Methods of Child Language Study

1. Methods of Child Language Study C. Ray Graham

2. Ancient Roots Research Question: What is the oldest race of human beings? Researcher: Psammetichus, King of Egypt Underlying Theory: Strong form of the innatist hypothesis Design: Longitudinal Case Study Method: Shepherd ordered to raise two children, caring for their needs but not speaking to them.

3. Hypothesis: The first words to be spoken would indicate that Egyptian was the oldest culture on earth. Results: After two years the shepherd went to their quarters one day and the children came running with outstretched arms and said, “Becos,” which was not a word in Egyptian. Upon enquiry it was determined that becos meant “bread” in the Phrygian language. Conclusions: Egyptian was the second oldest race of humans after the Phrygians. Source: Book 2 of History by Herodotus abt 440 BC

4. Late 19th and Early 20th Centruies • Diary studies • Bloch (1913-24) French • Bokonyi (1918) Hungarian • Boksis (1939) Russian • Bilingualism • Vocabulary studies • Binet (1902) French • Bonser • Bush (1914) • Campbell (1901) • Phonology • Abnormal Langauge

5. Mid 1900s • Normal Language Development • Abnormal Language Development • Stuttering (Boland 1951, Blumel 1960,Bloodstein 1960-65) • Delayed language Blackman (1957) • Deaf (Carr 1953)

6. A new era in child language studies1960-Present • Morphology • Berko (1958) • Syntax • Brown (1964) • Braine (1963-66)Word order (Pivot Grammar) • Bellugi (1967) Negation • Phonology • Menn • Stoel-Gammon • Sociolinguistics • Bernstein (1962-65) Social Class & Language Development • Cazden (1962-65)

7. Infant placed in a reclining seat and given a binky with a hole in it to suck on The binky has a pressure transducer in it which measures sucking rate and allows infant to control rate of sound input Baseline sucking rate is established with a speech syllable Infant is presented with new syllable Increase in rate is interpreted as detection of new sound Works best with 1-4-month-olds High Amplitude Sucking Paradigm

9. Conditioned Head Turn • Child hears one sound several times • He/she then hears a new sound followed by a switch back to the former sound • If the child turns his/her head when the new sound is presented he/she is rewarded with a picture of lit-up toy • If the child learns to turn his/her head at the presentation of the stimulus, but not otherwise, it is interpreted as discrimination • Works best with 6-to-10-month-olds

10. Findings • 1 month--/ba/ vs /pa/ /a/ vs /i/ /a/ vs /u/ • 2 months--/ba/ vs /ga/ /ba/ vs /da/ /ba/ vs /wa/ /ra/ vs /la/ /wa/ vs /ja/ rising vs falling pitch

11. Phonemic Perception • Child sits in front of the experimenter • Experimenter presents a wooden “doll” and says, “This is /tas/.” “Put /tas/ on the wagon.” etc. • Experimenter presents a second “doll” of different shape, color, etc. and says, “This is /das/.” “Put /das/ in the box.” etc. • Experimenter sets the dolls side by side in random order and says, “This is /tas/ and this is /das/. Put (randomly) /das/ in the box.” • Correct choice of dolls is interpreted as perception of phonemic differences.

12. Findings There is an order to the minimal pairs contrasts with which children can play the game:

13. Principles of Lexical Development • Words refer to objects • Words refer to whole objects • New words can be extended to other members of the category • Each object can have only one name • New words refer to things that do not already have a name • No two words have exactly the same meaning

14. Preferential Looking Paradigm • Child sits on mother’s lap equadistant from two video monitors. • Mother closes eyes • Child watches two simultaneously presented colored videos • An audio message from a hidden speaker between video monitors directs child to attend to one of the monitors • Researcher observes eye movements of child and records time spent focused on each monitor

16. Results & Conclusions • By 17 months children can use word order to distinguish between sentences such as: • Big Bird was tickling Cookie Monster • Cookie Monster was tickling Big Bird • Comprehension of syntax is well in advance of production since most children are not producing two word utterances by this age.

17. The Wug Test

18. Results & Conclusions • Between three and four years of age children are able to apply learned grammatical morphemes to words that they have never heard before. • Learners develop a productive use of morphological generalizations

19. Puppets and Meta-language • Two experimenters with hand puppets and a child with a hand puppet • The experimenters demonstrate the correction of grammatical error • E1 says, “Horse the ride” • E2 says, “No that is not right you say, ride the horse. • E1 then gives examples to the child and has the child say whether the sentence is good and if not how to correct it

20. Result • Up until about 3 years of age children are unable to tell when the grammar is wrong except when it makes the utterance anomalous. • A year later children can correct ill formed utterances.

21. Conclusions • Children gradually develop the ability to attend to the form of language as an object of attention in and of itself

22. Realia and Word Order • The experimenter sits with the child and has toy objects to manipulate. • The experimenter says to the child, “Here is a car and here is a truck. I am going to say something and I want you to act it out.” • “The car was hit by the truck.” • The experimenter blindfolds a doll and asks, “Is the doll easy to see, or hard to see?”

24. Results & Conclusions • Chidren as old as 4 ½ to 5 will interpret the first noun phrase in a sentence as the agent and the second one as the object in passives and will ignore the passive markers of “was…by” • Correct interpretation of unusual word order develops slowly in often not complete until middle childhood

25. Anaphora & GB Theory

26. Principles of GB • A reflexive is always bound to a referent that is within the same clause • John said that Robert hurt himself • An anaphoric pronoun cannot be bound to a referent within the same clause • John said that robert hurt him • Backward co-reference is only allowed if the pronoun is in a clause subordinate to the main clause. • When he came home John made dinner. • He made dinner when John came home

27. Findings • By 6 years of age children know A, but are still making errors on pronouns • Children have difficulties with B even after age 6 • Children do not seem to control C until middle school years