Child Speech Development

Child Speech Development

According to the American Speech, Language and Hearing Association, there are guidelines on what a child should be able to do with language at specific ages and if this is not happening with a child, then they are most likely going to suffer from a Speech or Language disorder. 

The most crucial age of a child acquiring their first language is from birth to three months. I am primarily focusing on speech development and so at this period of time in a child's life they will usually be making pleasure sounds i.e. cooing or gooing, will cry for its needs and will smile at a parent when recognising them. 

From four to six months, the child will start to make babbling sounds and the development of p, m and b sounds begins. At this age also, children tend to show their excitement and displeasure through different sounds and will make gurgling sounds when engaged with an activity or when concentrating but also in order to get attention when they are left alone.

The next stage is seven months to one year, and this is when the child will repeat babbling sounds in a sequence, starting to understand the structure of words, such as 'tata' and 'bibi'. Starts to actually use speech to get attention instead of making noises or crying. The child will also use gestures to communicate such as stretching out their arms if wanting to be picked up. They will begin to imitate speech sounds that they have heard before and this is the primary form of acquiring speech. Towards the age of one the child will be able to relevantly use a couple of words such as 'dada', 'hi', 'dog' and 'mama'. 

It is also important that the parent or carer looks at the child and speaks to them, tells them things and asks them questions, in order to reinforce communication and trigger the recognition of speech in the baby's mind. It is also good to repeat your son or daughters facial expressions so that they can understand how they are expressing themselves and what this means in context. A parent should also talk about what they are doing, where they are going, why they are doing it, and how they feel about it so the child can begin to understand why we communicate and how we do it.

Source: http://www.asha.org/public/speech/development/01.htm

Reading Log and Summaries for A2

Reading Log and Summaries for A2

Child Language Acquisition 

Noam Chomsky - Chomsky believed that children acquiring a language was innate and they had a natural ability to create sentences which he said must have 'already been imprinted on the mind'. He called this ability the 'language acquisition device' and this encodes grammatical structures in the brain so when a child learns new vocabulary, they simply apply it to the structure they already know. He believed this because he noticed in his research that children never get their subjects, verbs and objects in the wrong order; they would notice if an adult purposely said an grammatically incorrect sentence; and also that they say some things which are incorrect grammatically for example 'I drawed' instead of 'I drew' but they could not have repeated this from hearing it, therefore learning is not just through imitation.

David Crystal - Crystal's theory of child language acquisition is that a child will learn in five different stages. Stage one is where children learn to say things for three different reasons: to get something they want; to get someone's attention; or to draw attention to something. Stage two is when the child learns to use interrogatives and usually start with 'what', or 'where'. Stage three involves lots of questions being asked and the development of state of actions and simple verbs such as 'listen' and 'know'. Stage four is when the child develops the ability to use more complex grammatical structures and can explain things, ask 'why' questions or making lots of requests. Stage five is when the child has fully developed language and uses it for all its purposes: to give information and explain things, ask and answer questions, requesting, expressing etc.

Jean Aitchison - Aitchison believed that a childs development of language is biologically organised and every child follows a similar pattern. She identified three stages of child language acquisition. One stage is labeling: this involves linking sounds to objects and associating a name to something. The second stage is packaging: this involved understanding the meaning of a word and the range of the meaning. The last stage is called network building: which is the understanding of the connection between words, and understanding that words have synonyms and antonyms. 

B.F. Skinner - Skinner believed that language acquisition are learned through associating events known as classical conditioning. This is said to be done by children associating objects with sounds or words. They are then rewarded by their parents by smiling or praising by their parents, which is called operant conditioning, as a positive reinforcement is likely to encourage the behaviour to be repeated. 

Neural networks - Some cognitive neuro-scientists have created neural networks that can some aspects acquire language. They are not programmed just exposed to lots of expamples of language. They are able to learn grammatical structures and make past tense forms with verbs. This supports the study that language is learned and developed as we grow up, not that we are born with the ability.

