Lexical, Morphological, and Syntactic Aspects of the Childs Utterances - Assignment Example

Lexical, Morphological, and Syntactic Aspects of the Childs Utterances In transcript 1, regarding lexical and functional categories—Carl’s speech exhibits some exemplary peaks and valleys. Carl’s usage of lexical and functional categories is very diverse. Syntax, however, is very important—and the child uses syntax in an interesting way. “Even if we accept that production and parsing are lexically driven, this does not mean that syntax has no role to play…” (Butler, 2003, pp. 495). Carl’s stage of speaking is rather advanced in this transcript. Although he sometimes cuts off his sentences by just stating or identifying objects, this is actually a quite advanced set of exchanges between Carl, his mother, and the investigator. In fact, transcript 1 is the most—it seems—advanced transcript of the entire 3 because he is using language in ways that are very sophisticated for his age at 1 year old. Definitely, without a doubt—Carl’s usage of language seems to be quite advanced at this stage. He is using both lexical and functional categories of language and appears to have a good grasp of how the two are interrelated to each other. Carl’s phase of speech seems most particularly advanced when one evaluates transcript number one. Carl’s speech most likely resembles the “protodeclarative” phase of the second stage of illocutionary speech (Hoff, 2009, pp. 92). In the protodeclarative phase, children point to objects, talking about objects as a way to connote that they want something. This is the phase where, if children want something, instead of pointing they may talk about it indirectly. At this phase, the child has learned that people can be useful in terms of communicating to the other person that they want something. This is one somewhat of a manipulative element on the part of the child, and it is one way in which children at this age (age one) tend to communicate. Although, as has been seen with the advent of Carl’s language at this tender age, he is able to delegate what he wants and is able to tell his mother what he wants—even responding within the crosshairs of a rather difficult language exchange between himself and his mother. For example, his mother asks him what they need, and he replies “Dog food.” When question who the dog food is for, Carl simply replies “Dogs.” When the mother insists, however, that there are no dogs to feed, Carl has a smart reply. He knows that he and his mother are (what appear to be) going “fake” shopping. They are putting things in a cart, as though they really were going to check out at a store. Who knows, maybe they really were in the checkout line at a store. It’s very possible that they might have been—because there were actual beeps in the background. It’s not completely clear what the situation was. The point is, though, that this was a great exchange between the mother and the child (Carl). It is very interesting to see the developments with the analysis of this child’s progress. It’s not exactly clear what the situation of the second transcript is either. However, Carl obviously showed some slowing of development from the first transcript to the second. It is obvious that Carl is trying to string more words together in this piece. “Children begin to put words together tentatively, often beginning by combining words they had already learned to say singly” (Bloom, 1993, pp. 39). The development of the functional categories in transcript 2 have radically retrogressed considering the complicated language functions transcript 1 contained. It’s not for certain why, but transcript 1 was definitely seemed more advanced than transcript 2. Transcript 2 is definitely much less advanced because the child, Carl, uses shorter sentences and sometimes single words as entire sentences, to boot. The lexical categories that most of the words the young person, Carl, is using, turn out to be nouns. Many times the child does not use verbs unless the matter is more urgent. Perhaps Carl might have too many things going on at age 2 that he cannot process everything that is going on. “[M]any young children's lives complexity [reflects] diversity in their language…” (Whitehead, 2007, pp. 16). For example, the age of two years old is usually the age that people call “The Terrible Twos.” This is because around the age of two years old, most children have this switch that seems to have flipped, making them toddlers that are like hell on wheels. At age two, children get to the point where they’re starting to establish their own personality, and they are trying to do that with respect to their parents. Of course, this always creates some conflict or friction, where the kid is trying to establish his sense of self. Most of Carl’s speech basically deals in nouns. He’s talking about building things (possibly out of clay?)—referring repeatedly to objects… “the brick,” “the elephant,” et cetera. In what might be considered an expert opinion, the level of language function being used in this transcript number 2 is quite diminished when one considers transcript number one. This might be attributed to the fact that the child is either anxious or cranky, and/or attributed to the fact that the child is still developing his personality. The fact that the child is simply randomly naming objects that he wants in his possession shows a level of sophistication, but unfortunately the child is still at the second stage of linguistic development. This level of development is consistent with the child’s age. Also, another possibility is that the investigator could have caught the child interacting with his mother at a bad moment—perhaps the child could have had a bad day. Functional elements that are present now at this stage that were not present in the previous transcript include several types of words, mainly the child using verbs in various forms. The child uses “is,” and also uses some other tenses of small verbs as well as using some negations, variants of the word ‘not.’ These are all considered functional elements versus lexical elements. “One of the best ways to encourage the development of speaking competencies in the presentational mode is through…performance[s] [and] presentations[, which] serve as interpretive listening experiences for their audience” (Curtain and Dahlberg, 2004, pp. 72). Ways in which Carl can be encouraged to speak are ways in which the child will be able to learn and grow. The child, Carl, needs additional speaking opportunities. It is obvious that whatever activity the child and the mother are engrossed in is possibly too engrossing. The child is playing with clay and does not really want to verbalize much. This means that the child is not having an opportunity to have a legitimate conversation in which he uses his verbal skills. He may be too entangled in what he is working on with his hands to be able to give complicated verbal output. Thus, it is important that the child be given a legitimate opportunity to have a conversation with the mother instead of being caught up in whatever he (Carl) is working on. Other than that, the child’s output in transcript number two has been significantly retrogressive in terms of vocabulary, lexical or functional. The variation between lexical categories in Carl’s speech in transcripts 1 and 2 is drastic. The differences in terms of functional categories, however, are drastic—but in a better sense. The lexical categories are drastic because the level of sophistication dropped so significantly from the time that transcript 1 was taken. The differences in terms of functional categories is quite amazing because Carl’s functional vocabulary has grown significantly. He is able to talk elaborately about various objects and so forth. For Carl’s age—which is, at the time of the second transcript, probably about one years old—the second transcript is definitely an improvement upon his functional usage of language, but his lexical usage has suffered because he is not using verbs as much, if at all, for several “sentences” that he speaks. Of course, by the time that Carl reaches age four or five, he will have learned how to speak very well. “By the time that children are four or five almost all of them have achieved an amazing competence in at least one language” (Browne, 2009, pp. 1). By the time Carl is four or five years old, he will have been able to master lexical usage—but elaborate functional usage will probably come long before mastery of lexical usage will arrive, which is definitely normal behavior for a child this age and ability. There is some evidence that certain verbs have been acquired. Carl still makes certain errors related to the definite past that are obvious, as well as adding –ed to some words incorrectly in order to state the past tense of a verb. However, not all verbs follow this pattern. He is probably making this mistake because no one is correcting him on the error. It’s difficult, however, to teach two-year-olds grammar when all they want is to be able to know enough functional language in order to get what they want. Children usually use functional chunks of language in order to communicate; they aren’t going to be grammar wizards by age 2, unless they’re exceptionally gifted children. Thankfully, young children don’t stay at this stage forever. Most likely, by age 3 they have gotten a hold of proper grammar. By age four or five, the child (Carl) should have an adequate enough grasp of grammar so that he should know how to properly conjugate verbs. Perhaps what is most problematic is the fact that Carl’s progress on transcript number three is actually in-the-middle. In other words, even though this is the last transcript, his inflectional elements of this transcript have been enhanced from transcript number 2. However, transcript number 1 still reigns supreme. Transcript number 3 is actually still probably at an intermediate level of speaking. Transcript 1 was the most advanced, and transcript 2 was probably the most elementary transcript of them all. Hopefully this adequately explains, to some extent, how Carl’s progress developed over time. It’s not readily explicable why exactly the first transcript was the best. Perhaps the investigator caught the child and the mother at an opportune time and the child was more talkative during the recording of the first transcript. Carl’s progress can definitely be tracked by looking at transcript 1, its progression to the progress in transcript 3, and the regression to transcript 2’s level. Progressions showed moderate improvement. Morphologically and syntactically speaking, Carl’s morphemes need work, but his syntax is good. He uses words that are simple, and uses a lot of morphemes that are more common within children of his age. The words that he used have already been thoroughly discussed. The main types of syntactic functions that occur are that he uses affirmations and negations well, as well as being able to express himself through using single words which carry more meaning than just the word being expressed. Carl is very direct in his interactions. Carl should be at an age where he is able to process more complicated information. BIBLIOGRAPHY Bloom, L. (1993). Language development from two to three. UK: Cambridge University Press. Browne, A. (2009). Developing language and literacy 3-8. US: Sage Publications. Butler, C. (2003). Structure and function: a guide to three major structural-functional theories. US: John Benjamins. Curtain, H. & Dahlberg, C.A. (2004). Languages and children: making the match. US: Pearson Education, Inc. Hoff, E. (2009). Language development. US: Wadsworth. Whitehead, M.R. (2007). Developing language and literacy with young children. US: Paul Chapman Educational Publishing. Read More