Question Read the following text, which is a transcription of an extract from a conversation between Poppy (age 3 years 6 months) and her mother. Poppy is pretending that it is her sixth birthday. Analyse the ways in which Poppy and her mother are using language in this conversation. In your answer, you should refer to specific details from the transcription, relating your observations to ideas and examples from your wider study of language acquisition. Poppy: hooray (2) oh jos here ( 1) my friend Mother: has she come to your party ꜛ Poppy: yes (.) and lots of people are (.) to our party ( 1) YEAH Mother: hooray Poppy: YEAH ( 1) im six (.) and im going to make (.) a cake ( 1) and a ballerina on the top Mother: wow Poppy: (7) happy (.) you have to say (.) you have to sing happy birthday first // Mother: alright // Poppy: when i sit down (.) here [sits on the (loor] ( 1) sing happy (.) birthday Mother: happy birthday to you (.) happy birthday to you Poppy: [pretends to blow out the candle on the cake] Mother: what are you doingꜛ Poppy: i bow the candles out Mother: ahh Poppy: one each (.) theres one for [pretends to give her mother a piece of cake] Mother: thank you Poppy: and a plate ( 1) and now (.) i put lots on yours (.) i di (.) i did a big (.) big cake on yours (.) cos (.) youre (.) youre four (.) cause its (.) its your birthday too Mother: oh right Poppy: and one for me (.) im six ( 1) so i put six (.) and now ( 1) one for yo u (.) one for you (.) one for you [pretends to give her friends a piece of cake each J ( 1 ) there ( 4) now (.) theres so me music going to come on now [plays some notes on her toy keyboard] Mother: thats nice Poppy: cause its my happ (.) birth ( 1) its my (.) birthday music (2) happy birthday happy birthday [sings while she plays some notes on her toy keyboard] happy birthday to you (.) mummy Mother: hooray Poppy: was that niceꜛ (.) song Mother: yes lovely Poppy: now we going to eat the (.) ballerina cause the ballerina isnt real cause its made from icing Mother: is itꜛ Poppy: so (.) im going to eat the ballerina (.) cause that is the bal lerina six (.) cause it got a baller (.) it got six on her ( 1) umm on her skit·t (.) so im going to eat it (2) you can (.) you can eat the (.) head (.) you can eat the head Mother: oh lovely (.) delicious Poppy: its all gone now (4) now its (.) whose birthday is it now Mother: i dont know Poppy: its your (.) yout· own birthday Mother: is itꜛ Poppy: your only birthday ( 1) i'll ring (.) lots of people (.) lots of people Mother: ok Poppy: im ringing myself (.) im ringing some people (.) lots of people (.) up Mother ok First Draft Use of our after your Shouting the name jos Shouting yeah Mommy encouraging hooray Use of have to commanding Pretend play Bow instead of blow Interruptions di did Use of did a big big cake Cos instead of because Happ instead of happy Nice raised intonation Mother’s back channel noises Use of coordination/reasoning Heuristic function is it Use of ring Some people lots of people SAMPLE ANSWER Poppy is a three and a half year old girl who is pretending to celebrate her birthday party, but believes she is going to be six years old. She seems to be super excited and seems to know most of the requirements of a birthday at such a young age which is impressive. A three and a half year old girl is expected to be in the post telegraphic stage since she is three years plus. She is expected to be having a good and reasonable vocabulary (more than 2000 words) along with complete utterances in sentences. Poppy here is able to do all this and more. She knows the words like “icing”, “ballerina” and “ringing”; these are two and three syllable words in which post telegraphic children take delight while speaking. “Ringing” is a multi-meaning word and Poppy understands that when she uses ringing which also means a ring on the finger but she understands ringing means to call somebody on phone. She here proves the imitation theory of Skinner right since she has probably seen her caretakers “ringing” people. Moreover the sentences she is able to use are complete and full in length having a subject-verb-object which means her utterances are meaningful for example she says “you have to sing happy birthday first.” This indicates a rather mature expression. Furthermore, there is the use of subordination and coordination as well, since she is able to say “big big cake on yours cos you are four cause its your birthday too”; here the coordinating conjunction because is being colloquially used by her since she is of course too young to know formal expressions and thus says cos/cause. Simultaneously, she also uses subordinating clauses too like “now we are going to eat the ballerina … so I am going to eat the ballerina” this shows her post telegraphic level of reasoning and logic which is appreciable. Since she is pretend playing the birthday party she is able to understand the involvement of relationships like family and friends, she knows the importance of a friend and so emphasizes on their name when they are here for the birthday as in “jos” and she also understands how birthdays mean sharing the cake with all as she puts a piece on everyone’s plate. Here she shows signs of being past the egocentric stage of Piaget and knows the involvement of others in her environment. This can also be justified by the fact that she uses “our birthday” in the very start while her mother says “your birthday”. Therefore Poppy herself uses language for interactional functions as mentioned in Halliday’s functional theory. She is also aware of the difference between “say” and “sing” where she rectifies herself by first asking her mother to say but then sing happy birthday. Chowmsky’s theory of Innateness, where he believed that children had an in-born system of learning a language, might prove right here because she is able to correct herself on her own. She seems to be pretty good at music too, this is again a good sign for a post-telegraphic child. Her conversational skills are quite advanced as she is independent in the whole talk and except for a heuristic functional question used once or twice by the mother, “is it” she keeps the conversation quite interesting herself. The role of the mother is very encouraging with her daughter as she keeps on using back channel noises like “yeah” and “hooray” and encouraging words like “lovely” and “delicious”. This signifies the role of caretaker as explained by Bruner who believed that 70% responsibility of a child’s language-learning is on the caretaker. The mother’s response actually builds the idea that since the child is being appreciated and constantly offered new ideas to think upon along with confidence, she is able to recreate and be imaginative. This also supports Skinner’s theory of Reinforcement. Poppy’s abstract ideas are pretty on point but a few linguistic flaws like saying “bow” instead of “blow” indicates some little weakness in her vocal repertoire, nevertheless her imagination is remarkable. Finally as in the limited code of language said by Bernstein, she uses command words like “have to” and repetition like “big big cake” “di did a piece of cake” instead of “put a piece of cake” indicates her language is not well formed but on most of the parts it has been proven wrong since she uses more signs of the elaborated code. This has nothing to do with her being from a well-off family as she is portraying signs of both elaborated as well as limited code.
