Child language
acquisition
To what extent do children
acquire language by actively
working out its rules?
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What are rules?
A rule is – according to Wiktionary:
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a regulation, law, guideline
something to keep order.
How do we relate this to language?
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Language rules
Morphology
Semantics
Rules
Syntax
Pragmatics
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Some grammar rules
-ed past tense
-er/-est
comparative/
superlative
-ing progressive
aspect
Morphology
-’s possessive
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-s plural
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Morphology rules: examples
‘I falled over’
‘Mummy sawed me’
‘He’s bigger than me’
‘I’m the oldest’
‘I drawing’
‘Me walking’
Morphology
‘Wugs’
‘Mans’
‘Mouses’
‘Mummy’s shoes’
‘Dolly’s pushchair’
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Syntax rules
Each stage has
its own set of
rules
Posttelegraphic
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Two word
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Telegraphic
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Two word stage
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Look at the combinations of words created
at the two word stage:
I draw (subject + verb)
My hat (possessor + possession)
Drink gone (object + quality)
Explore Roger Brown’s research into
semantic relations and the typical two
word combinations.
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Questions and negation
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The two word stage is where questions
and negative constructions start to appear
and there are rules for how these are
formed too.
Take the syntax of declarative sentences,
for example. They are usually subject –
verb – object (‘I ate the apple’) or subject
– verb – complement (‘I am five’), but to
form a question, syntax has to be
changed: ‘Am I five?’ or ‘Did I eat the
apple?’.
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Telegraphic stage
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Children tend to follow adult syntax at this
stage, but miss out grammatical words.
If there’s a rule here, it’s that children opt
for lexical words rather than grammatical
ones – they go for meaning over
grammar.
Mummy work (Mummy is going to work).
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Post-telegraphic stage
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The missing words (auxiliary verbs,
determiners and prepositions) start
to reappear, and clauses start to get
linked together.
Children start to link clauses with coordinating conjunctions to begin
with, moving on to subordinating
conjunctions later.
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Semantics
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Semantic rules might be defined as the ways in
which children tend to make distinctions in
meanings between different objects, or how they
‘learn to mean’.
Children apply three strategies: the whole object
assumption, type assumption and the basic level
assumption.
The whole object assumption is that a new word
usually refers to a whole object, not part of it or
a quality the object possesses.
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Semantics
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The type assumption prevents children from
underextending most new words. In other
words, if they are told that the new thing they
have seen is a dog, they don’t assume that only
that dog is a dog and every other dog isn’t.
The basic level assumption prevents the child
from overextending meanings too far. So, once
a child has recognised what dog refers to, they
seem to understand that it also refers to things
with similar properties (appearance, behaviour,
size).
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Pragmatics
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As well as the more language-based rules
covered here, children have to acquire
pragmatics, which might be defined as an
understanding of the unspoken rules of
communication: irony, turntaking,
implicature etc.
These can only be acquired through
exposure to others’ language, and are the
hallmarks of a child moving from early
speech to more adult patterns.
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Exceptions to rules
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And finally…
One of the big things children have to
learn is that there are exceptions to rules.
They’re pretty good at applying rules
regularly to verbs, nouns and adjectives,
but need time and exposure to language
(not correction, as such) to master the
exceptions. Roger Brown’s U-shape helps
demonstrate this.
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