1,393,631 research outputs found

    The company that words keep: comparing the statistical structure of child- versus adult-directed language

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    Does child-directed language differ from adult-directed language in ways that might facilitate word learning? Associative structure (the probability that a word appears with its free associates), contextual diversity, word repetitions and frequency were compared longitudinally across six language corpora, with four corpora of language directed at children aged 1 ; 0 to 5 ; 0, and two adult-directed corpora representing spoken and written language. Statistics were adjusted relative to shuffled corpora. Child-directed language was found to be more associative, repetitive and consistent than adult-directed language. Moreover, these statistical properties of child-directed language better predicted word acquisition than the same statistics in adult-directed language. Word frequency and repetitions were the best predictors within word classes (nouns, verbs, adjectives and function words). For all word classes combined, associative structure, contextual diversity and word repetitions best predicted language acquisition. These results support the hypothesis that child-directed language is structured in ways that facilitate language acquisition

    The Linguistic Repertoire of a Young Adult, and a Middle Adult of a Ngaju Dayaknese Family in Central Kalimantan

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    This study is a qualitative study about linguistic repertoire and the subjects are three people from three different ages of a Ngaju Dayaknese family consisting of the mother, the first child and the third child. This study was conducted in order to see the linguistic repertoire of them. In order to reach the research objectives, I used the theories of linguistic repertoire by Milroy and Milroy (1990) and code choice by Holmes (2001). From my study, I found that the linguistic repertoire of the third child is Banjarese language, Indonesian language, and Ngaju Dayaknese language, the linguistic repertoire of the first child is Ngaju Dayaknese language, Indonesian language, and Banjarese language, and the linguistic repertoire of the mother is Ngaju Dayaknese language, Banjarese language, and Indonesian language. It can be concluded that the linguistic repertoire of each subject can be distinguished one from another and it was influenced by the environment he/she was exposed to

    Child language brokers’ representations of parent-child relationships

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    This paper reports the analysis of qualitative data from a broader study of young people’s representations of conflicting roles in child development. Just over a quarter of the group, bilingual students who spoke a variety of first languages, had had personal experience of child language brokering (CLB). Employing vignette methodology, they were invited to reflect on the implications of an adolescent boy’s language brokering activities for, among other things, his relationships within his family. In this paper we will present brief case studies to illustrate different positions that members of the group adopted in relation to developmental scripts emphasizing independence and interdependence between young people and their parents (Dorner et al. 2008). Through an analysis of individual CLB case studies, we illustrate various ways in which individual young people reported the balancing of the demands of autonomy and connectedness in their analysis of relationships between young people and their parents

    What's in a name? Coming to terms with the child's linguistic environment

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    This article reviews the proliferation of terms that have been coined to denote the language environment of the young child. It is argued that terms are often deployed by researchers without due consideration of their appropriateness for particular empirical studies. It is further suggested that just three of the dozen or more available terms meet the needs of child language researchers in most instances: Child Directed Speech, Infant Directed Speech and exposure language. The phenomena denoted by these terms are then considered. The term register is generally borrowed for this purpose from sociolinguistics. However, close inspection of this concept reveals that the notion of register needs to be constrained, in specified ways, in order to be of any real value within the field of child language research

    Beyond the literal meaning of words in children with klinefelter syndrome: two case studies

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    Literature on children with Klinefelter Syndrome (KS) points to general linguistic difficulties in both comprehension and production among other cognitive functions, and in the majority of cases, these coexist with an intellectual level within the norms. In these conditions, children having language delay generally engage in language therapy and are systematically monitored across ages. In this article, we present the profiles of two children with KS (47, XXY), aged 9.1 (Child S) and 13 (Child D), whose language development was assessed as adequate at age 3, and for this reason, did not receive any language treatment. At the present stage, their IQ, as measured by Wechsler Scales (Child S: 92; Child D: 101), is within the norm, but they both present marked weaknesses in pragmatic skills such as figurative language comprehension. The analysis of these two cases points to the need to go beyond global indexes of verbal abilities, as the same global index may mask a wide diversification of individual profiles. In addition, this study underlines the importance of monitoring the developmental trajectories of children like Child D and Child S, because weaknesses in pragmatic skills that are relevant for both academic achievement and social adaptation could emerge at later stages

    Every Child a Talker: Guidance for consultants and early language lead practitioners (Third instalment: Autumn 2009)

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    "Every Child a Talker (ECAT) is designed to help practitioners and parents create a developmentally appropriate, supportive and stimulating environment in which children can enjoy experimenting with and learning language... Every Early Language Consultant (ELC) and Early Language Lead Practitioner (ELLP) will have followed a different route on their journey towards ‘Every Child a Talker’... Within all these diverse journeys, however, there are some common elements. This third instalment of the Every Child a Talker (ECAT) file looks at the commonalities of the journeys through a series of case studies." - page

    Marked uses of tense/aspect morphology and situation type

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    In this study explanations are sought for the often reported associations in child language between tense/aspect morphology and situation type. The study is done on the basis of adult-adult data, child language and input language to the children. First of all it is shown that the associations are natural, since they are strong in adult-adult English as well. Only in the early stages does child language differ from this distribution, in that the associations are either stronger or different. Input data appear to account to a large extent for these differing patterns. An additional explanation is found in the discourse topics: within the context of talking about the here-and-now, the combinations of morphology and situation type that can be seen as unmarked suffice. In the context of talking about past events and of giving general comments about the world, marked combinations are necessary. It is shown that children in and their parents at the early ages mainly talk about the here-and-now, whereas adults among themselves hardly ever do so. Later, describing past events and commenting on the world becomes more frequent in child language and input, and, as a consequence, marked combinations of tense/aspect morphology and situation types increase in use

    Phonological Development in the Early Speech of an Indonesian-German Bilingual Child

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    Current research in bilingual children’s language development with one language dominant has shown that one linguistic system can affect the other. This is called Crosslinguistic Influence (CLI). This paper explores whether CLI is experienced by a bilingual child raised in two typologically distinct languages in terms of phonological development. It uses data from the study of a child simultaneously acquiring Indonesian and German between the ages of 12 months - 20 months, with Indonesian as the dominant language. The sound segments developed by the child showed universal tendencies, with the appearance of bilabials prior to alveolar sounds, followed by velar sounds. The sounds were produced mostly in the form of stops, nasals and glides. Three phonological processes were displayed by the child: substitution, assimilation and syllable structures. The front rounded vowel [ʏ], which exists in German but not in the Indonesian sound system, was systematically replaced by the palatal approximant [j]. This approximant exists in the Indonesian sound system but not in the German phonemic inventory. This provides evidence that, in terms of phonological development, the child experienced CLI, but only for certain sound transfers

    English Literacy Development for English Language Learners: Does Spanish Instruction Promote or Hinder?

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    In this brief, the authors consider whether instruction in a child\u27s native language (particularly Spanish) hinders or promotes learning of literacy in English. The authors conduct a four-step process for identifying research on this topic, examining this literature, and then determining the answer to this clinical question. The results suggest that supporting a child\u27s home/native language promotes rather than hinders development of English literacy skills
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