Hairy Maclary

It is apparent that the child reading out Hairy Maclary from Donaldson’s dairy is a confident reader however towards the end of the story; the reading of the child becomes separated. On the last page of the book, the child mis-pronounces ‘trotted’ with a ‘sh’ sounding like ‘shtrotted’ which clearly makes no sense. Looking at the lineation of the book, the word ‘shop’ is underneath ‘trotted’ which could mean that the child’s eyes looked at the line underneath therefore causing this sound before realising it was the wrong line.

Lineation of 'I Want a Cat' - Tony Ross

The lineation of the text in Tony Ross’ children book ‘I Want a Cat’ aids children to read fluently whilst showing expression. The first sentence is on a single line, and comes to an end displayed by a full stop. The next sentence starts underneath the previous, which could be due to a subject change. Putting this sentence on a below line causes the child to have to move their eyes, which will create a natural pause which emphasises the previous full stop. This line ends in the middle of a clause with the word ‘so’. The reason that the line ends on this word could be because elongating this word adds exaggeration and emphasis before starting the next line with ‘loudly’. This gives a build-up effect on what will come next in the story whilst allowing fluent reading as it gives the child a chance to be looking ahead at what words follow. The next line may begin with the adverb ‘loudly’ for the reason that when children read, they tend to pause between lines and when starting a new line, add more emphasis. The emphasis on this adverb may be an increase in volume, which links directly to the meaning of the word, adding effect. Another reason that this adverb may be at the start of a new line could be because if it was on the previous line following ‘so’, the third clause may be mistaken for a new sentence, which does not work alone. 

Overview

From looking at this short transcript, it does give the impression that Evie is already confident in using language and may be in the telegraphic stage. Her confidence with language may be due to her being in a known environment with her grandmother. Because Evie is in a known environment, she can experiment with language, talking about local topics. Evie’s grandmother uses strategies to guide, scaffold and prompt the speech that is already in Evie’s zone of proximal development.

Point/paragraph one:

In the first paragraph, I would discuss Nelson’s linking to Evie’s surroundings such as being in a known environment and explore how this encourages the development of her speech.

An example of this is Evie’s Grandma using toy animals to create a conversation which involves physical activity. ‘Cat’ ‘Tigger’ ‘Bath’.

Point/paragraph two:

I would then look at child directed speech features that the grandmother uses in order to help the development of speech including scaffolding and Skinners operant conditioning theory.

Point/paragraph three:

This would focus on Evie’s zone of proximal development through looking at the virtuous errors that she makes and how her Grandma aids her.

Point/paragraph four:

I would link this to the previous point on virtuous errors, looking at the support that is giving from her Grandma. This would also include the prompts/interrogatives Grandma uses to help Evie converse linking to child led discourse.

‘Shall we put them in the bath?’ is a prompt to develop the activity into the next stage so that they can move on and add more in terms of discussion.

Point/paragraph five:

This would be based on the learning and development of social skills. I would look at the way Grandma is encouraging social skills including turn taking in conversation and physical aspects such as facial expressions.

Point/paragraph six:

I would look into power for this point, looking at the agenda shift and who sets them, powerful participants (Grandmother), and how the Grandmother encourages Evie’s speech by allowing her to choose topics etc. 

UNFINISHED introduction - draft 1

‘How does a child’s language change dependant on who they are conversing with?’

For my investigation I am looking into the development of a child’s speech, including the way that their language is subjective to who they are conversing with. This includes child directed speech from the other participant(s) in the conversation. I have chosen to investigate the development of a child’s speech as I find the way they learn to talk very intriguing, and I am also interested in how or why the way they talk may or may not vary depending on who they are talking to. I am going to investigate what this is due to. For example: the child’s natural instinct, child directed speech etc. Personally, I am interested in the whole development of children, not just specifically how they develop language but I am very interested to investigate theories based around children developing language and try to apply these theories to the data that I will collect.

There are numerous theorists who have done personal investigations to try and answer the unsolved question of where does language come from or how does it develop? Theorists are constantly developing new ideas as to how 

Media text example

Media text – preliminary activity

A men’s or women’s magazine:

Have you ever wondered where it comes from? What? This. Language.

Do you remember your first word? Do you remember your child’s first word? The answer is most probably yes. But where does it come from? There have been many arguments over where language comes from and how it develops, but how do we really know?

