Evie 'All the Things' Mini Investigation

Evie 'All The Things' Mini Investigation 

Introduction

• Title: What characteristics of language are the two participants, Evie and her grandmother, displaying in the "All the Things' transcript? 
• Hypothesis: According to theory, I would assume that Evie should display several linguistic features of the telegraphic stage of language development and her Grandmother should display several features of Child Directed Speech.
• I would assume that Evie's grandmother is likely to use several interrogatives; imperatives and cloaked imperatives as these are features of Child Directed Speech. Because Evie is 2 years and 7 months at the time of this video, I would suggest she would display some non-standard pronunciations and using beginning to use negatives in a more standard way placing 'not' or 'no' in the standard place in the sentence. I chose these features as theory suggests that these are features of the telegraphic stage which is the stage Evie will be in according to her age.

Methodology

• I picked one transcript called 'All the Things' and quantified features that would display Evie in the telegraphic stage and to show her grandmother using Child Directed speech. Every feature tested above was applied to the transcript. 
• Picked random participants so I did not know the participants personally and so would not make biased judgements on the data. 
• It is ethical because Evie's parents had given full consent for this recording to be used for teaching purposes.
• As this is only a mini investigation, I only have one sample of data therefore it is not fully representative of Evie and her grandmother's language. Only a small sample might not show how Evie and her grandmother tailor their language to other audiences. 

Analysis

• In the transcript, Evie's grandmother asked 45 questions while Evie only asked 3, this shows that Evie's grandmother is leading the conversation and is using features of Child Directed Speech to communicate with Evie.
• Evie's grandmother also uses 3 imperatives while Evie uses 1. This shows more of a similarity between their language but still shows grandma uses a higher frequency of imperatives as she is displaying Child Directed Speech. Evie may have used an imperative as she is beginning to transition into the telegraphic stage and so is beginning to be able to ask and order adults in order to get what she wants.
• Grandma uses 4 cloaked imperatives while Evie uses one. Similar to previously, this could be because Grandma is using Child Directed Speech to Evie to lead the conversation.
• Evie makes 10 non-standard pronunciations, which shows she is still in the telegraphic stage. She says a couple of things that are inaudible so I didn't count them as non-standard pronunciations as they could have been pronounced correctly just not clearly.
• Evie also pronounces things with an 'f' sound at one point in the transcript. This is a typical pronunciation mistake during child language acquisition. This is interesting because when a child wants to make a 'th' sound like in the word 'things' or 'three', the 'th' sound gets substituted for the 'f' sound. This is an example of substitution which is classed as a mistake in sounding words, as it is assumed that the 'f' sound is easier to pronounce than the 'th' combined consonant sound.
• Evie also is beginning to recognise where the negative i.e. 'no' or 'not' should be placed in the sentence and is using it standardly. She only did this once but as I only have one sample of data it is not really representative of her ability to use it properly. This would suggest she is transitioned into the telegraphic stage as she is using these standardly.

Conclusion

• In conclusion, I would say that there was massive limitations due to the very limited data pull, only one transcript can not really conclude anything about language patterns. 
• My data supports my hypothesis as Grandma used much more interrogatives, imperatives and cloaked imperatives to display features of Child Directed Speech.
• My data also supports my hypothesis as Evie used many more non-standard pronunciations and  showed a limited ability to use negatives in the right place in a sentence grammatically.