Bibliography - https://aggslanguage.wordpress.com/chomsky/

http://www.sparknotes.com/psychology/psych101/languageandcognition/section2/page/2/

http://study.com/academy/lesson/what-is-language-acquisition-theories-stages-quiz.html

Investigating Language on Twitter - A2 Mini Investigation

Investigating Language on Twitter - A2 Mini Investigation

Introduction

I have chosen to focus on how gender affects language as my specialised topic area in this investigation, and in order to study this I put together a hypothesis. My hypothesis for this investigation is 'I think that men are more likely to show dominance than women in their twitter posts.' I have chosen to focus on particular feature areas such as how men and women use language features to show male dominance and female language deficiency in their tweets. I am going to focus on imperatives, multi-modal tweets, uncertainty features, empty adjectives and abbreviations and quantify them to see which sex used which features more. I would also focus on how the male and female participant used co-operative or competitive language however this would be harder to evaluate as they are not communicating to a particular speaker in a conversation thread. I also wanted to see how this would link to Robin Lakoff's deficit model and how the amount of empty adjectives and uncertainty features would show how women's language is deficient and this could link to how male speakers tend to be more dominant.

Methodology

When constructing this investigation I decided to pick two celebrities and systematically select 5 tweets from each. We did this by choosing every fifth tweet on their feed and chose celebrities so it was unbiased rather than using someone we knew personally and this could affect how we interpret the results. We also picked random celebrities so it was not biased and opinions could not affect what we analysed from the data. One benefit of using data from twitter is that we don't have to ask for consent as the celebrities who have posted these tweets are essentially allowing their information to be used as they have posted it publicly. However one limitation with our data that we collected is that it is only a very small pool of data and therefore we are unable to generalise this data to males and females in general as it is not fully representative.

Analysis

We found that Taylor (female) showed a higher amount of empty adjectives and uncertainty features than Zac (male). However Zac used a higher amount of multi-modal tweets (pictures and words), but also imperatives and abbreviations. From these results we could suggest that men are much less descriptive and more concise with their language in their tweets whereas women are much more expressive with words and describe something in more detail. This is proved as 4 out of 5 of Zacs tweets were multi-modal which incorporated pictures and words. We could also suggest that men are more dominant due to their higher amount of imperatives. However, one of Zac's tweets was an anomaly because due to my pragmatic understanding the tweet was song lyrics, however it uses the uncertainty feature 'like', but I don't know whether to consider it as his language use as he didn't put it in quote marks. We also considered the average number of features per tweet and didn't count 'retweets' as they were not written by the celebrity themselves and therefore cannot evaluate their language use. Taylor uses 'SO MUCH' in one of her tweets and this was a dilemma because both of these words are individual uncertainty features, and we can't decide to count them as one uncertainrt feature or two, as they are used in a phrase and work together.

Conclusion and Evaluation

There are massive limitations in this investigation as the data pool is very small and limiting as tghere was only 10 tweets. However, the data proves hypothesis as female uses more uncertainty features and empty adjectives however the male uses more multi-modal tweets, imperatives and abbreviations, which could prove male dominance in language. 

How is Gender shown in a conversation between Ricki and Vicki from Geordie Shore? How could we compare this with other data?

How is Gender shown in a conversation between Ricki and Vicki from Geordie Shore? How could we compare this with other data?

Key: I= Interviewer, R= Ricci, V= Vicki

R and V: [laughs]
I: will we be seeing a geordie wedding this season (.) or coming up?
V: (1) no (.) we're not um (.) I think we'll (.) in (.) oh (.)
R: you lost for words babe?
V: | [laughs]         |
R: | is she feeling | alright?
V: I'm not lost for words I'm just tryna work out how to | put it |
R:                                                                                      | yeah  | ok
V: shut up!
R: I can't believe this like
V: |we don't have a wedding |
R: | when she's on camera     | this never happens

