Chapter (7), part (2)

 Intentions in words. First words fulfill the intentions previously expressed through gestures and vocalization. Very different verbal forms may develop to express each intention. Specific words or vocalization are used with each intention.

 Six pragmatic categories describe the general purposes of language: 1- control 2- representational 3- expressive 4- social 5- tutorial 6- procedural Check Table 7.2, page 196

1. Control : Make demands,request, protests, and to direct others. e.g. Cookie + reach No + push away something

2. Representational Discuss entities and events, and ask for information e.g. Eat (commenting on a dog barking) Wassat? + point

3. Expressive Accompany play, exclaim or express feelings and attitudes. They are not necessarily directed to an audience. e.g. - Squeal when they are picked up - “Tired”

4. Social Greetings, farewells and talk routines. e.g. - Hi/ bye-bye 5. Tutorial Practice language forms e.g. Cookie, cookie

6. Procedural Maintain communication by directing attention, requesting additional or misinterpreted information e.g. (Mommy ) <<<Calling

 As the child matures, the frequency of different intentions changes. 15 months old>>> 75% of the utterances are representational, expressive, procedural. Naming and calling predominate. 21 months old >>> control function increases rapidly and expressive function is reduced. Social and tutorial functions occur infrequently.

 Lexicon is the mental dictionary.  The toddlers’ lexicon may contain the common words in his/her environment. It usually includes name animals, toys, and food. (Check Table 7.3, page 198)

 Most these words contain one or two syllables. The syllabic structure consists of VC (e.g. up), CV (e.g. car /t /), CVCV (e.g. doggie /ddi/), reduplicated CVCV (e.g. mama).  Front consonants such as /p,b,t,d,m,w,n/ and back consonants such as /g,k/ and /h/ predominate.  No consonant clusters such as /st, sl, str/ appear because they are difficult to produce.

 Initial lexical acquisition is slow. WHY? - Some words are lost as the child changes his interest. - A child may continue to use a large number of vocalizations that are consistent but fail to meet the ‘word’ criterion.

At 18 months old, the child is able to learn a word after three exposures only. Second half of the second year is one with tremendous vocabulary expansion. Their lexicon consists of about 50 words months old, toddlers experience ‘vocabulary spurt’. Vocabulary spurt is an increase in the number of words produced by toddlers around the age

 Reasons for the timing are not known but it might be related to ; - growth in the cognitive abilities. - development of control over articulatory movement. - role of syntactic patterns. [ parents usually use ‘This is X” or ‘Show me X’] So they can pick up larger quantities of words this way.

Grammatical function Child (1)Child (2)Examples Nominal General Specific Milk, car Mama, names Action words1914Give, do, up Modifiers109Mine, no, dirty Personal-social109No, please Functional04This, for

 Nouns constitutes arounf60-65% of the words a child produces.  This percentages change with development. (There is an increase in the noun acquisition till they reach 100 words, and then acquisition of verbs slowly increases.)

1) Toddlers may already have a concept of objects within her/his knowledge. They spent most their early social interaction around objects and exploring objects.

2) Nouns are perceptually/conceptually distinct. Things that nouns represent are more perceptually cohesive than actions or events. So the toddler can determine the reference easily.

3) The linguistic predictability of nouns makes them easier to use. Nouns represent specific items and as a result relate to each others in a predictable way. For example, Some objects can be in or on other objects, some objects can be eaten by some other reference.

4) The frequency of adult use, adult word order, and adult teaching patterns. Learning will be easier when adults label objects in the context.

Although the frequency of the noun appearance in adult-to-adult speech is low, nouns occur more frequently in adult-to- child speech. The amount of nouns in adult-to-child speech varies with the context and the child developmental level. Nouns are more frequent in toy play and short maternal utterances whereas verbs are more frequent in non-toy or social play in conversation.