This class is devoted mainly to a case study, in which I [GS] show you four data sets from the speech of one child, "Debby", at 17 months, 18 months, 21 months, and 24 months. In class, we discussed how these relate to some of Crystal's observations about child language acquisition.
Over this coming weekend, I will post to the net some amplified comments on this data. For now, I'll supply links to the four data sets:
Debby III; and
The assignment for this week depends on your doing some analysis of this data, and relating it to Crystal's discussion of various points. For reading, you are responsible for Crystal's 38 - 42 (pp. 230-247). You can skip sections 43 and 44.
(put in the L001 box on the counter in Williams 619)
1. Not all of Debby's transcribed speech gives you the phonetics of the various words, but there is enough for you to discover whether Debby's phonetics corresponds to Crystal's description of typical toddler phonology. Using only those words where the transcription gives you a clue to the actual pronunciation, assess the extent to which Debby's phonology follows Crystal's summary of trends on p.242.
2. Choose one (1) of the following features of grammar to track in Debby's
speech across the four periods (some of these will be possible only in Debby II
- IV).
(a) the use of articles
(b) the use of tense
(c) questions
(d) negation
(e) anything else you can get my approval to do by emailing me at:
gillian@central.cis.upenn.edu.
To do this, you should try to figure out all the cases where the adult grammar
would have required, e.g., a past tense, and see what Debby does with this
particular environment. Your object is to describe the changes in her grammar
over the 6-month period, with respect to the feature you have chosen.
3. Compare Debby's first words to the two set of "first 50" words Crystal provides on p.246. How comparable are the three children? (You should categorize the words in some way -- not necessarily according to the categories I set up in "Debby I" -- in doing this comparison).