Analysis

Due to the nature of this interview, we can tell that Vicki is trying to conceal some information about the next series, as the purpose of this interview is to encourage viewers to watch the new upcoming series of Geordie Shore, without giving too much information away. This factor could affect the significant amount of uncertainty features that Vicki uses as she is reluctant to use her speech as freely as possible, rather than just applying Robin Lakoff's 'Deficit Model' with women's language. She uses false starts; hesitations including 1 second pauses and micropauses; and fillers, such as 'um' and 'oh' as seen in the extract above. This is interesting as it supports Robin Lakoff's theory as she suggested that these features made women's language deficient as they were unnecessary in conversation. I also noticed that Ricci, the male speaker interrupts several times throughout the interview, and from the extract above, he interrupts three times consecutively while Vicki doesn't interrupt at all. This supports Zimmerman and West's theory as they suggested men interrupted much more frequently  than women and this was as a result of their dominance. I can also tell that there is a relationship between the speakers from their informal register as they laugh a lot with each other and Vicki also tells him to 'shut up' however we can tell from the context and the way he reacts to her, that it is a light-hearted joke. However after she says this, he flouts the maxim of relevance as he shifts the agenda back to what he was talking about before. You could suggest that this shows his dominance and power of him being able to shift the agenda, but she also does the same by carrying on to talk about the wedding in a competitive way. Ricci says 'I can't believe this like' and Vicki says, 'we don't have a wedding' which also flouts the maxim of relevance and juxtaposes with stereotypes of language and gender that men are usually more competitive and women are more cooperative.

In order to compare this conversation with other data collected first-hand, I could interview and record one-on-one mixed gender conversation, preferably a couple who are familiar with each other, by introducing a topic or debate. This way we could analyse how features of their language support or contradict gender theory and compare it with this interview with Vicki and Ricci to see whether the gender roles coincide in both interviews. However, to limit external variables that could affect the ability to establish cause and effect, we would have to choose two Geordie speakers, because regional dialect could really influence the language features used and this could be a factor to affect their language rather than gender being the influencing factor. I would also use a couple who are in a relationship or close friends because if the couple did not know each other this could affect how they speak to each other as they are likely to be more polite. If I were to use this as my data for an investigation I could title it 'How does gender affect the way couples speak in mixed gender conversations when presented with a particular topic of conversation?' to study different language features in relation to gender stereotypes.

Romantic Fiction Piece

Weakness and Strength

Weakness placed her delicate fingertips along his medium complexioned skin. She felt broad, strong shoulders and a firm chest. She breathed in considerably, allowing all of the salty, crisp air to fulfil her lungs, and her pulse to take over her fragile heart. She felt his too, on the left side of his chest, steady but intense.
This moment was like no other, a blanket of the ocean cascading up the shore wrapping around their feet, the sound relaxing their ears like a lullaby. The silent sun was glistening on the water at sunset, and glowing towards their very presence, creating a silhouette of two figures behind them on the velvety, pale-pink sand.
Strength ran his large, masculine hands through her hairline slowly and delicately, as if he was touching a feather, and carried his hand towards the back of her neck. He held the back of her head in the crease of her neck and Weakness felt her pulse quicken. She already felt something extraordinary after knowing him just a few weeks. He pulled her slightly closer so their chests were pressed together and he looked into her mesmerising jade-green eyes. She looked back into his, crystals of hazel and dark ocean-blue coruscating in the evening light, more beautiful than hers, she thought. She felt a lump of nervousness in her chest as she wanted to make an impression on him, as he had already done with her, but she had no idea how he felt anyway and she needn't worry about that now. This moment is all that counts.
He moved his chin ever so slightly, pressed his forehead lightly onto hers, and closed his eyes. He took a small breath and Weakness felt her pulse now racing. He then turned his chin. He looked at her one last time. Then placed his rounded lips upon hers as he held her face. He kissed her with passion and amorous. Weakness felt a feeling she had never felt before, it was indescribable.  Her body felt delicate and fragile, as he grabbed her waist strongly and lifted her up in the air towards him. This all felt so surreal. She could not comprehend how she felt like this. Strength placed her back on the sand, kissed her forehead lightly and walked up away from the beach. She watched his dark, curled hair sway in the sunset as he walked away, and his bronzed, dampened skin as he took one glance back at her.

An introduction to Language and Gender - with relevant theories.

Language and Gender

Robin Lakoff (1975) studied and published an account of women's language. From his research he set some assumptions and claims about women's language. Lakoff suggested that women use super-polite terms and forms of phrases whereas men do not tend to as much. He also suggested that women speak much less frequently and use hyper-correct grammar and pronunciation which is also apparent is the extract. I am going to look at how this is shown in an extract from a Mills and Boon romantic novel:

# Please note I have removed descriptions outside of the dialogue to purely focus on language used #

Male: I don'y suppose you took time to eat dinner, either. 

