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English Language
Unit 1, Section B:
Language Acquisition.
1
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CONTENTS
3sources
34 to 39lexical and
semantic
development
4 to 8pre-verbal: 0-12 months
9 to 13a child’s introduction to 40 to 43grammatical development
language
and syntax
14 to 22the theorists 44 to 54phonological development
23genie 56 to 60pragmatic development
24 to 33child-directed speech
61exam review
2
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SOURCES
 Whisper it quietly, but the power of language may all be in the genes
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2001/oct/07/research.highereducation
--------------------------------------------------------------
 A baby’s babble leads to language
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3077446/
--------------------------------------------------------------
 Parenting: Baby talk — that’s saying something
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/article717007.ece
--------------------------------------------------------------
 Genie - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWzO8DtRd-s&feature=related
3
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English Language
Pre-verbal: 0-12 months
4
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CONVERSATION WITHOUT
WORDS
Babies’ hand movements, facial expressions, voice
tone and lip movements are different when their mothers
are talking to them.
Mothers then respond to babies gestures as if
they are real conversational partners. This is called turntaking, as the baby and mother are taking turns in
conversation. If a baby points, it’s like saying ‘Look at that!’;
therefore, it’s important that the parent responds.
Turn-taking then transfers into language
between the child and parent (child-directed speech is used).
5
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Main Points:
-
Gaze, pointing, turn-taking and routines are all important in the developing
language in the pre-verbal stages.
Crying allows babies to recognise the importance of language and communication.
biological noises  cooing and laughing  vocal play  babbling proto-word
-
pre-verbal:
refers to anything that the baby does or says before meaningful
words are used.
non-vocal: refers to behaviour that does not involve voice.
vocalisations:
refer to sounds made using the voice but which cannot be
described as words.
] Which types of
language interaction
can help during the
pre-verbal stage?
1. turn-taking
2. pointing
3. daily routines
6
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BABY TALK
Now that’s saying something!
1.
2.
3.
4.
 Read the article and answer the following questions
Which ‘time-saving’ routines or objects are said to be detrimental
to a child’s language development?
What do you think about the statement ‘Middle class families
must be blamed too for hiring nannies and au pairs with poor
English skills’?
What do speech problems lead to? Do you agree?
What is the opinion of the article?
1.
2.
] Task:
In pairs, brainstorm routines that parents and
baby might share during a day.
For each one suggest baby activities that
might count as responses for the parent (i.e.
crying during nappy-changing might be seen
as the baby objecting).
7
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Task

Read the article ‘A baby’s babble leads to language’ and complete the questions below:
1.
What was the hypothesis for the experiment?
2.
What did the researchers conclude?
3.
Which theory is this article supporting?
4.
Check yourself in the mirror. Do you notice any lopsidedness?
Babbling
Easy
stopped sounds: where air is momentarily
stopped from being released (‘p’)
(aspiration)
reduplication: where the same vowelconsonant combination is repeated (da da)
variegated babbling: as above except that
the vowel sound changes (da de)
consonant cluster: where a number of
consonants are combined, as in /fr/
Difficult
friction sounds: where there is vibration
whilst air is released (the ‘s’ in pleasure)
8
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English Language
A Child’s Introduction to English Language
9
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OBJECTIVES
1.
2.
3.
To look at how children develop their understanding and use of
spoken English up to the age of about five.
To explore some of the main theories that try to explain how this
happens.
To analyse real examples of child language data.
10
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TRUE OR FALSE?


At around 18 months, a child learns about 10 words a day.
Deaf children exposed to sign language show the same stages of language acquisition, as do hearing children exposed to
spoken languages.







If a person develops his/her language after puberty, he/she will never be able to fully acquire language.
Sixty percent of a child’s first 50 words are adjectives.
Children at the age of 18 months will have a productive vocabulary of around 50 words.
A child’s first recognisable word usually appears at the age of 5 months.
A child understands more words than he/she can speak.
A child’s language development is only affected by his/her social environment.
During Stage 1 (18-30 months) of a child’s language development, he or she can use the subject + verb + object sentence
structure.


The average 17 year old person knows about 20,000 words.
If you expose a baby to two languages at the same time, he/she will learn both.
11
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TRUE OR FALSE?


