Introduction
For
my language investigation, I will be investigating the difference in male and
female language, and if this is linked to nature and nurture. I intend to transcribe
the language of children between the ages of 4 and 10; looking at differences
in CLA between them. I am interested and intrigued by the personal development
a child can have purely through the surrounding environment of people and the
natural effects language has upon a developing human at such a young age. By
the age of five, all humans should have “gained the gift of language”; this is
a reason as of why I am investigating into the importance of the critical
acquisition period. The children who
I will be transcribing will be all currently in primary school and from a
different year group, I will be able to compare the lexis and grammar used by
the different ages and compare their conversational techniques. I will have
permission from the school in which I will be visiting and collecting data. The
children’s names will remain anonymous during my investigation for the
protection of their identity. The questions I have proposed to ask the children
are all common questions. They include “What did you do in the summer
holidays?” and “What is your favourite TV programme and why?”.
My
hypothesis is that as they increase in age, their traits of language and gender
will become more apparent. I think they will also offer longer responses which
will include more colloquial language, adjectives, low frequency lexis,
connectives, emotions and opinions. I also predict the conversation will be overall
informal, and show phatic conventions with the females, however male
conversations will be perhaps more to the point, but shorter, and expected to
use less adjacency pairs and turn taking.
Methodology
My
data involves talking individually to the children and recording their
responses. The date in which I visited the primary school was the 9th
September 2013. The way in which the children were chosen was all through
teacher choice, this meant I had no say in the children and therefore was not
biased in who I spoke to. The length in which I spoke to the children varied
from 2-4 minutes. The children’s real names were removed for their safety,
confidentiality and anonymity. The questions all are one sentence; this is so
they’re clear and understandable. The chosen two were a young female aged 4-5
and older male aged 9-10. One in key stage one and the other in key stage two. They
are labelled within my speech as child 1|A and 2|B .I spoke to seven different
children in total, and each one of them were aware of my power in the
situation, due to being introduced as ‘Miss Roberts’. This made them think the
conversation would be formal.
The
procedure I followed to achieve my information was as followed:
§ Permission
from the school for my presence on that date
§ Permission
from the teachers
§ Recording
the conversations
§ Transcribing
and altering the children’s names
§ Selecting
which transcripts would be used for analysing.
The
questions asked were:
§ “What did you do over the summer holidays?”
§ “What is
your favourite TV programme?”
§ “What is your favourite food?”
§ “Have you
got any brothers or sisters?”
§ “What is
your favourite thing about school?”
§ “What do you like doing after school?”
The
recorder remained on show at all times, however despite the children being aware;
in intervals looking at the recorder this meant that there will ultimately be a
form of observer’s paradox in my research.
Lexis
In
the lexical aspect, it is apparent that 1|A (4 years old) uses repetition in
their responses; this could be due to her excitement and need of rushing to
produce an answer, this also can link to the theorist Robin Lakoff (1975) who
believes women talk for longer than men. The young girl, since talking to
another female could feel somewhat more comfortable in the female cooperation
and is already showing the early stages of female stereotypes of language. In comparison, 2|B (9 years old) tends not to
repeat his words, however includes more of the stutters, fillers and hedges in
his language. The use of ‘umm’ and ‘mhmm’ utterances and the dragging out of vowels
in words suggests the brain process is slower than his mouth and therefore he
uses the syllabic noises to fill the gaps, postponing and giving him time to
complete the complex sentence.
The
transcript shows that language is under-developed in the younger child. This is
recognised by the ‘th’ determiners being replaced with the consonant “d” at the
beginning. This virtuous error could be due to her rushing of speech, wanting
to produce answers quickly enough, therefore sacrificing the quality of her
speech unconsciously. This could be due to the context, the similarity in
gender could relax her and therefore her excitement could be reflected in the
standard of her lexical ability. This reflects her increasing ability to
recognise the differences between both formal and informal language context. In
comparison, this sort of virtuous error is not made once children become older
and move past the telegraphic stage. 2|B uses low frequency lexis to describe or
emphasise his topic of conversation; “phobia of dogs” and “because it’s
hilarious” which reflects his advanced vocabulary and knowledge of a complex syntactical
sentence structure. His use of the noun ‘phobia’ and adjective ‘hilarious’
shows his use of non-standard English.