Female: I... had something earlier. On the plane.

... Male: Plastic food. 

Female: I don't know what concern it is of yours. 

Male: None. 

This extract shows that when the female speaker, Jill, is still trying to be fairly closed and tying not to let her guard down, but also seems to be getting rather irritated with him, as he is interrogating her with questions she may not want to answer if she does not know the man very well. She may not really care what he thinks of her, but she still uses the more polite form of 'I don't know what concern it is of yours' rather than the more bald, on-record form of perhaps 'It's none of your business'. Instead she uses negative face because it almost seems like that is how she is used to acting, with a lack of confidence due to established and identified gender roles of the man being seen as more dominant, and therefore she may not want to disregard this and lose respect from the man himself. This example proves Lakoff''s suggestion that women use more polite forms of language.

Zimmerman and West (1975) studied into the idea of a difference and dominance theory in language. They carried out a study and recorded 31 segments of conversation between men and women, they found that in 11 conversations, men interrupted 46 times and women only twice. This study helped to put forward their theory of dominance, as men are much more likely to interrupt, they tend to be more dominant in conversation and certainly have more air time. 

This is a short transcript at home, at meal-time on a Sunday:

# Vertical lines show overlap in conversation #

Female 1: Everyone! Dinner's ready!

Female 2: Oh this looks lovely darling, did you put oregano in it?

Female 1: Yes I did Mum, | tell me if it needs some more though.

Male 1:                               |Which one's mine?

Female 1: It's that one, Sven.

This small extract demonstrates how men have a tendency to interrupt much more often than women. I find this interesting because I don't know if it's because they have more power or dominance or whether its just a conversational habit that men usually develop. Either way, this example demonstrates how men are more likly to interrupt which leads to a particular dominance of their air-time in conversation.

Pamela Fishman (1983) developed a theory as regards to interaction: 'the work women do' theory. She suggested that conversation between the sexes sometimes fails, because of the way men respond and react to women's utterances, or don't respond. Fishman also claimed that in mixed-sex langauge interactions, men speak on average for twice as long as women. 

This is another extract from a Mills and Boon romantic novel to prove this theory:

# Please note I have removed descriptions outside of the dialogue to purely focus on language used #

Female 1: Thank you

Male 1: I might have saved your life, you know.

Female 1: How?

Male 1: You could have drowned.

Female 1: Not very likely. I had no intention of swimming.

Male 1: You can't trust the tides here. Even this close to the shore, the waves are capable pf jerking your feet out from under you. You might easily have been swept out to sea.

This again represents how a male speaker dominates the conversation through air-time. As it is a dialogue and there are no other speakers in the conversation, they take part in fair turn-taking, however he is speaking for much longer than her and always attempts to set and shift the agenda, which represents power and dominance in the conversation which could be associated with stereotypical male gender roles.

Grice's Maxims - Applied to the Teacher and Student Text

Grice's Maxims - Teacher and Student Text

Quote from the text:

Teacher: Right. Well the "winter" stands for society that is er priggish and . (looks at Alex, who is toying with his pen) What does "winter" stand for, Alex?

Alex: (smiles) What if I don't answer?

Analysis

Alex deliberately flouts the maxim of relevance in this text, by answering a question from his teacher which he is obliged to answer, with a following question. This interrogates his teacher by challenging her instrumental power and dominance in the classroom, and almost battles for status in order to look more powerful in front of his classmates. This actually results in any influential power that the teacher may or may not have, being taken away from her in a competitive way. From the contextual information we can understand that the teacher is going to have a strong personal (role) power according to Wareing's types of power. However we can tell particularly in this text that that power is questioned when Alex challenges her and tries to gain some influential power by defying the rule of relevance in Grice's Maxims. Although his reply is still weakly linked to the previous conversation, as it is about answering the question, he still does not answer it and shifts the agenda of the conversation, which is usually seen in powerful roles. This gives him more social power, according to Wareing's types of power, due to the affect that flouting the rule had on the dynamics of power roles in the classroom.