At around 18 months, a child learns about 10 words a day.
Deaf children exposed to sign language show the same stages of language acquisition, as do hearing children exposed to
spoken languages.







If a person develops his/her language after puberty, he/she will never be able to fully acquire language.
Sixty percent of a child’s first 50 words are adjectives. nouns
Children at the age of 18 months will have a productive vocabulary of around 50 words.
A child’s first recognisable word usually appears at the age of 5 months. 12 months
A child understands more words than he/she can speak.
A child’s language development is only affected by his/her social environment. genetics are also a factor
During Stage 1 (18-30 months) of a child’s language development, he or she can use the subject + verb + object sentence
structure.


The average 17 year old person knows about 20,000 words. 60,000
If you expose a baby to two languages at the same time, he/she will learn both.
12
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LANGUAGE TASK
1
2
1
2
3
4
5
6
Get into groups of three.
Choose a person for each of the following roles:
- Parent  try to explain to the baby what the nonsensical word means
- Baby  show signs of understanding and / or confusion
- Observer  write down what strategies are being used
Questions
Were some words easier to explain than others? Which ones? Why?
Which different methods did the adults use to explain meanings?
Which ways were most effective? Which words were least effective?
How did the child show that they understood the words or not?
Can you say what caused the child’s problems?
How important is an adult’s role in the development of language?
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THEORISTS
Behaviourists believe… language is developed through
imitating others’ language and
gaining positive and negative
feedback from adults.
Social Interactionists believe… children’s early language can be
influenced and improved by adult
carers adjusting their own speech
patterns.
Nativist Theorists believe… language is innate; we are ‘preprogrammed’
to acquire
 Write a 1-2 sentence definition for each
of the key terms
(language it.
development
theorists)
below.Theorists
Also, statebelieve…
which linguist
or psychologist
is primarily
associated with
Cognitive
language
will grow
when children’s
each theory.
1.
2.
3.
ideas about the world develop.
Behaviourists
Social Interactionists
Nativist theorists
14
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NATIVISM
All children have an inbuilt language acquisition device (LAD)
that enables them to extract the rules of the particular language
from the words and structures they hear.
universal grammar: a theory that all languages share a similar
grammatical structure under the surface.
critical period: children’s LADs must be activated with sufficient
input before the age of 12, or the child’s language acquisition will be
impaired.
15
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BEHAVIOURISM
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B.F.
SKINNER

Skinner coined the ‘Skinner
Box’ where he tested positive
and negative reinforcement
with rats and pigeons;
therefore, some people are
sceptical of his findings, as he
did not focus on humans.

He believed that language is
learnt through positive and
negative reinforcement.
http://blsolutionsaba.org/yahoo_site_admin/assets/images
/skinner_Smiling.35130931.jpg
17
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Some Problems with
Behaviourism
Parents do not say, “I breaked glass” or “I fighted my toy
soldiers”; the behaviourist’s theory cannot account for children’s invention
of language.
Children find meaning and truth more important than grammatical
correctness, whereas parents focus on correct use of grammar.
Child: I putted the plates on the table.
Mother:You mean, I put the plates on the table.
Child: No, I putted them on all by myself.
18
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TASK
 Read the article ‘Whisper it quietly, but the power of language may
all be in the genes’ and answer the questions below:
The article you will be using was in The Observer on October 7th, 2001, and was written
by Robin McKie. The title is 'Whisper it quietly, but the power of language may all be in
the genes'. It is an article about the nativist theory of language (Chomsky) and a family
(KE is their scientific codename). It supports the fact that a single misplaced gene can
affect your ability to control language and pronounce words; therefore, it is highly
supportive of Chomsky's theory.
✎
Which theory is this article supporting?
✎
✎
What is another theory on why the KE family suffer the linguistic
disorder?
✎
✎
What happens if the gene is mutated?
What ethical issue arises from the topic?
Use the Internet to research ‘feral children’ or ‘The Case of Genie’.
How are they affected?
19
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SOCIAL INTERACTION
THEORY
LANGUAGE ACQUISITION SUPPORT SYSTEM
(LASS):
a system that states that interaction helps support a child’s
language acquisition (“scaffolding”).
Father: Have you done a wee wee?
Daughter: (smiles and maintains eye contact)
Father: Shall we have a look in your nappy?
Daughter: (vocalises and smiles)
Father: Let’s get the baby wipes then, shall we?
Daughter: (vocalises and looks after dad as he goes to get the
wipes)
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COGNITIVE
DEVELOPMENT



