Brief plan for conducting an essay regarding ‘Child Language Acquisition’ -

You have 1 hour and 15 minutes to complete this essay.

You are aiming to cover a sufficient amount in each of these 3 categories:

• Ao1-LANGUAGE
• Ao2-THEORY
• Ao3-CONTEXT

Introduction:

This is an easy opportunity to include Ao3 and gain context marks. For example, ‘Ruby is in the aunt’s kitchen, they appear to have a close relationship as she has great confidence when communicating with her Aunt’, ‘Ruby’s Aunt is the temporary caregiver for the day as her mother is having another child.’ A sentence which can be put into the majority of CLA essays would be ‘she is in the telegraphic stage but is demonstrating elements of progressing into the post-telegraphic stage, we can see this by most of her utterances being complete *QUOTE*’ .

Virtuous errors:

It is essential that you never refer to ‘mistakes’ when discussing virtuous errors, it is simply the child acquiring language. For example, ‘Ruby’s virtuous error ‘bitted’ is evidence for Chomsky’s LAD device. Ruby has applied the regular simple past suffix ‘ed’ to the irregular verb ‘bite’.’ When discussing virtuous errors, you can then include Chomsky as demonstrated above. It is advisable to discuss 3 virtuous errors.  ‘Semantic ability outstrips phonological ability’

Theorists:

Jean Berko-Gleeson conducted the wug test which is made up lexis which children then apply grammatical rules to. This should be included in this paragraph and you could find a verb where they have changed the morphology. However, this could be 2/3 paragraphs.

Skinner created a reinforcement theory, which discusses encouraging or discouraging the repetition of the lexis. For example, ‘Ruby’s caregiver repeats Ruby’s syntax, but slightly alters her language in order to correct it’

 

Caregiver’s paragraph:

‘Caregiver will subconsciously simplify their language in order to communicate with the child’. The child will be in the critical language acquisition stage and therefore learning and correcting language is essential. Lennenberg said about critical acquisition period 1967. Genie is a prime example of Lennenberg’s CAP, if you haven’t acquired language by the age of 7 or 8, you will not be able to communicate. Suggesting, Skinner and Chomsky are both correct.

Deb Roy& FOX P2:

Speech home project, analysed his owns child development, ‘gaga’ to water. Also, discuss FOX P2- contemporary research which highlights Chomsky is correct. This gene is a protein which is required for proper language development.

Transcript:

Lexis and grammar from the transcript, this ensures that you are using the essay and not just writing your pre-made essay.

Conclusion:

Context and a general summary. Although the study of CLA is relatively new, recent research and the identification of Fox P2, clearly shows Chomsky's LAD is likely to exist. However, it needs to be stimulated for children to fully develop language.

General points:

• Turn taking structure
• Abundance of interrogative syntax
• Use of determiners because of inability to use the correct lexis
• Caregiver shows numerous examples of power
• Politeness features
• 'we' inclusive pronoun
• Gender

SOME OF THESE TOPICS WILL NEED 2-3 PARAGRAPHS TO ENSUSURE ALL THE THEORISTS AND TOPICS ARE COVERED IN SUFFICENT DETAIL!

Exam revision:

Noam Chomsky:
Said that everyone has a language acquisition device in which is a mechanism which gives us the ability to obtain language.


Jean Piaget:
A child must understand a word before they use it.


Jean Berko-Glesaon:
Jean conducted a 'wug' test in a classroom environment. 'Wugger' 'Wugging'. Although the lexis 'wug' was a made up word, the children were able to subconsciously apply the grammatical rules to the lexis. Proves that children learn plurals off by heart.


David Crystal:
Children learn language through copying and imitating others, this is how children develop accents.


A child never makes a mistake, always a virtuous error. Every virtuous error that is made, the child is learning a valuable lesson and is altering their language appropriately.


Vygotsky says that role play assists the children in learning the world around them.


Brown (1973) studied children’s language development between the ages of 20 months and 36 months and found the sequence shown below occurred regularly. The features are also listed in the order in which they were acquired:

1)    –ing

2)    plural ‘-s’

3)    possessive ‘-s’

4)    the, a

5)    past tense –ed

6)    third person singular verb ending – s (eg): he sings

7)    auxiliary verb ‘be’  (eg): I am dancing

Skinner:

Reinforcement theory, you learn from positive and negative reinforcement, and punishment. Encouraging or discouraging repetition of the lexis.

