We can see Zach’s development
from telegraphic ‘look (.)/blown away’ to post telegraphic ‘please can you pick
it up?’ showing improved ability to sustain a conversation. His language is
very developed at both ages although there are occasions where he uses what Naom
Chomsky calls ‘overgeneralisation’. For example Zach says ‘bolognay’ rather
than ‘bolognaise’ which could be an example of him over applying the rule for
making nouns plural, which in this case is an example of non-standard English.
Chomsky also believes that children are born with an innate ability to learn
any language, although this theory is widely criticised for ignoring the importance of interaction,
for example, Zach would not have known the correct term ‘bolognese’ without communication
between him and his mother.
Looking at the transcripts we can see that Zach
shows general understanding of the structure of a conversation. Despite occasionally
needing prompts to expand on his simple utterances he does not interrupt speaker
H. He shows comprehension of turn taking and adjacency pairs, for instance when
speaker H uses the interrogative ‘what have you eaten today?’ and Zach replies ‘bananas’.
In the second
transcript Zach seems as if he is the dominant speaker, supporting most
theories concerning language and gender, such as Zimmerman and West’s dominance
theory. He is seen to set the agenda in both conversations and even uses
back-channelling ‘We don’t need breakfast (.) it’s gonna take a little time
now…’ to divert the conversation back to robots. Alternatively it could be
argued that this specific example actually contradicts Zach’s dominance within
this conversation with his use of a cloaked imperative. Tannen says that is in
fact women who use cloaked imperatives and this suggests deficiency in speech.
Although with lack of context this is clearly a command and is likely to
influence speaker H’s behavior, I would say it is an example of
representational speech rather than regulatory speech purely because of the use
of a cloaked imperative.
It is evident from both transcripts that there
are various efforts made by speaker H to aid the child’s language development.
On various occasions speaker H, the mother, models the standard form of the
word after the child has used the incorrect form. For example, again Z says
‘bolognay’ and the mother repeats back ‘bolognaise’ and the pronunciation of ‘through’ as ‘frough’ is corrected in order to
help the child’s learning. We can relate this to Deb Roy’s well renowned theory
that parents adapt their language to be more simplistic around children,
allowing them to understand and learn. Speaker H uses very straightforward
utterances with few words, and is often seen echoing words that Z has
previously used to reinforce them.
Numerous prompts are used throughout both essays to encourage the child
to talk and elaborate on what he is saying for example ‘’Z: What are you
drawing (.) Zach?” The use of the direct address ‘Zach’ also identifies that
the utterance is directed at him and therefore making him more likely to
answer.
