CLA Essay

Essay on CLA (Ruby and Lou)

The relationship between Lou and Ruby is aunty and niece, Ruby the child is staying with Aunty Lou because her mother is having a baby. I know this because both mention moving a bed for the new baby. Because Ruby knows Lou her language isn’t restricted and isn’t holding back, we can tell this when she gets annoyed when Aunty Lou calls her coat a jacket, insisting it’s a coat. In the transcript when Ruby says coat it is in capitols “COAT” which I read as being said in an exaggerated tone. Lou’s reaction to Ruby harshened tone responds with the pre-modified noun “bossy boots” which is a female orientated noun that is used to belittle females who aren’t cooperative; as it is generalised by societal norms that women should cooperate and not argue or question what is being told to them. Though this trend is now changing with advances for female equality with the rise of feminism.

Throughout the text adjacency pairs are used which shows that Ruby understands the proper structure to a conversation. Though she may understand the functions to conversation it is one sided, she only answers questions, not asking them. She does break the adjacency pairs when Lou talks about Thelma which could suggest that either she does not care for what is being said or doesn’t understand. Lou throughout the text modifies her language to only use simple syntax and sentence structure, Deb Roy a cognitive scientist who conducted the speech home project on his daughter, suggests that we converge our language to that of the child. In doing this it allows the child top better understand what we are saying. . Lou who is the caregiver reinforces Ruby’s language by repeating what she says in appositive tone. Again another example of caregivers language is when Lou exaggerates her “o” in oh no to sound childish.

Ruby makes an error when pronouncing the phoneme cluster ‘th’ instead of saying ‘with’ and ‘Thelma’ instead pronouncing them “wiv” and “felma” which suggests that she struggles with consonant cluster TH. Children often struggle with this as well as the cluster ‘SH’ because you have to press your tongue against the roof of your mouth. This can be seen in babies; there first word is normally da da because it’s easier to pronounce than mummy which requires the lips to come together.  She later uses the word “bitted” which is an in-proper verb, she has likely never heard anyone say that before but figured it out logically for herself and supports Chomsky’s L.A.D and the WUG test.

L.A.D (Language Acquisition Device) is a theory that humans have the innate ability to talk, whether or not it is given to us. The WUG test is a series of made up words are showed to children and they are asked to change the words tense. An example of this could be “wug-wugged-wugger-wugging”

Ruby struggles with keeping on track and focusing on the conversation by side-sequencing, bringing in her grandma who is not relevant to the topic. From the transcript I can confidently say that Ruby is in the post-telegraphic stage, an example to prove my idea is: “I want to sit in the room” Children as young as Ruby in the post-telegraphic stage (3+ years of age) has an understanding of tense and conversation structures. Her language now over the next few months will increase drastically as this is the time she will be in school and will pick up words from other pupils and teachers and may also pick up a dialect if she is surrounded by people who have. This would show her converging to their language which may through a brick in the works of Deb Roy or may prove children pick up this vital piece of social conversation earlier than we thought.

Lou who clearly understands the concepts of caregivers language whether or not she does it consciously I can’t say, clearly uses polar questioning to help along the flow of conversation. Asking questions with a child helps said child with communicating what she/he wants. When Ruby speaks she often leaves long gaps in her speech which suggests that she is having trouble saying what she wants. Later in the transcript she Points a something instead of saying what it is, this is common and children and adults. Most adults probably couldn’t name everything properly that’s in their room.