Linking
to power, the transcripts reflect my authority in the conversations; this power
status is implied due to me asking the questions, carrying the conversation and
ensuring adjacency pairs are in continual use. I use a positive lexical field
of encouragement words such as “wow” “that’s cool” when talking, as this is a
natural occurrence in adults when in conversation with younger children, known
as downward convergence. In comparison, more conversation specific jargon is
used to each child individually. With the younger female, linking with Deborah
Tannen’s theory (You Just Don’t Understand 1990), the females want cooperation
and community, along with intimacy instead of independence. This is reflected
in the conversation. No interruptions are made, therefore the adjacency pairs
are structured, I also add additional questions such as “did you go swimming”
“you can swim in the deep bit” to ensure conversational flow in the female
cooperation. Similarly, 2|B reflects Tannen’s theory, however by expressing the
need of status and independence within the conversation. By interrupting and
stating “oh wait wait its more I’ve still got...” reflects his need to impose
his status and have a form of control over his turn taking in speech.
In
both transcripts, the personal pronoun “I” is used throughout the conversation,
this is suggesting that they must remind you that it is them they’re talking
about for some form of reassurance. The graph shows this.
Grammar
1|A
makes virtuous errors in their tenses when talking. The girl says “there was
another pool with a little pool and I can get in” where the modal verb ‘can’
should be replaced with the past tense modal verb ‘could’ to correct the tense.
The child shows her ability to create complex sentences with the use of a
pre-modifier adjective ‘little’ before the noun ‘pool’; this portrays traits of
the post-telegraphic stage. The quote “we teached her but she still couldn’t
get in” where I used formulation and repeated “she couldn’t get in” to show
confirmation and positive signs of appraisal. This supports the behaviourist
theorists in CLA, in particular B.F Skinner, who believe that language is
developed through imitating others language and gaining positive and negative
feedback from adults. Using intonation of my voice as well as downward
convergence, both suggest enthusiasm and engagement with the child. In contrast, the 9-10 year old boy seemed to
have a solid understanding of tenses and use of pre-modified nouns, for example
“we went in this little village” straight to “we had a car”, by the boy using
‘went’ to the past participle ‘had’ for the different nouns, this reflects his
ability of using various compound and complex sentences. He uses complex syntax
in his speech to get across all of the information he wants to say. It is a
strong feature for men that they use
complex lexis or jargon to sound more expert within his speech.
Between
the children, the sentence structures were varying from simple to complex
sentences. 1|A is comfortably in the post-telegraphic stage; this is recognised
because of her more compound sentence structures, which should have started to
develop from the age of three. “I got a cat but I haven’t got any brothers or
sisters”, this shows she can combine clause structures by using coordination
conjunctions, using ‘but’ to join together both declarative sentences. The
child is also showing her ability to use negatives, by the contraction
‘haven’t’ being used. In extension to this, 2|B was able to use these
conjunctions in greater depth, “well because first of all” shows his knowledge
of subordination conjunctions and “first of all” is a discourse marker, structuring
his speech in order of how he wants to say things.
Contrasting
between both the male and female gender and their turn taking, it was evident
the female started to show early development of female cooperation, reflecting
the stereotypes of this gender. 2|B spoke less; this could be due to their
approach of language being more direct and to the point. This idea links to the
theorist Deborah Tannen, using the independence vs. intimacy.
When
the female speaks, she repeats the language I use in my interrogative sentences
towards her, this links to the theory of B.F Skinner (1958-1974 Professor of
Psychology at Harvard University), who believes that a child reinforces the
language of the care giver or adult in whom they’re talking to. An example in
my transcript would be “have you got any brothers or sisters” “I got a cat but
I haven’t got any brothers or sisters”, the female is offering an alternative
answer, however repeating my question, using ‘but’ as a conjunction. This is
early signs of female traits as she is avoiding conflict or confrontation.
Interrogative
sentences are used in both transcripts, however once calculated I found that I
used more when talking to the younger girl. This could be linked to two reasons;
one might be due to her age, in conversation I offered more questions to the
younger child as she has a less developed vocabulary, using short utterances in
response rather than a complex sentence, also mainly using high frequency lexis.
I was encouraging her to talk and extend on her basic, simple sentence responses.
This links to the theorist Lakoff (1975), who believes woman use tag questions,
and positive politeness strategies to elongate a conversation. An example “You
like fish, is it the crispy battered fish”, prolonging the conversation. This
could be through cooperation and linking back to Tannen, support vs. status. The
graph below shows the amount of interrogatives used with each child.
The
power can be reflected between the contrasting genders also; in comparing both
transcripts it is clear the female conversation follows a structure of
adjacency pairs along with positive politeness to construct a conversation, “Do
you like swimming” “yeah” “in the house” “yeah outside the door”, this reflects
that the female’s phonological awareness outstrips her grammatical ability. The
way in which this links to power is due to potentially being the same gender,
my power as the teacher in the conversation is recognised by the female, and by
myself being bio-dialectical I was able to alter my language to the content.
The female continues to fill gaps with hedges, fillers and utterances to
maintain the pattern of speech. This female trait is developed from the
theorist Robin Lakoff (1975) who suggested woman use more turn-taking and
adjacency pairs to maintain the flow of conversation. The use of this could be
due to the child expecting to form a relationship with the same gender, or just
building upon the basic awareness of each other.
In
comparison to the female approach in conversation, the male portrays a somewhat
more dominant character. Despite my obvious contrast in age and gender, this is
not apparent in the conversational techniques and lexical choice of the child
2|B. In the transcript, the male speaks for less time than the female; this
could link to the lack of similarities or embarrassment, perhaps of being in a
one-to-one conversation with an older girl. In the text I say “ahh anything
else” which is responded with “uh no that was pretty much it”, by using
influential power within the conversation I am broadening his opportunity to
speak, however maybe because of nerves he refrains himself from expanding on
his speech. When talking to the male, I also use epistemic modality, “oh was it
good nice food”, this is suggesting instead of stating, also by using a double
adjective before the noun, it reflects the features of spontaneous speech and
natural dialect when talking in a conversation face to face.
1|A
shows small signs of Hallidays Function of Speech, particularly the imaginative
function, ‘I chose the nighty so I can dress up of it” suggesting her
socio-dramatic play externally from school. This shows her interest in dressing
up and playing, key to this particular age group. Similarly, she regularly goes
off topic, known as topic shifting where an utterance is used to move the
conversation on, “bout all dis months (2) when I go on holiday sometimes”.
Evaluation
Overall,
I was happy in how well my investigation went. I think I was able to plan well
and this therefore meant I had no difficulties in accessing the children whom I
spoke to. If I was to complete my investigation again, I would use the same
amount of children to interview as this gave me a good range; however I would
ensure to have the equal amount of males and females so that the information
was easily comparable. I would like to have a child of both genders from the
same age group to assess the contrasts in their specific age group. My
investigation had varied focus on both CLA and gender, this could have been
altered so that my essay was not so based around this area of work.
Conclusion
In
conclusion to my investigation I have been able to understand the key
development stages in child language acquisition throughout a child’s years at
primary school.
In
the lexical area of my work, my main findings concluded that I was unconsciously
downward converging towards the children; this meant my language was
simplified. I used regular positive politeness and exclamatory sentence
structure to encourage the conversation with each child and phatic talk to
ensure the children were aware of the informality of the conversation. I found
that the speech of both children significantly increased in capability and
their understanding of language developed as they got older. My research shows
that language became more complex, for example an extended use of
pre-modifiers, pronouns, adverbs, low frequency lexis and abstract nouns.
In
the grammatical specific area of the investigation, it showed that as the child
grew older, their ability to complete complex sentences developed and they were
able to use the tense correctly. The children show stereotypical traits of both
females and males; this is shown through the length of conversation, the amount
of tag questions used, adjacency pairs and formulation. There was an
unconscious cooperation between myself and the female child, and her language
portrayed that her lexical ability outstrips her phonological awareness. There
were more virtuous errors within the younger child’s speech; her constant confusion
of what she wanted to say meant my language altered to assist her. This was
common with the older child as well, showing that my speech is able to
alternate dependant on whom I am talking to.
§ Wick C of E
Primary School
§ AQA English
language B textbook, Nelson Thornes A2
§ ‘You Just
Don’t Understand’ – Deborah Tannen (book) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Just_Don't_Understand
WORD COUNT:
2819
all together
2656
without quotes
2618
without quotes or bibliography
