Child Language Acquisition

This assignment required observation of children under the age of 5 in order to learn how children use language. Our book says, “The predominant theory assumes that part of our ability to acquire language is innate and that children learn language by ‘inventing’ the rules specific to their language.” (Language Files 310) These are my findings.


The Setting

I observed three children in my church’s nursery program in Mt. Holly, NJ. All of the children present were three years old. All the utterances the children made were written down on paper and were spoken to the other children and the teachers.

My Observations

One of the children in the class was partially bilingual. He knows some Korean and English so often when he spoke it was a mixture of the two. The three children overall did not do a whole lot of talking. But this does not mean they were not active. Two of the children were boys and neither of them sat very still during story time. They both got up to walk around the room. In response to a question one of the boys held up two fingers. During story time there was music played and when it was turned up to loud the children covered their ears with their hands. The one girl sat very still and was very introverted. She interacted with the teachers mostly by shaking her head yes or no or by waving. During snack time, one of the boys was playing with his teddy grahams and making them talk to each other. His conversation between the teddy grahams was not full words or English, I could not understand what he was saying so it was either Korean or random utterances. During snack time, the other boy was humming while he was eating. The girl was very quiet and ate her snack without much noise.

The following words were recorded:

Nouns
orange, momma, dadda, raspberries, bee, grandmum, teddy grahams, jacket

Adjectives
lavender, all

Pronouns
Personal: I, you,
Third person singular: it
Demonstrative: that

Verbs
Auxiliary: do, can
Linking/Be: is, look
Transitive: got, done, call, help, knew, eat, tank (thank)

Interrogatives
where, what

Exclamation
yeah, ga (yes), no, mm-mm (no), ba! (ha), umm umm (for attention)

While I was observing I did not hear the children use adverbs, prepositions, or conjunctions.

Children’s Grammar based on my observations
3 year olds
I d’know - used instead of I don’t know.
Tank you - instead of Thank you. Perhaps the TH sound is too difficult to pronounce
Eat it - does not put a subject, uses imperative form
where jacket? - leaves out the verb
I got that - talking about one of the toys in the classroom
I knew it - in response to something the teacher said
What is that - interrogative
All done - statement used when the child was finished with his snack
Where? - one word question
Call grandmum - in response to a question, again subject is deleted
Can you help? - this was spoken by the girl, when she talked she could formulate a grammatically correct sentences

The children did not speak enough for me to understand how they pluralize and tense words but the words they did speak were singular and present tense.

Conclusion

For my study I think I had a group of children who were not yet confident to use their words in a public situation. I could tell that they understood what was going on around them and the children responded to questions or activities even if it was not always by using words. To really understand child language acquisition would take months of study and observation.

Works Cited

Language Files. 10th ed. Columbus: Ohio State University, 2007. 1-700. Print.