CLA Terminology

It's now widely accepted that children don't acquire language solely by imitation and reinforcement. There are differing schools of thought. Some, like Chomsky, suggest children acquire language through an inbuilt device that encourages them to ‘look' for language. Others describe language acquisition as a cognitive process. All researchers agree that children acquire language in stages.

The first year sees babies working on speech sounds. By the time they are six months old they are making the characteristic burbling sounds we associate with ‘baby talk'. The first year can be roughly divided up into the stages: crying, cooing and babbling.

The first sound a human baby makes is to cry. Often known as vegetative noises, this is the only way it can express pain, pleasure or hunger. It is an instinctive noise and is therefore not considered a language.

A baby's brain development is in front of its body development and it therefore has to exercise the 100 different pairs of muscles it takes to produce speech sound. Cooing (or gurgling) is a sound development that occurs at around six to eight weeks old. Babies experiment with ‘coo', ‘goo' and ‘ga' and gradually gain more and more control over their speech organs (or vocal cords).

Babbling begins at six to nine months old. It is not learned or copied but pre-programmed. The work-out of the vocal cords means babies repeat syllables over and over. Combinations of vowels and consonants, such as ‘ma', ‘pa', ‘da', are produced and repeated and therefore ‘mama' and ‘dada', known as reduplicated monosyllables, often sound like adult language.

The second year of development sees an increase in the ability to manipulate speech sounds and more of a shaping of sound into familiar pronunciations. The second year can be roughly divided up into the stages ‘one-word', ‘two-word' and ‘telegraphic'.

At this stage, children begin to concentrate on building phonemes into words, beginning largely with nouns that reflect their needs and interests. Often words for objects a child encounters everyday are the first. Basically, they build a personal vocabulary to deal with their world. Single words convey more than one meaning - “milk!” may mean “I want some milk.” or “I've spilt some milk.” Words used in this way are called holophrases. They substitute a complex grammar.

This stage, during which the major speech pattern is of two-word utterances, happens around 18-24 months old. This is particularly significant because here young children are demonstrating an understanding of the rules that govern how we communicate meaningfully. An example of a two-word utterance might be “Daddy ball!” which could mean a variety of things including “Daddy get the ball”, “That's Daddy's ball” and “Daddy throw the ball”.

Holophrases. Even before children can form grammatical sentences, they can indicate extensive meanings with single words. For example, the word ‘more' stands for repeat whatever action has immediately preceded that statement. Through these types of utterances, we can see that they begin to show evidence of an understanding of grammar.

Noun plurals

It is generally accepted that children acquire language through an in-built ability to recognise the patterns that exist. However, these patterns are not always straightforward and there are exceptions, so children inevitably make mistakes.

Verb tenses

Young children's speech will reflect some application of regular patterns, for example, adding ‘ed' to form past tenses. However, as yet, irregularities will not form part of their understanding, so birds ‘singed' and children ‘runned' are completely understandable, if not completely accurate sentences

Imitation & reinforcement theory (Skinner, 1957
Skinner was a proponent of the theory that children acquire language by imitating the way others speak. When the child is successful at producing words it is praised. This approval motivates the child to repeat the action thus learning words.
This theory has now been largely discredited. The task of acquiring language is such a vast one – children acquire tens of thousands of words and complex rules of grammar and syntax within a very short space of time.
Further flaws in this theory are revealed if we consider the mistakes children make in their grammar usage. They clearly do not imitate statements such as “I cleaning my tooths”. This is not a sentence formation which would have been praised by an adult.

Innateness theory (Chomsky, 1965
Noam Chomsky argued against Skinner's theory. He reasoned that children have an innate ability to acquire language through what he called a ‘language acquisition device' (LAD).
Chomsky claimed that all languages have a different surface structure - French and English sound different from each other through their differing intonations and stresses. However, he felt that all languages share the same deep grammar structure, or linguistic universals - subject–verb-object. His theory suggests we are pre-programmed with this deep structure. Chomsky's theory explains how children can understand sentences they've never heard before.
Critics such as Bard and Sachs (1977) argue that children don't learn to speak automatically. They need to communicate and interact with others – innateness alone is not enough.

Cognition theory (Piaget, 1966
The cognition theory links stages in language acquisition with stages of cognitive development. Piaget observes that children initially view themselves as the centre of the universe believing that objects exist only in relation to themselves. At around 18 months children begin to realise that objects have an existence that is nothing to do with them. A big growth in vocabulary occurs at this time and proponents of the cognition theory suggest that these events are linked - children are compelled to find names for things they now know exist. Piaget's theory shows a relationship between language and thought – though the theory only seems to stand up for the first 18 months of a child's life. Studies show that some children whose mental development is retarded can speak fluently. Here it seems that word order, meaning and grammar have not been subject to the child's general cognitive development.

Before acquiring cognitive ability, children are unable to contrast sizes and cannot use comparative language. Piaget showed that, looking at a range of sticks of differing sizes, they use words such as ‘short' or ‘long' but not the comparative terms ‘shorter' or ‘longer'.
Skinner claimed that children learn language by copying or imitating those around them.
Chomsky maintained that, whilst all languages have a different ‘surface' structure, they all contain the same deep grammar structure. His theory suggests we are pre-programmed with this deep structure as a kind of language acquisition device.

As well as theories on how children acquire language, there are theories about when. Eric Lenneberg's (1967) theory suggests that there is a critical period in a child's life during which they are able to acquire language. What is the duration of this period? What evidence is there for and against it? Lenneberg's theory claims that language acquisition is linked to maturation. He proposes that the human brain is designed to acquire language at a certain time. Lenneberg suggested that there is a cut-off age of around 12 or 13 years and that once this period has passed language learning slowed down or in effect was no longer possible.

The brain begins to grow at around 18 months old. It has acquired grammar and phonology by about four years of age and it is widely accepted that an ability to acquire language probably extends this learning period up to the middle of the second decade. After this point, it is said that there is a decline in the neural plasticity of this area of the brain, severely impairing language acquisition ability.

Unfortunately, there have been occasions to test Lenneberg's theory. Studies highlight the plight of ‘Genie', a 13 year old American girl raised in appallingly deprived circumstances. Locked away from the world, deprived of language and forbidden to speak, she was denied human interaction. When she was discovered she did not have language as we know it – just ‘grunting' sounds. Despite many and varied learning programmes, Genie never spoke in a fluent manner. It appears that Genie was rescued too late to acquire language within the critical period.

It has been widely accepted that there is some truth in Lenneberg's theory. The immense language learning ability, which accompanies us through our early years, does seem to be shut down by some kind of genetic programming around the time of puberty.  Genie and Victor's cases would have also supported a theory by another well-known psychologist - Vygotsky. Vygotsky (1978) argued that a child is only able to acquire language when he is interacting with people in his environment and, in particular, in co-operation with his peers. Obviously, neither Genie nor Victor had the opportunity to do this.

Most children will still learn to speak some words if they are not exposed to language during the critical period, though looking at ‘Genie' and ‘Victor's' examples it is unlikely that they will fully acquire a language. Bard and Sachs argued that innateness alone was not sufficient to enable children to acquire language. Genie and Victor's stories also suggest that a child's ability to acquire language declines after a certain age.

Language and Technology

Language and Gender

The unspoken dialogue between men and women: Truth and Humor

G: Narrative, fictional story

R: Written + spoken language features

A: Women

M: multi-model

P: Entertain

S: Relationship between a guy and a girl

There is a male stereotype of the male asking out the female in the first paragraph, this is a common stereotype and is widely accepted between men and women in society. This stereotype is repeated again when he asked her out for a meal. Elaine starts the conversation breaking the stereotype of men starting conversations with women. Robin Lakoff did a research on the power behind female speech, stating that it is less superior to men’s language. The dominance approach is broken by Elaine, because the research says that it is done men 96% of the time. Elaine then has an inner dialogue about what she had just said Do you realize that we have been seeing each other for exactly six months’  but Roger is thinking about a more male idea of cars instead of the relationship ‘and I’m going to have to look at the transmission again…’

Elaine thinks about romance which is a female stereotype ‘school girl romantic fantasy’ this sounds like a Mills and Boons style of story. Roger isn't paying attention when Elaine is describing her fantasy of a knight in shining Armour on a horse. He goes on to say ‘what horse’ which shows that he doesn't care for fantasy land.  Elaine has the most power in this conversation because she is leading the conversation and Roger is only saying one word responses. Roger has picked up on the horse and nothing else from his conversation with Elaine, this is a stereotype of men not paying attention and only thinking about what interests them. Elaine is very caught up on the conversation with Roger, and physically demonstrates this by crying in bed. She over analysis the whole conversation and exacerbates what has been said. She is not being clear with her feelings and confusing Roger.

The title of the text can be linked with the content; Roger is following the male stereotype with humor which can be linked to the title.  This could appear to be comical to the reader from the writer views of the male language. 

Past Exam answer June 2013

QUESTION 3

Text E is an extract from a newspaper account of the testimony of Captain Thomas Preston, Commander of the British troops in Boston, America. In 1770, he was tried for murder following a massacre of local people.

Referring in detail to the text and to relevant ideas from language study, explore how language has changed over time.

JUNE 2013

  

Plan:

The ‘s’ used in this transcript are written differently to modern s’s used in text. This is a bit confusing as it looks like a F. In old scripture writers used their own way of writing, there was no standardisation of English. A writer from a different town could phonetically write something different to another writer in a town only a few miles away.

Many words have no spacing between them; this could have been the fault of the newspaper writer.

Grammar – written in past tense, irregular adverbials ‘beat’ used. Sentence types with compound and complex and use of declaratives.

Lexis – military lexis ‘destroyed’ ‘horrid’ ‘repairing’ etc Use of obsolete words, LFL (Low Frequency Lexis) this ages the text, language is ever changing and words come and go and adapt over time, for example the popularity of acronyms have only come about due to technology – archaic lexis ‘nay’ and ‘parlay’ as well as taboo lexis like god damn, in transcript is dashed out g-d damn

The discourse is direct and reported speech, as well as being chronological. Speaker tone is humble, clear and justified.

Answer

This transcript is a court ruling of a soldier on trial for the murder of townsfolk; this is the testimony of his trial. It is clear to see that Captain Thomas Preston (the soldier in mention) is a well-respected man and humble in his intentions, not putting the blame on anyone and admits he could’ve potentially, unintentionally started the shootings. This newspaper is reported in both direct speech and reported speech. Highlighting his men more favourably and denoting the ‘mob’. The genre conventions are followed for both a court ruling and that of a newspaper.

The transcript features many different sentence structure from compound to complex, the more complex sentences are joined together primarily by semi-colons and the non-standard but. This shows the Captain is an educated man. This makes me think the captain has come from a rich background is perhaps old in his mid-40’s. He uses declaratives like ‘immediately’ ‘instantly’ and ‘were’ which gives him power over the situation, it shows that he has authority and is justified in his actions and that of his men.

Some of the orthographical aspects of this text are outdated; an example of this would be the long S, which can easily be mistaken for an ‘f’. This at the time contextually would’ve been the norm among writers. There are is a wide range of punctuation throughout this text, examples of this would be the dashes which show omission and speech marks to show direct speech.

It is clear to see from this text how much language has changed, but there are obvious similarities like the syntax structure and the punctuation. What changes the most are the words and how their used. Words that once meant one thing now mean a complete other for example the ‘gay’ before the 50’s generally meant happy or to be glad; now it means something completely different now being used a s a word to label homosexuals. And other words have simply been dropped or are still used but not as often. These words are labelled as LFC (Low Frequency Lexis) and would most likely be found in story books and not in modern conversation.

This newspaper extract is an early example of the standardisation of the English language and the start of the modern printing press. S.E. or Standard English is a term used to describe the proper English uses so that any English speaker can understand. The print press made in the 1800’s by John Sherwin, with this he was able to mass produce text on a scale that had never been seen before. This is also what really boosted the idea of a Standard English.

