a word or phrase.

Superlative

A word expressing the highest or a very high degree of a quality. E.g. 'highest', 'longest'.

Synthetic personalisation (Fairclough)

The process of addressing mass audiences as though they were individuals through inclusive language usage such as personal pronouns.

Pre-modifier

A word that describes a noun and is placed before it in a sentence.

Passive voice

When a subject is a recipient of a verb's actions. E.g. "A fish was caught by the boy"

Divergence

When a speaker actively distances themselves from another speaker by accentuating their own accent or dialect. It reinforces their identity.

Manifest intertextuality (Fairclough)

Explicit, direct references such as quotations or citations which have the function of manifesting others' ideas in discourse. It consists of references made in order to clarify a certain point or to continue, build up, or develop new ideas.

Prescriptivist

The view that language should have a strict set of standard rules that must be obeyed in speech and writing and should not change.

Descriptivist

An open-minded view that no use of language is incorrect and that variation is natural.

Metaphors Jean Aitchinson used to describe prescriptivists

Damp-spoon syndrome, crumbling-castle syndrome and the infectious disease assumption.