Theorists Lev Vygotsky and Jean Piaget
Language comes with understanding; a child cannot linguistically articulate
concepts he/she does not understand
A child needs to understand the idea of the past in order to use past tense
THE ZONE OF PROXIMAL DEVELOPMENT
The Examination Board wants you to know this term


Who? Vygotsky
What? The difference between what a child can do with help and what he
can do without guidance
21
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Object permanence the ability to
understand that an object still exists even though
it is no longer in sight


Vygotsky believed that collaborative play is
essential to children’s learning. He believed
that, “What a child can do in co-operation today,
he can do alone tomorrow”
Virtuous error: a logical mistake made by
children based on the rules they already know
(i.e. mouses or forgeted)

22
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http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3400/3265088651_6287fa2365.jpg
TASK: Genie
Questions
* Which theories were mentioned in the film?
* When was the critical period of language development? Who proposed that if a
child did not learn language before puberty, s/he would not be able to fully acquire
language?
* What linguistic conclusions did you make from the film?
* Do you believe the psychologists were ethical in the treatment and care of Genie? If
not, how could they have been better?
* Genie did not fully acquire language in the end. Which theory does this evidence
support?
23
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English Language
Child-directed speech
24
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THE FEATURES OF
CHILD-DIRECTED SPEECH
More pronounced intonation that draws attention to key morphemes or lexemes.
Simplified vocabulary that helps establish keywords (‘dog’ rather than ‘German
shepherd’).
Repeated grammatical ‘frames’ that help draw attention to new elements within those
frames (e.g. ‘What animal lives in a kennel? What animal lives in a sty?).
Simplified grammar – shorter utterances.
Actions that accompany speech: pointing, smiling, shrugging shoulders).
More obvious lip and mouth movement.
 TASK
Make a spider-diagram of some examples of realistic child-directed speech.
25
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SURVEY TIME
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Meaning
EXAGGERATING
using more exaggerated intonation patterns and
PROSODIC CUES
slightly higher frequencies, greater pitch
Example
Uh oh!
variations.
RECASTING
phrasing sentences in different ways, such as
“dada byebye daddy… Is daddy
making it a question.
ECHOING
EXPANSION
going byebye?
repeating what the child said.
restating what the child said in a more
“ball all gone” = “Yes, we lost the
linguistically sophisticated form.
EXPATIATION
expounding further on the word by giving more
ball.”
(baba hot) > Yes, the bottle is hot.
information.
LABELING
We’ll wait until later.
providing the name of objects, using simplified
vocabulary
OVERARTICULATING
using more precise sounds contained in the
yees
words, stretching out sounds, sounding out ‘super-
fahr
vowels’
good
27
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DIRECTED SPEECH: WHAT
DO YOU THINK?




