Child Language Acquisition

1
Child Language Acquisition

• Give examples of how children learn to use the
  grammar of English. What do your examples reveal
  about the nature of childrens language
  acquisition?

2
How to start

• Think about the key words in the question
• Grammar
• Examples
• The nature of child language acquisition

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Grammar

• What is grammar?
• Theres no point starting to talk about cooing
  and babbling theyre phonology not grammar.
• Likewise, theres not much point going on about
  first words thats more to do with lexis and
  semantics.

4
Grammar
5
Syntax

• At what stage do children start to put words
  together? The holophrastic stage only consists of
  one word utterances, so this is not relevant in
  terms of syntax (but it is perhaps worth
  mentioning that childrens first words tend to
  fall into the nouns/naming category Katherine
  Nelson 1973).
• Its on the 2 word and telegraphic stages where
  most of your focus should fall.

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Syntax

• Two word stage look at the patterns that
  generally occur and the researchers whove noted
  these patterns. Look at Roger Browns research
  into semantic relations (agent action,
  possessor possession etc) and what these fairly
  regular patterns might tell us about the nature
  of CLA. Look too at the words that are missing
  and why this might be.

I walking
7
Syntax
I drink daddy beer

• Telegraphic stage again, look at the patterns
  and provide examples that illustrate them. Which
  words are left in and which are omitted (clue
  think of words classes that dont have much
  meaning to small children like auxiliary verbs,
  determiners etc).
• it was empty, so dont call Social Services.
  Please. Not again.

8
Syntax
Grandads happy cos we remembered his birthday

• Post-telegraphic stage its probably worth
  mentioning how children move beyond the earlier
  stages into a more advanced type of utterance.
  What do children do as they get older? They link
  clauses together using conjunctions
  (co-ordinating conjunctions at first and then
  and then, followed later by subordinating
  conjunctions My tummys rumbling because Im
  hungry).

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Syntax
Not want dat

• Other areas of syntax - questions and negatives
  to create questions, we have to change word order
  how do children cope with this? Look at the 3
  part structure from the Powerpoint lecture. To
  create negation, a similar 3 stage process has to
  be followed. Look at the same handout or file on
  Moodle.

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Grammar

• Morphology
• What kinds of inflections (suffixes/bound
  morphemes) do children start to apply and what do
  these tell us about the nature of CLA?
• -ing endings progressive endings often come
  first because young children tend to tell us what
  they are doing as they do it. They provide a
  running commentary I running, daddy (gettit?).

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Morphology

• -ed endings past tense endings come later
  because according to Piaget a childs concept
  of time must become established before they start
  to use language to label it.
• -s endings (genitive/ possessive endings) these
  signify ownership and again - linked to Piagets
  cognitive theory - children start to develop a
  sense of their own identity and belongings, as
  well as others, before they grasp this ending.

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Morphology

• -er and est endings these develop as the child
  understands seriation or relative sizes. Again,
  Piaget would argue that until a child has grasped
  relative sizes, such morphemes are pointless.

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Wugs

• Dont forget this classic experiment which looked
  at how children apply the plural rule to made up
  nouns.
• The wugs test supports nativist theories of
  language Chomsky and Pinker.

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Theory and what to do with it
15
Theory

• Imitation theory cannot account for childrens
  acquisition of grammar.
• Interaction can only go so far it can help some
  aspects of a childs development, but grammar is
  not one of the main ones.
• Cognitive theory can help explain some aspects of
  grammatical development.
• Nativist theory is best equipped to explain the
  acquisition of grammar and its rule-based systems.