Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-jbqgn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-07T08:04:34.287Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Patterns of language learning-related behaviours: evidence for self-help in acquiring grammar*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Marilyn Shatz  and
Karen Ebeling
Marilyn Shatz*
Affiliation:
University of Michigan
Karen Ebeling
Affiliation:
Wayne State University
*
the University of Michigan, 330 Packard Road, Ann Arbor, M1 48104, USA.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Four kinds of language learning-related behaviours (LLRBs) were examined in the home conversations of six English children studied for six months from age 2;0 to 2;6. The speech of the children was coded for the number of times they participated in language lessons, language practice, metalanguage and revisions of prior language. All the children were active and frequent producers of LLRBs, with revisions being observed most commonly. Further analysis revealed that the majority of the revisions that the children initiated involved grammatical changes, with the revised utterances tending to be more grammatical than their predecessors. An auditory monitor is proposed as a partial explanation for revision behaviour, and is evaluated relative to other possible accounts of the findings.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 18 , Issue 2 , June 1991 , pp. 295 - 313
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

Acknowledgements: the data on which this paper is based were collected by Penny Munn and Judy Dunn under the aegis of the Medical Research Council Unit on the Development and Integration of Behaviour, Cambridge, England. We are grateful to them for making the data available for our use. We thank Sharon Wilcox for assistance with statistical analyses and J. E. K. Smith for statistical advice. Portions of our work were presented at the Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Baltimore, MD, in April 1987, and at the 4th International Congress of the International Association for the Study of Child Language, Lund, Sweden, in August 1987. The work was supported by a grant from the Office of the Vice-President for Research, University of Michigan.

References

REFERENCES

Black, R. W. (1979). Crib talk and mother-child interaction: a comparison of form and function. Papers and Reports on Child Language Development 17, 90–7.Google Scholar
Bloom, L. (1970). Language development: form and function in emerging grammars. Boston: M.I.T. Press.Google Scholar
Bowerman, M. (1973). Early syntactic development: a cross-linguistic study with special reference to Finnish. Cambridge: C.U.P.Google Scholar
Braine, M. D. (1971 a). On two types of models of the internalization of grammars. In Slobin, D. I. (ed.), The ontogenesis of grammar. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Braine, M. D. (1971 b). The acquisition of language in infant and child. In Reed, C. (ed.). The learning of language. New York: Appleton.Google Scholar
Braine, M. D. (1974). Length constraints, reduction rules, and holophrastic processes in children's word combinations. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 13, 448–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, R. & Bellugi, U. (1964). Three processes in the child's acquisition of syntax. Harvard Educational Review 34, 133–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, R. & Hanlon, C. (1970). Derivational complexity and order of acquisition of child speech. In Hayes, J. R. (ed.), Cognition and the development of language. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Cazden, C. B. (1976). Play with language and metalinguistic awareness: one dimension of language experience. In Bruner, J., Jolly, A. & Sylva, K. (eds), Play – its role in development and evolution. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Clark, E. V. (1978). Awareness of language: some evidence from what children say and do. In Sinclair, A., Jarvella, R. J. & Levelt, W. J. M. (eds), The child's conception of language. New York: Springer-Verlag.Google Scholar
Clark, E. V. (1982). Language change during language acquisition. In Lamb, M. E. & Brown, A. L. (eds), Advances in developmental psychology, Vol. 2. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Clark, E. V. & Andersen, E. (1979). Spontaneous repairs: awareness in the process of acquiring language. Papers and Reports on Child Language Development 16, 1–12.Google Scholar
Craig, H. K. & Gallagher, T. M. (1979). The structural characteristics of monologues in the speech of normal children: syntactic nonconversational aspects. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research 22, 46–62.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
de Villiers, P. A. & de Villiers, J. G. (1972). Early judgments of semantic and syntactic acceptability by children. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 1, 299–310.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
de Villiers, J. G. & de Villiers, P. A. (1974). Competence and performance in child language: are children really competent to judge? Journal of Child Language 1, 11–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dixon, W. J. (ed.) (1988). BMDP Statistical Software Manual, Vol. 2. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Dunn, J. & Shatz, M. (1989). Becoming a conversationalist despite (or because of) having an older sibling. Child Development 60, 399–410.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feinberg, S. E. (1987). The analysis of cross-classified categorical data. Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press.Google Scholar
Garvey, C. (1977 a). Play. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Garvey, C. (1977 b). Play with language and speech. In Ervin-Tripp, S. & Mitchel-Kernan, R. (eds), Child discourse. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Gleitman, L. R., Gleitman, H. & Shipley, E. (1972). The emergence of the child as grammarian. Cognition 1, 137–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hyams, N. (1987). The setting of the null subject parameter. Paper presented at the Boston University Conference on Child Language Development.Google Scholar
Jespersen, O. (1922). Language: its nature, development, and origin. London: Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Karmiloff-Smith, A. (1983). Language development as a problem-solving process. Papers and Reports on Child Language Development 22, 1–22.Google Scholar
Kuczaj, S. A. II (1982). Language play and language acquisition. In Reese, H. W. (ed.), Advances in child development and behavior, Vol. 17. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Kuczaj, S. A. II (1983). Crib speech and language play. New York: Springer-Verlag.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacWhinney, B. (1987). The competition model. In MacWhinney, B. (ed.), Mechanisms of language acquisition. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Markman, E. M. (1981). Comprehension monitoring. In Dickson, W. P. (ed.), Children's oral communication skills. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
McTear, M. (1985). Children's conversation. New York: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Miller, G. A. (1962). Introduction. In Weir, R. H., Language in the crib. The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar
Morgan, J. L. & Travis, L. L. (1989). Limits on negative information in language input. Journal of Child Language 16, 531–52.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
O'Grady, W., Peters, A. M. & Masterson, D. (1989). The transition from optional to required subjects. Journal of Child Language 16, 513–29.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Platt, C. B. & MacWhinney, B. (1983). Error assimilation as a mechanism in language learning. Journal of Child Language 10, 401–14.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Registrar General (1971). Great Britain Summary Tables (1% sample). London: HMSO.Google Scholar
Rumelhart, D. & McClelland, J. (1987). Learning the past tenses of English verbs: implicit rules or parallel distributed processing. In MacWhinney, B. (ed.), Mechanisms of language acquisition. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Shatz, M. (1982). On mechanisms of language acquisition: can features of the communicative environment account for development? In Wanner, E. & Gleitman, L. R. (eds), Language acquisition. Cambridge: C.U.P.Google Scholar
Shatz, M. (1983). Communication. In Flavell, J. & Markman, E. M. (eds), Cognitive development. (Mussen, P. (gen. ed.) Handbook of child psychology. Fourth edition.) New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Shatz, M. (1987). Bootstrapping operations in child language. In Nelson, K. E. & van Kleeck, A. (eds), Children's language, Vol. 6. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Shatz, M. & O'Reilly, A. (1990). Conversational or communicative skill? A reassessment of two-year-olds' behaviour in miscommunication episodes. Journal of Child Language 17, 131–46.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Slobin, D. I. (1978). A case study of early language awareness. In Sinclair, A., Jarvella, R. & Levelt, W. J. M. (eds), The child's conception of language. New York: Springer-Verlag.Google Scholar
Smith, C. D. & Tager-Flusberg, H. (1982). Metalinguistic awareness and language development. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 34, 449–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
SPSS (1988). SPSS-X user's guide. Chicago: SPSS, Inc.Google Scholar
Weir, R. H. (1962). Language in the crib. The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar
Wickens, T. D. (1989). Multiway contingency table analysis for the social sciences. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar