Language Development - Research Paper Example

Language Development Introduction Communication and language are vital to a child’s development in terms of their social, educational and vocational success. Content, form and use are three aspects that help to organize language use and will be used in this paper as a means of analyzing the speech production of a four year old girl – Ella – in conversation with a parent and another child Sophia. Areas within the content, form and use of her language to be discussed include phonology, morphology, syntax, grammar, semantics and pragmatics. 2. Form 2.1 Phonology Phonology is concerned with the ways in which sounds are combined to form words and the rules that govern those combinations, which involves stress, rhythm and intonation; not all phonological or phonetics aspects can be discussed within this paper due to no audio or phonetic transcription being made available. What is important to understand is that while the written consonants and vowels of the English language amount to 24 consonants and 5 vowels, the sound system is much denser and is comprised of approximately 39 phonemes as well as numerous allophones (Brown, 1973). At the age of four, a child’s speech should be 100% intelligible with minimal absence or exchange of consonants or sounds (Sax & Weston, 2007). Ella’s language is fully comprehensible; she uses phonological assimilation and elision as evidenced in her pronunciation of ‘want to’ [wɒnt tu] as ‘wanna’ [wɒnә], and ‘going to’ [gәʊɪŋ tu] as ‘gonna’ [gɒnә]; she also pronounces ‘because’ [bikɒz] as ‘cuz’ [kʌz], and fails to pronounce the final consonant of ‘yes’ [jɛs] and says [yɛә]. It also seems that Ella is not aware of the difference in pronunciation of ‘know’ [noʊ] and ‘now’ [naʊ] because when meaning ‘know’ she said ‘now’. She is also able to use contractions as evidenced when she says ‘I’m’ [aim] rather than “I am’ and ‘that’s’ [ɵæts] instead of ‘that is’. 2.2 Morphology Morphology, together with syntax make up the grammar of a language. Morphology is concerned with how words are made up of smaller morphemes; a morpheme is the “minimal linguistic unit of a language that carries meaning (Silzer, 2005, p.101) and can be used to change the meanings of words. Prefixes, suffixes and affixes can be used and fall within two categories – derivational (changes word class) and grammatical (changes grammatical meaning) (Pence & Justice, 2008). In Ella’s language for example she proves to have acquired correct usage of the plural morpheme ‘s’ as in ‘cousins’, ‘friends’ and ‘millions’; she also shows good usage of the inflectional grammatical morphemes ‘ing’ for present continuous as in ‘flying’, ‘finding’ and ‘going sailing’ and past tense ‘ed’ as in ‘picked’. All such morphemes are usually acquired before the age of four (Pence & Justice, 2008) and are in accordance with Brown’s (1973) syntactic stages III and IV, so Ella proves to have developed an appropriate level of morphological acquisition for her age. 2.3 Syntax While morphology deals with the structure of words, syntax on the other hand, focuses on syntactic word categories and how they are combined to make phrases, clauses and sentences; it is concerned with the ‘hierarchical structure and arrangement of these units’ (Silzer, 2005, p.110). According to Sax & Weston (2007) Ella should be able to provide sentences made up of four to eight words, which is evidenced in ‘Because I like finding treasure and flying kites’ for example; in fact Ella repeatedly illustrates that she can produce sentences of more than 8 words as in ‘And I really now I’m not scared of the pirate that poofs into the house’ which is grammatically correct and shows she is able to construct complex sentences, in this case with the use of a relative clause ‘that poofs into the house’; it also illustrates her knowledge of third person singular subject-verb agreement. A particularly interesting combination of clauses and phrases (38 words in total) that make up a simple narrative is in response to having been requested to talk about her family; she replies by saying ‘Mommy and Daddy that’s at work and Reilly and Max that are doing speech, and my little cat Arielle, and my sister, and my cousins, and I like that painting and my older sister Tailor that I love’. The first two relative clauses ‘that’s at work’ and ‘that are doing homework’ are both in reference to people and so would accurately require the interrogative pronoun ‘who’ rather than ‘that’. In the midst of her list of noun phrases all joined with the conjunction ‘and’ she adds ‘and I like that painting’ wherein she adds another sentence but also joined with the conjunction ‘and’, showing she is able to conjoin sentences. She then continues to add another name to the list ending with a further misuse of ‘that’. Ella shows evidence of causative links with her use of ‘because’ in ‘Because I like finding treasure …’ and ‘cuz I wanna play …’, and she shows evidence of semi-auxiliaries such as ‘wanna’ and ‘gonna’. 