Here is an insight into suggestions made to attempt to answer this on-going unknown whilst peculiar question.

Many people believe that the way you talk to your child has a huge impact on the development of their language. One idea that has been developed and taught is the imitation theory. In other words: what you say matters. It’s a case of thinking before you speak, because your children listen. Not only do they listen, they copy.

Or, there is the concept that children are born with an inbuilt system that helps them to develop language. Not only to speak, but to read and write also. The child then hears examples of language from surrounding people – such as you, and can therefore make estimations on the rules of the language it is learning. The child will then work out grammatical rules such as saying ‘I drew’ rather than ‘I draw-ed’, which is a common error made by developing children. As their language continues to develop, alike every other aspect of their life, they will become more and more adult-like. 

Methodology - Edit

Investigation methodology

Rough title: ‘How does a child’s language change dependant on who they are conversing with?’

The data that I chose to collect is based on child language acquisition. Before collecting my data there were many factors that I had to consider, including:

• ·         Reliability
• ·         Confidentiality
• ·         Ethicality
• ·         Comparability

Reliability was a main factor that I thoroughly considered.  I had to collect enough data so that any unrepresentative aspects do not seem significant. To do so I:

• ·         Recorded for the same amount of time (ten minutes)
• ·         Recorded on the same day, every week for six weeks

As I was recording the child’s natural speech I had to consider ‘the observer’s paradox’. This states that people change their speech and behavior as soon as they know they are being watched/recorded. To ensure that I collected fair speech, I have only transcribed between four and six minutes of speech leaving me with six lots of two minutes conversations.  However, the child was not completely aware that I was recording him due to permission being granted from his parent as he is aged under sixteen.

This then leads me onto the factor of ethicality. I had to gain informed consent from the parent of the child, as well as the others that were included in the recordings through interacting with the child. To do so, I wrote a formal letter stating my intentions, which was then read through, agreed and signed by all participants. Informed consent allowed everyone involved to understand why I was taking these recordings, who will be accessing it and how I will protect their confidentiality.

Confidentiality was important to me as I wanted to ensure that everybody knew they could have an open, random conversation that will be kept anonymous. To do this, I have changed all names when transcribing the speech, and any personal details have been changed such as birthdays, addresses etc.

I am also looking into comparability between the recordings because who the child is talking to varies between each one. I am going to look at how the child responds and communicates with the different members of the conversation and also determine if it’s due to the language and techniques used by the adult. This is things such as questions and child directed speech. To be comparable, I took the recordings at approximately the same time every week. This was every Wednesday evening starting between 6-630 pm. This is to ensure that the speech was typical of an evening conversation between members of my family.

Methodology

Investigation methodology

The data that I chose to collect is based on child language acquisition. Before collecting my data there were many factors that I had to consider, including:

·         Reliability

·         Confidentiality

·         Ethicality

·         Comparability

Reliability was a main factor that I thoroughly considered.  I had to collect enough data so that any unrepresentative aspects do not seem significant. To do so I:

·         Recorded for the same amount of time (ten minutes)

·         Recorded on the same day, every week for six weeks

·         Recorded at the same time (tea time)

As I was recording the child’s natural speech I had to consider ‘the observer’s paradox’. This states that people change their speech and behaviour as soon as they know they are being watched/recorded. To ensure that I collected fair speech, I have only transcribed between four and eight minutes, leaving me with four minutes of speech. However, the child was not completely aware that I was recording him due to permission being granted from his parent as he is aged under sixteen.

This then leads me onto the factor of ethicality. I had to gain informed consent from the parent of the child, as well as the others that were included in the recordings through interacting with the child. Informed consent allowed the parent of the child and the others involved understand why I was taking these recordings, who will be accessing it and how I will protect their confidentiality.

Confidentiality was important to me as I wanted to ensure that everybody knew they could have an open, random conversation that will be kept anonymous. To do this, I have changed all names when transcribing the speech, and any personal details have been changed such as birthdays, addresses etc.

I am also looking into comparability between the recordings because who the child is talking to varies between each one. I am going to look at how the child responds and communicates with the different members of the conversation and also determine if it’s due to the language and techniques used by the adults. This is things such as questions and child directed speech.