High-SES mothers use longer utterances and more different
words when they talk to their children than low-SES mothers and, in
turn, their children have larger vocabularies.
Low-SES mothers are found to talk less and use less varied
vocabulary during interaction with their children than high-SES
mothers.
It is estimated that children from the high-SES families they observed
heard approximately 11,000 utterances in a day, compared to 700
utterances for the children from low-SES families.
Low-SES mothers more often use speech to direct their children’s
behaviour and high-SES mothers more often use speech to elicit
conversation from their children.
28
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CULTURE CAN ALSO HAVE AN
EFFECT
Linguists have studied striking differences in the way middle-class mothers in the US
communicate with their children compared to Gusii mothers of Kenya, with the Gusii
mothers rarely making eye contact with their children and only responding to child
vocalizations if the children are in distress (Richman, Miller & LeVine, 1992).
-----------------------------------------------------------The communicative actions (or non-actions) of the Gusii mothers follow from their
beliefs that babies cannot understand speech and thus it is senseless to talk to them
before they are older and can understand what is being said (LeVine, 2004).
-----------------------------------------------------------Similar conclusions have been drawn based on research with the Kaluli of Papua New
Guinea (Ochs & Schieffelin, 1984), who believe their children to be helpless and have no
understanding, and thus do not engage them in dyadic communicative interactions.
TASK
* Use the characteristics of child-directed speech to create 3 scripts between a child
and a parent.
* In each script, include at least two characteristics.
* You can also puts actions into parentheses.
29
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RESEARCHERS
BELIEVE …
Baby talk contributes to mental development, as it helps teach the
child the basic function and structure of language.
Studies have found that responding to an infant's babble with
meaningless babble aids the infant's development.
While the babble has no logical meaning, the verbal interaction
demonstrates to the child the bidirectional nature of speech, and the
importance of verbal feedback.
30
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CHILD’S WORD DEFINITION
baba blanket or bottle
beddy-bye go to bed, sleeping,
bedtime
blankie blanket
boo-boo wound or bruise
dada father
din-din dinner
num nums food/dinner
poo-poo
A
CHILD’S
LEXIS
defecation
potty toilet
sleepy-byes go to bed, bedtime
stinky defecation
ickle little
tummy stomach
icky disgusting
widdle urine
nana grandmother
oopsie-daisy small accident
owie wound or bruise
num nums dummy
wuv love
yucky disgusting
yum-yum tasty, meal time
uppie wanting to be picked up
pee-pee urinate or penis
31
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‘THE MORE KNOWLEDGEABLE OTHER’
THEORY
The Exam board is looking for a reference to this theory.
Who?
➜Holt and Willard
When?
➜2000
What was the theory?
➜Social constructive theory that states children need a
knowledgeable other in order to acquire acute language skills.
➜A child needs to see him / herself in people who they
determine to be more knowledgeable.
➜Therefore, this relationship is advantageous in acquiring
language.
32
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DATA EXTRACT 17 
A conversation between twin boys aged 3 years 6 months
Liam: The goodies are going on their ship cos they’ve catched a
baddie.
Stan: Yeah, they’ve caught him and throwed him in the dungeons.
Liam: The cavemans are laughing. This one’s much more braver
than the baddies though…I’m going to build a whole army of
goodies.
Stan: Yeah, cos the baddies are coming.
Together: Charge!
1
4
Can you notice any patterns of ‘virtuous error’?
What are the characteristics of their speech?
What can they do?
Link what the children are saying to the different theoretical models
we have explored.
2
3
33
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English Language
Lexical and semantic development
34
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Objectives
1.
Examine the first words children speak and how we can tell if they are
‘proper’ words.
2.
Explore how children categorise and label objects and people around
them.
3.
4.
Learn how children’s understanding of word meanings develops.
Observe the patterns in children’s lexical development.
35
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Productive vocabulary
KEY TERMS
Utterance
Holophrase
a one-word utterance that is used to
communicate more than the one word on
its own.
Overextend
to stretch the meaning of a word (i.e.
labeling rats and rabbits as ‘mouse’).
a stretch or continuous unit of speech.
Underextend
Morphology
Pre-verbal
Referent:
Plural
Possession
Cooing
Babbling
Proto-words
the study of word structure, especially in
terms of morphemes.
the marking of a noun to indicate how
many are being talked about.
the marking of a word to indicate that it
possesses or owns something.
a feature of a child’s language where the
word used to label something is stretched
to include things that aren’t normally part
of that word’s meaning.
Hyponym
a word within a hypernym’s category (i.e.
apple or broccoli)
Hypernym
a category into which other words fit (i.e.
fruit or vegetable)
Telegraphic
the stage during which children use three
or more words, usually omitting
grammatical words (i.e. determiners,
auxiliary verbs and prepositions) but
keeping lexical words (i.e. nouns, verbs
and adjectives)
Post-telegraphic
the stage after telegraphic during which
many of the omitted words from the stage
before start to appear (i.e. auxiliary verbs,
prepositions, etc.)
open-mouth vowel sounds made by babies
of about 3 to 6 months old.
repeated consonant-vowel sounds and a
combination of these made by babies of
about 6 to 12 months old.
sounds that resemble actual words but that
are not consistently applied to their
referents.
to contract the meaning if a word.
Overextension
the stages before actual words are uttered.
the object or person in the real world to
which a sound consistently relates.
the words a child can actually speak.
36
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1.
2.
Child’s words
“Tiger”
“Socks”
“Duck”
“Cat”
“Shoes”
What could be some influences on language acquisition?
What words might a child brought up in the country say?
3.
In the city?
Context to utterance
Used when looking at pictures of tigers, lions and leopards in a picture book.
Used when referring to gloves.
Used when talking about feeding ducks, pigeons and other birds in a park.
Used when pointing at door where cat normally waits.
Used when referring to own pair of shoes but not when talking about any other type of
shoe.
37
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TASK
 What sort of characteristics do the objects
named in List A have which might account
for them being among the first to be labelled
by children? Why wouldn’t words from List B
be used as frequently?
A: clock, key, blanket, shoe, sock. horse, car, ball
B: sofa, floor, lamp, nappy, pants, house, tree, park
38
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FACTS:
THE DEVELOPMENT OF A CHILD’S VOCABULARY
A child’s first recognisable word usually appears at about 12
months of age, but this varies depending on the child.
Once children reach 18 months, they will have a
productive vocabulary of around 50 words.
At 24 months, most children will have reached at 200word productive vocabulary, and by 36 months, it will be
around 2,000 words.
On average, children will learn 10 words a day.
The early words of children fall into four categories:
naming, action, social and modifying.
39
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GRAMMATICAL
DEVELOPMENT
Syntax
40
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OBJECTIVES
1
2
3
Learn how children’s early language develops through different
identifiable stages.
See how children build up longer and more complicated
utterances as they get older.
Study the patterns in children’s early grammatical development.
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What do
we mean
by
syntax?
Syntax is another name for word order
A child’s development of syntax refers to how a
child puts words into patterns and he/she
develops an understanding of how words
control meaning
Task
THE TWO
WORD 
STAGE
At around 18 months of age, babies
begin to combine words to form two
word utterances.
With a partner, attempt to hold a conversation using only two words
for about 5 minutes. Choose the conversation topics below:
* where you’re going on holiday
* what you’re doing for the weekend
* what happened at the football match.
Record your two word utterances after you have the conversations
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WORD
S