With the advances in technology have really influenced how we use language as a society. The first of many was texting on mobile phones, at first there was a letter limit which meant people had to remove vowels from words and abbreviate to fit in their message; words like lol (laugh out loud) became popular so much so they were added to the oxford dictionary; so these words naturally transcended text and are now used in speech. Descriptive approach to language is the acceptance of words like ‘lol’ in our language and the prescriptive approach to language is the opposite and they believe that words like ‘lol’ shouldn’t be classed as proper words.

Constantly through the text the only gender to be mentioned were males, even if there was a women either as a part of the ‘mob’ or the soldiers, they would still put under an umbrella term; the captain refers to the guards as ‘the men’ implying that are all male.

English Language Quiz Answers

1.       What are the main reasons for language change?

·         Economy – principle of least effort, using economy in articulation which leads to phonetic reduction of speech forms

·         Analogy - reducing word forms by likening different forms of the word to the root

·         Language contact - borrowing of words and constructions from foreign languages

·         Cultural environments – speakers will reflect their place, situation, and objects

·         Migration/movement - Speakers will change and create languages, such as pidgins and creoles

·         Technology – social media and the ability to talk to others instantly over a great distance, written and spoken forms merging creating new words.

2.       What are the ways in which language changes?

·         Lexical changes – standardisation of spellings

·         Semantic changes – shifts in meaning of pre-existing words

·         Syntactic change – the evolution of the syntactic structure of natural language

   

3.       What are the key influential factors on the development of English as accessible to all?

·         One of the key influential factors of English developing as a language accessible to all would be the standardisation of the English language. William Caxton’s printing press allowed the mass production of written texts; this allowed books and other reading material to be produced which consequently made them more accessible to all. Books etc where implemented into schools which meant that children from an early age where taught how to read and write. Along with the printing press technology and the growth of the internet; this started off as no more than a really big forum for people to talk. Texting on mobile phones also allowed people to talk instantaneously but had a word count, so this lead to acronyms coming more popular and abbreviations so messages could fit the word count. Eventually these words evolved and transcended written language and where used orally.

4.       What is the difference between a prescriptive and descriptive attitude to language use? Find two quotes that represent each attitude that you can make a reference in the exam.

·         Descriptive approach –is the work of objectively analyzing and describing how language is actually used (or how it was used in the past) by a group of people in a speech community.

·         Prescriptive approach – is the practice of elevating one variety or manner of language use over another. It may imply some forms are incorrect, improper, and illogical, lack communicative effect, or are of low aesthetic value.

5.       What did Johnson think were the problems with his dictionary? Are these problems still evident in dictionaries today?

·         I’m not too sure what he thought was bad but I did find out what others thought was bad; the descriptions Samuel’s used were sometimes very opinionated for example: “Oats: A grain which in England is generally given to the horses. But in Scotland supports the people.” Another is that making this dictionary span over 7 years so new words where becoming present in the English language. This meant that he missed some words in his dictionary that span 4 volumes instead of the intended 2.

6.       What is a ‘lingua franca’ and to what extent was/is English one?

·         A language that is adopted as a common language between speakers whose native languages are different.

7.       What are the prestigious forms of English now (over and covert)?

·         Non-standard dialects are usually considered low-prestige, but in some situations dialects "stigmatized by the education system still enjoy a covert prestige among working-class men for the very reason that they are considered incorrect"

8.       How have politically correct language and the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis influenced modern English language?

·         Political correctness is an attitude or policy of being careful not to offend or upset any group of people in society who are believed to have a disadvantage. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis or the principle of linguistic relativity holds that the structure of a language affects the ways in which its respective speakers conceptualize their world, i.e. their world view, or otherwise influences their cognitive processes. These theories I believe have changed the way we speak by making us as a society hyper sensitive. Anything no matter how small that ‘offends’ us we complain and voice our opinions normally over the internet from the privacy of our homes. Not many of us would complain so openly because of politeness but would rather do it possibly anonymously

9.       Find three example of obsolete English grammar that you can make reference to in the exam

·         “Thou” and 2Thee” are both pronouns that have been dropped by modern English users.