AQA Language change- example essay:

AQA ENGLISH LANGUAGE PAPER 

JUNE 2014 

Q04: 

Although both texts share their primary purpose of informing the reader about how to look after their hair, Text G appears to have a secondary purpose of advising the reader as the text is written by presumably a known professional ‘William Moore’, a ‘ladies’ hairdresser and perfumer’ one might assume that he has thorough knowledge on the topic area and can assume that his advice is in fact legitimate. This is portrayed by the title ‘The Art of Hairdressing’ the word ‘Art’ has connotations that imply only selected individuals have the ability to carry it out, it makes the job sound important, thusraising the influential power of the author. In contrast to text H which appears to bewritten by someone who is presumably not a professional hairdresser but in fact researched the ‘tips’ from ‘stylists’ which are not actually referred to by name. This text appears to portray a secondary purpose of instructing the reader as, through the use of imperatives such as “Give” and “don’t”. The text is also set out as a set of instructions (H). 

The lexis used in text G is what would today be regarded as low frequency for example words such as; ‘perverseness’ and ‘ vermin’ this increases the formality of the text which was perhaps typical of printed texts in that era. The text (G) was produced post dictionary era (1755- dictionary introduced) which can be a reason why some of the words are spelt the same today for example ‘to’ and ‘leave’. Some words use contractions which are not in use with contractions today for example “attack’d”, “weaken’d” and “stop’d”,the common feature between these contractions is the elision of the vowel ‘e’ which is in use today. The long ‘ ʃ ‘ is utilised in the text- this fell out of use in the late/mid 1800s. Although both texts contain field specific lexis such as; “curling”, “comb’d” and “Rollers” from text G and “lather”, “clamp” and “shampoo” in text H, text G uses these to describe what should be done and almost to paint a picture the reader for example “putting in papers over night or rollers” whereas text H uses the lexis to instruct the reader on what they should be doing “wrap- don’t clamp” , here (in text H) it is almost as if the reader/audience knows that the author is telling them what is best for them and not to question it. Text H contains numerous compounded words such as “sex-kitten”, “sulphate-free” and “cool-down” this portrays the fast pace of society today where everything is compact, direct and to the point. There is also evidence of conversion as the term “spray bottles”; here “spray” is used as an adjective when in any case its usual use is a verb. Text H utilises the term “bombshell blow out” which is alliteration of the plosive phoneme “b” which gives the hairstyle exciting connotations of adventure and possibility. The term “sudsy” appears to be a new word-coinage as only the intended audience of style conscious women would fully understand the concept. Text G uses the symbol ‘ &tc ‘ in place of etcetera which can be deemed archaic as today, people often use the term ‘etc’ when referring to  ‘etcetera’. 

Text G appears to have a formal register as, it utilises low frequency  lexis such as “perverseness” and “inattention”, this increases the tenor between the author and  the audience as, low frequency lexis often signals power and authority or even importance of the author and the matter at hand. Text G does not actually address the reader as text H does, it simply refers to them in the third person by the oretically speaking of “parents”, “nurses” or “tutors”. Whereas text H directly addresses the reader with the second person pronoun “you”, this decreases the formality and creates synthetic personalisation (Fairclough) between the writer and the reader, and it is almost as if the writer is on the same level in terms of wanting /needing the advice of the reader. However, text G does make use of an anecdote whereby they carried out an experiment on hair colour, this could be the professional hairdresser attempting to really connect with the reader and enable them to feel the passion he feels about hair. 

In terms of grammar, the syntax of text G differs slightly to that of today for example “is too frequently the fault of parents” here, the verb is mentioned before the subject which is not typical in modern day society, where it is more often subject and then verb. Text G utilises more complex sentences, such as “First, it is a general…to cotton” whereas text H uses more simple sentences such as “prop the towel” this could be due to the technological advances of society, where today people are reading many different blogs or tips from stylist and everything is fast paced, whereas when text G was produced, people used to take care and draft articles before printing them, computers allow immediate access whereas printing takes time. 

Text G capitalises nouns such as “Paper” and “Rollers”; this not typical in modern day language. However, in Germany this is still common perhaps portraying the ever-changing society of today and the influences of globalisation and the effect it has on our language. 

*“opt” is used in text H which is an abbreviated term for option again emphasising the fast paced society. 