AT THE TWO
WORD STAGE:




endings on words such as ‘dropped’ and
sleeping’
articles (a, the)
prepositions (in, on, with, at)
the verb ‘to be’ (I AM happy, you ARE
silly)
auxiliary verbs (DOES run, CAN run, IS
running)
DERIVATIONAL
MORPHOLOGY: MAKING
NEW WORDS
Compounding -> Joining existing words together into new combinations
e.g. ‘horsey-man’ and ‘tractor-man.’
Conversion -> Using word as a different word class
e.g. ‘I jammed the toast’
Affixation -> Applying endings to words to create new ones
‘It’s crowdy in here’ or ‘He’s shooting his shooter.’
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PHONOLOGICAL
DEVELOPMENT
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OBJECTIVES




Study the sounds children make from birth up to the one-word stage.
Explore how children develop through different stages until they create
recognisable words.
Observe the patterns in children’s early phonological development.
Explore how children’s production and comprehension of sounds are
related.
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THE HUMAN VOICE
Studies on infants have shown that newborns have a natural
preference to attend to the human voice above all environmental
sounds. When listening to the human voice they show a distinct
preference for listening to speech over non-speech sounds like
laughing and coughing. Linguists have demonstrated that 3-day old
babies can distinguish between utterances in their mothers’ language
and those in another language.
Children are born universal; they are capable of producing any sound
in the human language (i.e. rolling their ‘r’s in Spanish or saying the
‘ch’ sounds of Scots). At the age of 12 months, they contract their
range to the language in their native country; they concentrate on
the phonemes used in the native language.
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SOME FACTS ABOUT PHONOLOGICAL
DEVELOPMENT
Vowels are acquired before consonants.
By the age of 2½, the average child has acquired all
of the vowels and two thirds of the consonants.
By the age of 4, only a few consonants are causing
a problem.
By 6 or 7 years of age, the child is confident in the
use of both vowels and consonants.
Initial consonants in a word are much easier to
master than final ones.
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INTONATION AND
MEANING





