Tuesday, 10 November 2015
Methodology
My Investigation looks at how external influences such as Gender and Age affect the way people speak to babies, I took particular interest in this topic area as I can look at the differences and explore Gender Theories and CLA in great depth. I started collecting my data by gathering permission from those involved, I then began to record my sample data on a phone placed in the same room as Lyliee (Baby), and left it to record for ten minutes at a time, since doing my sample data I've decided i want to collect three sets of data from each different circumstance/ task (see table).When collecting my sample data I encountered a number of problems which made my results reliability decrease sufficiently. Whilst I was recording the data Lyliee was not responsive as she was a little under the weather at the time. This meant that my results were effected as when people interacted with Lyliee her response was very influential with what they said to her to follow, this meant it was not a true result and that people spoke very sympathetically to Lyliee. Also an observers paradox is present in my results as natural speech is being recorded, I have kept this under control however by explaining to the people that are being recorded that I will be recording in the near future but not stating exactly when. Following my sample data I decided it would be important to record in written for Lyliees reactions e.g. Laughs, Cries, Moans, Gurgles, as this can influence my data and allow me to look into CLA theories for younger children (-1yr). I also found some limitation factors of my investigation which include; My data being un-representative because it is such a small pool of data, I only look at how people speak to one child and possibly compatibility factors would be able to be explored further.
Background Research-
- David Crystal: Stage 1- Children say things for 3 purposes; Get something they want, get attention, To draw attention
- Jean Piaget: Sensori- motor stage (0-2 months): baby can differentiate itself from objectives
- Chomsky: Children are born with an inherited ability to learn any human language, e.g.I drawer not I drew
- Jean Aichinson: Language is biologically organised; Labelling- E.g. Mummy, Daddy, Packaging- Range of meanings for one word
- Stages of Acquisition
1- Babbling stage (0-6months)
2- One-word stage (1yr)
3- Two-word stage (2yrs)
4- Child reaches the grammatical complexity of utterances of colloquial adult language (3yrs)
Babbling:
Children begin to babble regardless of what linguistic environment they are in, Sounds like [b],[p],[m],[a] are most common
One-word:
-Words are generally monosyllabic
-Understand multi-word utterances but utter singular words
Tannen- Difference pairings; Independance- Intimacy, Information- Feelings, Advice- Understanding.
I will carefully analyse my data by looking at anomalies and looking into why these have occurred and how they may skew my results, I will also look into what the theories suggest i will find in my results and compare them to what i actually found, if there is a difference I will look into what caused this difference: whether or not it could be human error or if there are any uncontrollable outside factors or influences.
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Esme - the first section contains a lot of great thinking although you might not want to try and directly assess the effect of gender and age with such a small sample from each category. Instead you could explore 'the different techniques used in speaking to a young chlid by contrasting language users' and then you can bring in differences in age and gender as they seem relevant, also exploring other factors e.g. whether they are in L's immediate or extended family etc.
ReplyDeleteI think that most of your theory relates to the child's speech and you could look into CDS more - you are right in thinking Tannen is your friend too!
Don't forget to anonymise, even at this stage, so replace the name with a code by editing the post. Thanks and get well soon :)
Phonology
ReplyDeleteSeparate phrases more distinctly, leaving longer pauses between them.
Speak more s-l-o-w-l-y.
Use exaggerated ‘singsong’ intonation, which helps to emphasise key words. Also to exaggerate the difference between questions, statements and commands.
Use a higher and wider pitch range.
Lexis and semantics
Use of concrete nouns (cat, train) and dynamic verbs (give, put).
Adopt child’s own words for things (doggie, wickle babbit).
Frequent use of child’s name and an absence of pronouns.
Grammar
Simpler constructions
ReplyDeleteFrequent use of imperatives
High degree of repetition
Use of personal names instead of pronouns (e.g. ‘Mummy’ not ‘I’)
Fewer verbs, modifiers and adjectives
Large number of one-word utterances
Deixis used to point child’s attention to objects or people
Repeated sentence frames eg. “that’s a ……”
Use more simple sentences and fewer complex and passives.
Omission of past tenses, inflections (plurals and possessives).
Use more commands, questions and tag questions.
Use of EXPANSIONS – where the adult fills out the child’s utterance.
Use of RE-CASTINGS – where the child’s vocabulary is put into a new utterance.
Pragmatics
Lots of gesture and warm body language.
Fewer utterances per turn – stopping frequently for child to respond.
Supportive language (expansions and re-castings).
Are there are variations due to the gender of the caregiver?
Research has suggested that fathers are more demanding than mothers, using more direct questions and a wider range of vocabulary.
What effects do you think this kind of speech has on children?
Some claim that it retains the attention of the child, others that it makes language more accessible. Some claim that children learn by repetition – can this explain the fact that children can produce sentences which they have never heard before?
Others claim that ‘babytalk’ actually interferes with language development because children learn babyish words and sentences instead of the real language.
Not every culture uses such forms of child-directed speech. In Samoa and Papua New Guinea, adults speak to children as they speak to adults, and children acquire language at the same pace as elsewhere.
Features and purposes of Child Directed Speech
CDS aims to:
Attract and hold the baby’s attention.
Help the process of braking down language into understandable chunks.
Make the conversation more predictable by referring to the here-and-now.
Research
Clarke-Stewart (1973)
Found that children whose mothers talk more have larger vocabularies.
Katherine Nelson (1973)
Found that children at the holophrastic stage whose mothers corrected them on word choice and pronunciation actually advanced more slowly than those with mothers who were generally accepting.
(Brown, Cazden and Bellugi 1969)
Found that parents often respond to the TRUTH value of what their baby is saying, rather than its grammatical correctness. For example, a parent is more likely to respond to “there doggie” with “Yes, it’s a dog!” than “No, it’s there is a dog.”
Berko and Brown (1960)
Brown spoke to a child who referred to a “fis” meaning “fish”. Brown replied using “fis” and the child corrected him again but saying “fis”. Finally Brown reverted to “fish” to which the child responded “Yes, fis.” This shows that babies do not hear themselves in the same way that they hear others and no amount of correction will change this.
Child Directed Speech – some conclusions
Recent research argues the CDS doesn’t directly help babies learn language, instead it helps parents communicate with children = its purpose is social rather than educational.
In some cultures (non-western) babies are expected to blend in with adult interaction and no special accommodation is made in speech addressed to them. These children still go through the same developmental stages at roughly the same time as long as there is EXPOSURE to language. However Clark & Clark’s research suggests that children who are only exposed to adult speech do not acquire the same standard of language as those whose parents speak to them directly in a modified manner.
The older argument that baby-talk is ‘harmful’ to a child learning a new language is being replaced. People now think it’s beneficial to the child.
A child’s language improves when in contact with an adult who speaks to them directly.
http://revisionworld.com/a2-level-level-revision/english-language/child-language-acquisition/child-directed-speech