Mock exams from a teachers perspective: ADVICE

http://www.tutor2u.net/the-professional-teacher/blog/how-to-go-over-mock-exams

1)

1: Split up the questions into "easy to mark" and "hard to mark" questions

2)

2: Always consider looking at the answers to difficult questions as a class before you hand any marked work back to your students

3)

3: How to "go over" difficult questions

4)

4: Resit the mock in a few weeks time

Exclamation marks-

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/07/children-use-exclamation-marks-department-education

This article summarises the new law which has been put into place to prevent the use of exclamation marks. The official authorities have decided to target younger children in order to begin the process of eliminating the exclamation mark from our English language. If we prevent children learning this element of our grammar in school then it will slowly not be known by our younger generation and therefore will not be used in any syntax. Within a language change essay, this will be crucial to incorporate because it is one of the first scenarios in which we are being told to defiantly not use an element of punctuation or grammar. 

Analysis of TED talks

https://www.ted.com/playlists/228/how_language_changes_over_time

John McWhorter: texting is killing language

• ‘If humans existed for 24 hours, writing would come along at 11 hours’
• Writing is a conscious effort
• Casual speech- speak in word packets of 10 words, telegraphic, less reflective, different to writing
• Talking like you write
• Have to type as quickly as you can receive speech, you have to have someone who can read and understand
• Why would you consider punctuation and capital letters when you text if you don’t consider it when you talk
• You see lack of concerns with rules, you see a bagginess of the structure
• New language and therefore new structure emerging
• ‘lol’, laughing out loud, theoretically means that. If you text now, it doesn’t mean that now, not physically laughing anymore, marking of empathy, pragmatic particles
• ‘slash’, changing topic, new information marking
• Texting alongside normal writing skills – biadialetual
• Expansion of their linguistic ability
• Linguistic miracle

Erin McKean-

• Go ahead make up new words
• Every language is a group of people who agree to understand each other
• Unconscious rules that you follow when you speak
• Jean Berko-Gleason- Wug test, natural rules, rules of natural, don’t have to be reminded of these rules, some are about manners
• Don’t be creative when it comes to words
• 6 ways to make new words:
• Steal them from other languages
• Compounding, combining words together, forcefully
• Blend words, brunch, motel
• Change how they operate, friend made a verb
• Backformation, shortening it
• First letter of each word
   
  Mark Pagel, how language has transformed humanity
   
• Nero-audio technology, re-wiring peoples mind
• Alter the internal settings to suit your mood and interests
• Genes talking
• Why did it evolve only in our species?
• Chimps lack social learning, they can’t improve on others ideas, benefits from others mistakes and use others wisdom
• Copy and imitate what people can do
• Social learning is visual theft
• ‘small family groups’, so language is enclosed in small groups, fewer ideas and innovation
• Language is a piece of social technology
• Language evolved to solve the crisis of visual theft, coordinating activities
• Take it for granted
• Even small acts are utterly dependent on language
• Island where you can encounter a new language ever mile
• Natural tendency to be isolated
• Translation costa, over 2 billion a year
• March towards standardisation
• Time is universal

 

Steven Pinker- language habits

• By the time you finish a dictionary, it will be out of date
• Language is a window to human nature
• Which verbs go in which constructions?
• Structure than we unconsciously use
• Fixed set of concept, In all language
• Indirect speech acts, why are polite requests? Underlying meanings
• Mismatch, when one person understands a relationship as something and the other individual understands it as something else
• Conditional requests soften the imperative. No relationship of dominance
•  Language Is a collective human creation reflecting human nature

 

Suzzane Talhouk- don’t kill your language

• Different meanings of words
• Denied the right to speak language in her own country
• Should you forget everything you know in language just to conform?
• Creative expression for other languages
   
  Anne Curzan- what makes a word real?

• Collection of new words- research
• Human hands behind all dictionaries
• Even critical people, don’t analyse dictionaries and don’t criticise them
• Categories of words and they vote
• Words are temporary and won’t stick
• Banished words and words of the year, often a cross over because it is interesting and part of a living language. In addition to this, they are very creative
• Concerns about words such as 'balcony'

Useful blog

http://englishlangsfx.blogspot.co.uk/

AQA specification-

http://filestore.aqa.org.uk/subjects/specifications/alevel/AQA-2705-W-SP-14.PDF