Inton
ation is particularly important at the one and two word
stages. Why?
A child who says ‘my car’ may use different strengths of
intonation to produce a different meaning for each utterance.
How could a child say it differently?
Pitch is an important component of intonation.
Mandarin Chinese can have as many as four different meanings
for one sound depending on the intonation that is being used.
Cruttenden (1974) demonstrated that understanding of
patterns of intonation is still developing in the teens.
Task:
Use intonation to express
different meanings for each
phrase:
1
2
3
4
Want cookie
Dat doggie
His baba
Daddy bye bye
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EARLY MISTAKES IN SOUNDING WORDS:
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 Translate the
following words into
the correct spelling
words:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
kwit
zu
kof
fiziks
yot
kwikli
sel
bunyon
 Rewrite the
following words to
reflect their sounds
of the words:
1 knot
2 duck
3 yams
4 hats
5 laugh
6 dumb
7 can
8
9
10
11
12
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central
onion
who
when
quest
SUBSTITUTION AND ADDITION
This vowel sound, ә, sounds
like the ‘a’ at the end of vanilla
Correct
Spelling
Adult
Child
egg
eg
egә
pig
pig
pigә
blue
blu
bәlu
apple
button
apl
butn
apo
butu
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WHY DO THE MISTAKES
HAPPEN?
FRICATIVE  a sound that is created by the slow and
controlled release of air through the mouth, creating
friction.
STOPS  sounds where the air flow is completely stopped.
They are created in the throat (e.g. glottal stop), at the
back of the mouth (e.g. ck), at the alveolar ridge (e.g. t)
or by the lips (e.g. p)
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Which mistakes are being made?
1
5
6
‘Dat’s a circle.’
2 ‘Me want nother bissie.’
3 A baby says ‘bootoo’ for ‘button’.
4 ‘Glue’ becomes ‘goo’.
‘Chocolate biscuit’ becomes ‘cocker bisik’.
A baby called Francis attempts to say his own
name. It comes out as ‘Sassy’.
7 ‘Wing a wing a woses!’
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THE FIS PHENOMENON
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TASK:
WRITE AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY, toddler
style!
 Write the beginning of an autobiography in which you
imitate some features of the way in which a baby
speaks. You must include the following:
 Phonological features (deletion, substitution, voicing, etc.)
 Questioning
 Negatives
 Overgeneralisation and overextension
 Telegraphic speech (no use of determiners, prepositions,
etc.)
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PRAGMATIC DEVELOPMENT
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WHAT DO WE MEAN BY
PRAGMATICS?
Pragmatics is an area of language study linked to the things
people mean rather than what they actually say.
Pragmatics refers to:
implicature  expressing meaning indirectly
inference  what someone thinks you are saying
humour
politeness
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HOW CAN PRAGMATICS BE DIFFICULT?
Why would these statements be difficult for a child?
A woman asks where the post office is and is told in
reply, “It’s a Sunday.”
A student says to her friend: “Mmmm, nice jacket. Are
there lots of charity shops in Peckham?”
A father says to his daughter, who has just dropped his
mobile phone in the paddling pool, “Thanks very much,
that makes life a lot easier.”
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THE FUNCTIONS OF CHILDREN’S
EARLY LANGUAGE
The linguist Michael Halliday broke down children’s early language
functions into what he termed a ‘taxonomy language’
 Instrumental  expresses needs (e.g. ‘Want juice’)
 Regulatory  used to tell others what to do (e.g. ‘Go away’)
 Interactional  used to make contact with others and form relationships
(e.g. ‘Love you, mummy’)
 Personal  used to express feelings, opinions and individual identity (e.g. ‘Me
good girl’)
 Heuristic  Language used to gain knowledge about the environment (i.e.
‘What the tractor doing?’)
 Imaginative  Here language is used to tell stories and jokes, and to create
an imaginary environment.
 Representational  Use of language to convey facts and information
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Which of Halliday’s functions might
be at work in each utterance?
1
‘Put me down!’ whilst talking to father who has lifted her
2
3
4
‘Biscuit!’ whilst pointing at a biscuit tin.
5
‘Look at me, I’m a fairy.’ whilst dressing up in clothes and
up.
‘Why, daddy?’ whilst asking why the biscuits have gone.
‘I walking’; giving commentary, and therefore showing she
doesn’t need help.
drawing attention to the game she is playing.
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EXAM REVIEW 
]
You will need to comment about five linguistic
features in a text. The more you expand on the features,
the more points you will earn.
] You will need to write about language
development theories and how they affect a child’s
development. Give examples and also be open-minded.
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