3. Content 3.1 Semantics/Vocabulary Underlying all of form (phonology, morphology and syntax) is semantics – the organization of meaning – its reference and its sense. Reference pertains to the relation a word has with the world. The word ‘like’ for example, as found in the language corpus, refers to something that Ella enjoys or is fond of, whereas its sense decides its relation to other words, for example it is an antonym of ‘dislike’, and a super-ordinate to ‘favorite’ which denotes a higher level of ‘like’. Although Ella uses the word favorite correctly in the above example she shows a complete lack of understanding with her first answer wherein she replies to the question ‘What’s your favorite thing about Myrtle beach?’ with a sentence fronted with the word ‘because’, which tends to imply she misunderstood the question to refer to why she liked going to the beach. Ella shows she has acquired the conjunctions of ‘because’ and ‘and’, and the prepositions ‘into’, ‘at’, ‘with’ ‘of’ and ‘about’. She apparently knows the meaning of older as she provides the correct answer in response to the age of her elder sister and has knowledge of numbers and ages. She states her age as ‘four’ her elder sister’s as ‘eight’ and her younger sister’s as ‘three’, and that her birthday is on November 6. She is also capable of deriving words from others that she knows; for example she creates the verb ‘to poof’ when she is talking about the ghost who ‘poofs’ into the house. 3.2 Pragmatics Pragmatics is concerned with the way in which language is used for practical purposes within different social contexts (Marsco et al, 2004), and focuses on what lies beneath the actual words being spoken. In other words it contends with what the speaker’s intentions are, the way something is said and how the interaction between speaker and listener/s is performed within cultural norms (Marsco et al, 2004). In terms of language acquisition therefore it is concerned with a child’s ‘growing communicative competence’ (de Villiers, 2004, p.57) and is entrenched within a child’s normal development of language and thus acquired in a similar developmental pattern (Marsco et al, 2004). De Villiers (2004, p.58) proposed four major factors attributable to communicative competence: conversational skills, communicative functions, styles/registers of speech, and genres; Marasco et al (2004, p.3) on the other hand purports three measurement methods including communicative engagement and intentions, non-verbal conversational rules, and verbal conversational rules. In terms of conversational skills and engagement with others in the discussion, Ella shows that she is aware of the cultural norms of turn taking, although at one point she does interrupt but generally she interacts well. With the knowledge of knowing when not to speak for somebody else she deals with her urges to speak in her own way by whispering to Sophia and obviously telling her what to say. When the parent asked Ella’s younger sister whether she liked the game she received for her birthday, Ella did not interrupt but added ‘I picked it out’ after her sister had spoken. In other words she was using language to make her point that the game was a good game because she had chosen it. In one instance however she did answer for Sophia when asked who won the Super Bowl but she did so very quietly, thereby further demonstrating her awareness of the inappropriacy of interrupting and speaking out of turn. On another occasion the parent asked Sophia why her twin brother is three like her and again Ella whispered to her obviously telling her what to say again. Her answer ‘Cuz he’s not old like my Mum and Dad yet.’ clearly illustrates Ella’s humorous side and provides evidence of her wit, which is appropriate development for her age in terms of being able to use language for teasing and jokes (Marasco et al, 2004). Ella shows that she is not always able to keep to the ‘pragmatic constraints’ (de Villiers, 2004, p.58) of the conversation however. For example when the parent was involved in a repeated turn taking dialogue with Sophia, Ella interrupted by pulling up her skirt and stating ‘I’m gonna show my undies.’ This inappropriate but functional use of language demonstrates Ella’s capability of using language not so much to shock others in the conversation but to perhaps gain attention. She illustrates this by covering her eyes but at the same time smiling when she lowers her skirt back down and sits in her chair; she may have been feeling a little smug in that she was to successfully take the conversation away from Sophia back in her direction. At one point in the conversation Ella showed her ability to reinforce and reiterate what she wanted to say when the parent did not seem to respond, thus further demonstrating her ability in conversation skills. At the start of the conversation for example, she stated that she liked finding treasure and flying kites but when the parent failed to acknowledge this she very clearly reiterated that she liked finding treasure. She also showed evidence of elaborating on a topic when she makes mention of the fact that she was not scared of the ghost. In terms of Ella’s functional use of language then she is very aware and capable of using language as a means of communicating what she wants and thinks and at the same time remain in line with the conversation in terms of turn taking and general topic areas. Discussion on Ella’s non-verbal conversational rules is limited to the few comments provided in the script so no real comment can be made in terms of her eye contact and being at an acceptable distance from others. In terms of the information supplied however Ella appears to be a very outgoing child who likes to be the centre of attention. She understands what is expected of her in terms of culturally acceptable behavior within the discourse environment but at times, as most children her age would do, allows her excitement to intervene. At one point in the conversation she became excited and when asked if the game was her favorite she yelled her response but later she may have realised her error and although still excited she seems to regain composure to some degree. It is at that point however, that she decides to lift her skirt. Even after sitting back down she has to be told to put her legs down but at that point she settles back in to the conversation and is able to maintain a topic for four turns, which according to Marasco et al (2004) is more in line with a five to six year old child. At one point in the conversation when Ella wanted to elaborate on her answer she added non-verbal stress to make her point by waving her finger as if bringing the point home and ensuring the parent understood the importance of what she was saying. All in all Ella appears to be a child that finds it difficult to sit still and maybe proves to be a kinesthetic learner; her behavior in terms of movement is not necessarily inappropriate but rather a necessity for her to involve herself within the conversation. In summary, this paper has provided an analysis of Ella’s use of verbal language in terms of content, form and use. Although the language corpus was not very long there was sufficient to determine that Ella is developing at an appropriate level for her age. Her use of language in relation to form that includes phonology, morphology, syntax and grammar proves to be suitable for a child of four, and her use of language in relation to content, including semantics and pragmatics is also apposite to her age. References Brown, R. (1973). A first language: the early stages. London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd. De Villiers, P. (2004). Assessing pragmatic skills in elicited production, Seminar in Speech and Language, vol.25 (1): 57-76. Retrieved from http://www.umass.edu/aae/Seminarpdfs3- 26_copy/p057-072pdev.pdf Marsco, K., O’Rourke, C., Riddle, L., Sepka, L. & Weaver, V. (2004). Pragmatic language assessment guidelines. ECICMC standards and guidelines speech sub-committee, Retrieved from http://www.advocacycenter.com/news/pdf/pragmatic_language.pdf Pence, K. & Justice, L. (2008). Language Practice from Theory to Development, Allyn and Bacon. Sax, N. & Weston, E. (2007). Language development milestones, excerpt from Master of Science Thesis in Speech-Language Pathology, University of Alberta. Retrieved from http://www.rehabmed.ualberta.ca/spa/phonology/milestones.pdf Silzer, P.J. (2005). Working with language. Supplementary Course Materials for ISLAL 520/Eng1 351/INAL 300/INCS 310. Department of TESOL and Applied Linguistics School of Intercultural Studies Biola University. Retrieved from http://www.scribd.com/doc/23736421/Working-With-Language-2005. Read More