Eduqas English Language A-Level: Child Language
Acquisition
What is Child Language Acquisition?
Child language acquisition (CLA) is the natural process by which children
develop the ability to understand and produce language in the early stages of
life. It happens in predictable stages; however, the pace and path may vary
depending on individual social and cultural factors.
It also involves the development of communicative competence which is a
child's ability to not only produce language but to use it appropriately in real
social contexts and be able to navigate the social expectations and purposes of
language. This suggests that language is not simply about grammar but function
and supports attitudes towards CLA that value the influence of interaction,
purpose and context when learning a language.
What is Child-Directed Speech?
Child-directed speech is the specialised, exaggerated, melodic way that adults
often modify their speech when talking to infants and young children to hold
their attention and foster easier understanding, helping them to acquire
language and develop their communicative competence. Features of child-
directed speech include:
Informal register
Topic management
Adjacency pairs
Short, simple sentences
High proportion of interrogatives to initiate turn-taking
High proportion of imperatives
Initiation-response-feedback
Simple grammatical structures and syntax
Subject-verb-object sentence structure
Diminutives
Proper nouns
Repetition
Phonological variation
Linking theorists include Bruner and Skinner.
What are Halliday’s Functions?
Michael Halliday argued that children learn language because it serves functions
in their lives and identified functions that describe the purposes children use
language for during early stages of development to explain what they are trying
to do with language. These seven functions include:
1) Instrumental - language to satisfy needs
, 2) Regulatory - controlling others' behaviour through persuasion or
direction
3) Interactional - creating social interactions
4) Personal - emphasis on identity, feelings, or opinions
5) Heuristic - learning about the world and asking questions
6) Imaginative - creative play
7) Representational - giving information (children may give information
they know even if it is not correct)
What is Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs?
Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory organises human motivation into
five main categories, suggesting that these are the fundamental needs that we
aim to satisfy in life before developing more complex needs for psychological
growth. These five needs include:
1) Physiological - Essentials for survival form the first of our needs (e.g. we
don’t want to be hungry, thirsty, exhausted, freezing, overheating, sick, or
in pain).
2) Safety - We want to feel safe and confident that we can avoid pain,
hunger and other dangers to the immediate future.
3) Social - If we feel safe, then our social needs for love and belonging
emerge. We feel safe when we have people we can trust and are not
worried about rejection.
4) Self-esteem - Once we’re secure in our social needs, our primal desires
for status and self-esteem are introduced, as we want to feel not only
included but admired and respected.
5) Self-actualisation - Once our core needs are met, we can pursue our
deepest desire, which is to become the most complete and authentic
version of ourselves. With our basic needs taken care of, we are free to act
as we choose in a way that is aligned with our values and purpose.
What are the Early Stages of Child Language Acquisition?
Stage Age Ability
Pre-birth Before birth There is evidence to suggest that children
start acquiring language skills before they
are born. It has been found that in the
womb, babies can become familiar with the
sounds, rhythms, and intonations of
language by recognising the mother’s voice.
DeCasper and Spence’s 1986 study found
that babies sucked on their dummies more
when their mother’s read them a story they
had heard during the final 6 weeks of
pregnancy, suggesting that it was the
rhythm of language that was familiar and
soothing to the baby, rather than just the
Acquisition
What is Child Language Acquisition?
Child language acquisition (CLA) is the natural process by which children
develop the ability to understand and produce language in the early stages of
life. It happens in predictable stages; however, the pace and path may vary
depending on individual social and cultural factors.
It also involves the development of communicative competence which is a
child's ability to not only produce language but to use it appropriately in real
social contexts and be able to navigate the social expectations and purposes of
language. This suggests that language is not simply about grammar but function
and supports attitudes towards CLA that value the influence of interaction,
purpose and context when learning a language.
What is Child-Directed Speech?
Child-directed speech is the specialised, exaggerated, melodic way that adults
often modify their speech when talking to infants and young children to hold
their attention and foster easier understanding, helping them to acquire
language and develop their communicative competence. Features of child-
directed speech include:
Informal register
Topic management
Adjacency pairs
Short, simple sentences
High proportion of interrogatives to initiate turn-taking
High proportion of imperatives
Initiation-response-feedback
Simple grammatical structures and syntax
Subject-verb-object sentence structure
Diminutives
Proper nouns
Repetition
Phonological variation
Linking theorists include Bruner and Skinner.
What are Halliday’s Functions?
Michael Halliday argued that children learn language because it serves functions
in their lives and identified functions that describe the purposes children use
language for during early stages of development to explain what they are trying
to do with language. These seven functions include:
1) Instrumental - language to satisfy needs
, 2) Regulatory - controlling others' behaviour through persuasion or
direction
3) Interactional - creating social interactions
4) Personal - emphasis on identity, feelings, or opinions
5) Heuristic - learning about the world and asking questions
6) Imaginative - creative play
7) Representational - giving information (children may give information
they know even if it is not correct)
What is Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs?
Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory organises human motivation into
five main categories, suggesting that these are the fundamental needs that we
aim to satisfy in life before developing more complex needs for psychological
growth. These five needs include:
1) Physiological - Essentials for survival form the first of our needs (e.g. we
don’t want to be hungry, thirsty, exhausted, freezing, overheating, sick, or
in pain).
2) Safety - We want to feel safe and confident that we can avoid pain,
hunger and other dangers to the immediate future.
3) Social - If we feel safe, then our social needs for love and belonging
emerge. We feel safe when we have people we can trust and are not
worried about rejection.
4) Self-esteem - Once we’re secure in our social needs, our primal desires
for status and self-esteem are introduced, as we want to feel not only
included but admired and respected.
5) Self-actualisation - Once our core needs are met, we can pursue our
deepest desire, which is to become the most complete and authentic
version of ourselves. With our basic needs taken care of, we are free to act
as we choose in a way that is aligned with our values and purpose.
What are the Early Stages of Child Language Acquisition?
Stage Age Ability
Pre-birth Before birth There is evidence to suggest that children
start acquiring language skills before they
are born. It has been found that in the
womb, babies can become familiar with the
sounds, rhythms, and intonations of
language by recognising the mother’s voice.
DeCasper and Spence’s 1986 study found
that babies sucked on their dummies more
when their mother’s read them a story they
had heard during the final 6 weeks of
pregnancy, suggesting that it was the
rhythm of language that was familiar and
soothing to the baby, rather than just the
