Transcript of a 2 years 8 month old
E= Ellie B=
Bailey (the child) L= Lauren (Bailey’s
mum) *“Udge”= Smudge (Bailey’s pet
dog)
B: Ye (.) be geen one (.) I be this wu-wun
E: Okay (.) I’ll be the green
L: Now you’ve got to read it by saying all the pictures
E: Okay (.) now what’s that one?
B: Chick (.) Ken (2) da dog
L: What’s that one?
B: I on’t know (.) dog
E: (laughs) dog
B: Tame as *Udge
L: Yeah (.) same as *Smudge
L&E: (Laughs) (2)
E: And (.) what’s that one?
B: Jraff
E: Giraffe
B: That’s (3) a (2) uh (.) ‘orses
E: Horses
B: Er rat’s (that’s) duck
E: Duck
B: ‘ook all ese
E: Yeah look at all of that
B: Duck
E: Another duck (.) what’s the next one (6)
B: I on’t (.) know
L: Ga (.) go (1)
L: Sealion
B: Sea line (5) rock
L: Pardon?
B: Rock (2)
L: Leopard
B: Lepa (.) urd rock
L: A rock?
L&E: (laughs)
L: It’s a rhino
B: Ri (.) yo (5) pig
E: Good (.) a pig
B: Uh dog
L: Baby sheep
B: Bay (.) Bee sheep
L: It’s called a lamb
B: Yeah (inaudible for 3 seconds) uh (.) tow
L: Yep (5)
B: Uh (.) dis?
L: Deer
B: Deer (2) uh
L: Raccoon
B: Wak (.) oon (4) a raddit (.) polar bear
L: Not a polar bear (.) a pa
B: Panda
E: |Panda|
L: |Good| boy
Analyse:
The child's language shows a of multiple non-standard language examples. My first example of non-standard English that I find interesting is "raddit"- he replaces the 'b's' with 'd's' which is odd. It's almost like he didn't know how to say it or add all the letters together to make the word. I find this interesting because he can pronounce the letter in other words like the 'b' in polar bear and in the word 'be'. However these last two examples use the 'b' at the start of the word.
Another example would be this:
"L: Sealion
B: Sea line"He can't pronounce the sound that the "io" makes. I find this unexpected as he can pronounce the "or" in horses.
Through out the transcript there's grammatically correct words and sentences and incorrect. I think that it could either be because he's never been correct or that he has learned it from the people around him, which could support Skinner's idea of the environment being where we learn our language from.
Another example from the text that I find interesting is the language and response of the carer. For example, at the end when 'L' says: "Good boy". That compliment will tell him that what he just said is correct. Although the context is them reading a book and spotting the animals, he's copied her telling him what animal it is. So, in the future this could lead to him using the word correctly. I'm considering doing about that the carer for my coursework.
Ooh interesting. Perhaps "raddit" is an example of what I was talking about the other day: assimilation. B and d are almost identical except for the tongue placement - you need to put your tongue against your teeth for d (it's called a 'dental' phoneme) and t is also dental, so the t may be influencing b to become d because of the proximity of the other dental phoneme. Particular combinations of sounds are also difficult to articulate. Famously so are consonant clusters, which are often simplified through deletion e.g. scream becomes sceam. Maybe the vowel cluster, because it is not a dipthong (the vowels are in two separate syllables: li-on) is tricky or, perhaps more likely, it is because the second vowel sound is not emphasised that it gets deleted.
ReplyDeleteTry not to use 'incorrect', 'wrong', 'error' etc - try to say interesting non-standard uses.
Don't forget to anonymise data for ethical reasons - remove or change the names (edit the post and remember this for coursework).
Great start.