·         The silent “e”

·         Pas tenses like “deceiv’d” instead of “deceived”

1.   Find three features of modern punctuation that takes advantage of a lessening of prescriptivism

·         The improper use of the colon

·         The use of “?!” at the end of a sentence to show questioning shock

·         “Superellipse” ellipses going up in size if you want the reader to wait a long time before continuing reading.

1.   Find three neologisms from the past five years

·         Google:  To use an online search engine as the basis for looking up information on the World Wide Web.

·         Crowdsourcing: The activity of getting a large group of people to contribute resource to project, especially by using a website where people can make contributions.

·         Metrosexual: A man who dedicates a great deal of time and money to his appearance.

1.   Do an internet search to find an article that interests you on language uses. Find a key quote to memorize. How does that writer communicate their ideas?

·         "The internet is an amazing medium for languages, Language itself changes slowly but the internet has speed-ed up the process of those changes so you notice them more quickly " http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10971949

1.   Read at least one chapter from a book from a library about language change; identify how the attitudes expressed in it are a product of when it was written

·          

1.   What does gender theory reveal about English use through the ages?

·         Gender theory reveals that the long standing stereotypes of both male and females are still relevant in today’s society. Males have always been the dominant gender in language using more direct lexis unlike women who are use more lo key lexis and are less upfront in what they are saying. In modern times we as a society like to think that both genders language are merging but this is not the case; gender differences are still present but are not said aloud but in more private spaces.

Important terminolgy for Spoken language

Stereotype: A set of generalisations (often inaccurate or overly simplistic) about a group that allows others to categorise them and treat them accordingly.

Fillers: are words like ‘umm’, ‘erm’, ‘kind of’. They are used by speakers to ‘fill in’ pauses until they are able to articulate what they wish to say next.

Phatic: Small talk, or utterances used to ‘oil the wheels of conversation’, For example, ‘Nice day!’ said to a stranger at a bus stop.

Transitive: a verb needs a word, or words (called the object) to follow it and complete the explanation. In contrast, an intransitive verb does not need further words to follow it in order for it to make sense. Consider the following sentence, ‘The student read a book’. Note that ‘read’ can be both transitive and intransitive, depending on how it is used.

Prosody: The patterns of stress and intonation in a language.

Glottal stop: A stop consonant articulated by releasing pressure at the glottis; as in the sudden onset of a vowel. For example, ‘bottle’ pronounced without voicing the ‘t’ as in ‘bo’le’.

Deictic: An expression cannot be understood unless the context of the utterance is known. Examples are ‘here’ and ‘there’.

Overlaps: Where two or more speakers speak simultaneously

Non- fluency features: Features which demonstrate that speech is spontaneous rather than planned such as hesitation, repetition, fillers.

Rhetoric: A persuasive variety of language (speech and writing) often used in the public/political arena.

Attributive adjectives: Adjectives placed before the nouns they modify – often used in the language of advertising, for example ‘stronger, fresher, longer-lasting.’ ‘Male’ or ‘lady’ can also be added to titles of professions perpetuating gender stereotypes.

Back channelling: Feedback noises or brief utterances from a listener, showing the speaker that they are listening.

Clipping: A word formed from shortening an existing word. For example, ‘gym’ from ‘gymnasium’.

Complement: The complement can either be one word or a noun phrase. It gives more information about the subject or the object. Complements can be single words or noun phrases. Complements can also be adjectives or adjective phrases.

Colloquial language: Characteristic of informal spoken language or conversation.

Dominance: A theory that explains differences between male and female language use in terms of male power imposing a man-made system on women.

Euphemisms: An inoffensive substitute for a word which is considered offensive.

Face: Sense of personal identity or status that can be saved, lost or threatened by others’ utterances (important in pragmatics, especially politeness theory). Positive and negative face.

Insertion sequence: Where the original conversation is suspended for a short while because of an interruption from another source.

Insertion sequence: Where the original conversation is suspended for a short while because of an interruption from another source.

Link to University of Bristol Grammar test

http://www.bristol.ac.uk/arts/exercises/grammar/grammar_tutorial/index.htm