Child
Directed Speech (CDS)
Researchers of CDS:
Clarke Stewart: Found that
children whose mothers talks more have larger vocabularies.
Katherine Nelson: Found that
children in the holophrastic stage whose mothers have corrected them on word
choice actually develop more slowly than those with mothers who were more
accepting.
Berko and Brown: ‘Fis’ and ‘Fish’
phenomenon, this found that children do not hear themselves in the same way
that they hear others.
Features:
Phonology
• Separate phrases more distinctly, leaving longer pauses
between them.
• Speak more s-l-o-w-l-y.
• Use exaggerated
‘singsong’ intonation, which helps to emphasise key words. Also to exaggerate the difference between
questions, statements and commands.
• Use a higher and wider pitch range.
Lexis and semantics
• Use of concrete nouns (cat, train) and dynamic verbs
(give, put).
• Adopt child’s own words for things (doggie, wickle
babbit).
• Frequent use of child’s name and an absence of pronouns.
Grammar
• Simpler constructions
• Frequent use of imperatives
• High degree of repetition
• Use of personal names instead of pronouns (e.g. ‘Mummy’
not ‘I’)
• Fewer verbs, modifiers and adjectives
Large number of one-word
utterances
• Deixis used to point child’s attention to objects or
people
• Repeated sentence frames eg. “that’s a ……”
• Use more simple sentences and fewer complex and passives.
• Omission of past tenses, inflections (plurals and
possessives).
• Use more commands, questions and tag questions.
• Use of expansions – where the adult fills out the child’s
utterance.
• Use of re-casting – where the child’s vocabulary is put
into a new utterance.
Pragmatics
• Lots of gesture and warm body language.
• Fewer utterances per turn – stopping frequently for child
to respond.
• Supportive language (expansions and re-castings).
Bibliography:
http://revisionworld.com/a2-level-level-revision/english-language/child-language-acquisition/child-directed-speechhttp://revisionworld.com/a2-level-level-revision/english-language/child-language-acquisition/phonological-development
Children’s language
features
Phonological development
Simplifying
language:
Deletion:
Children
will often simplify pronunciation by deleting certain sounds:
•
Final consonants maybe dropped eg) the ‘t’ sound in ‘hat’ and ‘cat’
•
Unstressed syllables are often deleted eg) ‘banana’ becomes ‘nana’
•
Consonant clusters are reduced eg) ‘snake’ becomes ‘nake’ , ‘sleep’ becomes
‘seep’
Substitution:
Another
form of simplification involves substituting harder sounds with easier ones.
• R
(as in rock or story) becomes w
•
Th (as in there, that or thumb) becomes d, n or f
• T
(as in toe) becomes d
• P
(as in pig) becomes b
