Introduction
For my English Language A2 coursework project, I have chosen
to focus on the use of Child Directed speech (CDS) as used during interactions
over 6 weeks between a mother and her baby. I was interested in whether the
theories of Child Language Acquisition put forward by theorists such as Chomsky
, Piaget and Bruner were supported.
Methodology:
Methodology used was:
·
A baby who was 3 months and turned 4 months as
it ended
·
Analysis was done once a week for 6 weeks in the
early evenings around the same time every week.
·
Done on a play gym to make it the same situation
each time, with no distractions as I wanted to make my investigation as
comparable as possible.
·
Based on a page and half of the mother talking
to the baby. Later turned into a transcript to make my investigation more
reliable as it was difficult to transcribe the child as he was only 3-4 months.
To overcome this problem I used phonetic transcription for the mother’s accent
and any non-standard English.
·
For this investigation I had intended originally
to record the mother and child for a certain amount of time however there was
use of silent play. I then decided to record a page and a half rather than half
an hour.
·
Issue of my methodology was the way I collected
the data as there would be a possibility of my data being subjective and
personal opinion which may affect the outcome. In order to overcome this
difficulty I will talk about the length of the baby’s responses and make sure the transcription is very
detailed in terms of sounds and letters heard by using phonetic transcription
for example , ‘’ga’’[] ‘’ba’’[] ‘’lala[’’] ‘’nann[a’.] .
·
Recorded the times the baby cried and the noises
he made to make the language investigation more efficient and the effect of the
use of child directed speech from the mother towards the child.
·
Data was appropriate as I have done sample data
previously on a 3 year old child with their mother from YouTube. This was
appropriate as there was use of child directed speech and showed a transcript
was a good method as it is easy and a clear way to see what is there word for
word.
Ethicality
·
Mother
gave her permission to let me do this investigation only giving her partial
consent
·
Letter explaining what it was I would be doing
·
The words
‘I give permission to allow Ramal to do his investigation based on recording
myself and my son confidentially’.
·
The mother was only able to give her partial
consent as she was not aware I was investigating CDS, because if she changed
her behaviour this could have jeopardised this investigation.
·
All names have been changed and it states ‘a’
for the adult talking and ‘c’ for the child responding or crying for example.
This is also keeping them out of danger.
Hypothesis
·
The coursework was focusing on the use of Child
Directed speech (CDS) as used during interactions over 7 weeks between a mother
and her baby. I was interested in whether the theories of Child Language
Acquisition put forward by theorists such as Chomsky , Piaget and Bruner were
supported.
·
Am looking for CDS to see whether the mother language
gets a longer responds from the baby during the 6 weeks.
·
To investigate my hypothesis I will collect the
data from the middle of each transcript to make it more reliable.
·
I found
out the use of tag questions and positive face and the use of power significant
in the way she talked to the child
·
Looking back to my ingetstion I found it
interesting the type of language that was used towards the child.
Example transcript:
A: somewhere over (3) the rain (.) (8) Brow up where high there’s
a dream that can be may come true
‘laughing’ (5) I forgotten the words Sam (2) what we going to do with
mummy? (.) aa (2) Maybe I’ll sing it
tomorrow sometime when I remember the words ‘laughing’ (.)
Voiced
pause, ‘aa’ – Mother is thinking what to say next
-Maybe I’ll
sing it tomorrow
Lexis-
All of the text is informal and so say ‘baby-talk’
