two chapter two Commuicatio Across the Life Spa Roald B. Gillam, Lisa M. Bedore, ad Barbara L. Davis Learig Objectives 1. To lear about the major processes i commuicatio. 2. To kow the defiitio of laguage. 3. To uderstad the processes ad systems that uderlie speech ad laguage developmet. 4. To differetiate betwee laguage form, cotet, ad use. 5. To lear about importat chages i laguage developmet that occur durig four major periods of developmet: ifacy, the preschool years, the school-age years, ad adulthood. 27
28 C hapter 2 C ommuicatio A cross the L ife S pa This is a book about commuicatio ad the ways that it ca be disrupted. Commuicatio is ay exchage of meaig betwee a seder ad a receiver. This seemigly simple exchage is importat because it is the primary meas by which humas share their thoughts ad feeligs, express their idetity, build relatioships, pass o traditios, coduct busiess, teach, ad lear. Some commuicatio is itetioal, as whe you tell your fried about your course schedule. Some commuicatio is uitetioal, as whe your fried iterprets your facial expressios or your body laguage that idicate how you are feelig. Sometimes, a message that you ited to be uderstood i oe way is actually uderstood differetly. Such miscommuicatio ca have egative cosequeces, such as whe a fried takes a offhad commet or a e-mail message as a persoal isult eve though you did ot ited it i that way. Most of the time, meaig is exchaged via a code, called laguage. Laguage is best defied as a stadardized set of symbols ad the kowledge about how to combie those symbols ito words, seteces, ad texts to covey ideas ad feeligs. Let s cosider the parts of that defiitio more carefully. Laguage is composed of a set of symbols. This meas that oe thig (a combiatio of souds, letters, or had movemets) represets or stads for somethig else (ideas, feeligs, or objects). Groups of souds, prited letters, or had movemets (as i the case of America Sig Laguage) do ot have very much itrisic meaig i ad of themselves. For example, all speakers of Eglish agree that the group of souds, t r ee, spoke i successio, represets a tall object with a truk ad leaves. We may ot all have exactly the same type of tree i our mids whe we hear the three souds t r ee, but early all speakers of Eglish share the same geeral cocept. This is because laguage is stadardized. The speakers of ay particular laguage share reasoably similar meaigs for certai groups of souds, letters, or had movemets. Laguages eed more tha just words. May of our thoughts are so complex that we caot express them adequately with sigle words; groups of words are eeded. Aother importat aspect of laguage is the covetios for groupig words together. For there to be meaigful commuicatio, speakers eed to agree ot oly o word meaigs, but also o meaigs that are iheret i word order. For example, if I said, Mary helped Billy. We would all agree that Mary was the helper ad Billy was the perso who was helped. That is t the same thig as, Billy helped Mary eve though Box 2-1 CD-ROM Summary The CD-ROM that accompaies this book cotais a folder amed Chapter 02. Three movies are i this folder. The first movie (Ch.02.01) shows childre of various ages tellig a story. We refer to various segmets of this movie to demostrate chages i laguage developmet over time. The secod ad third movies (Ch.02.02 ad Ch.02.03) show a 2-year-old boy playig with a graduate studet i speech-laguage pathology. These segmets illustrate preverbal ad early verbal commuicatio.
The Process of Laguage Productio ad Comprehesio 29 the words themselves did ot chage. Our kowledge of the word-order covetios of our laguage makes it possible for us to use word sequeces to express precise ideas about our eviromet. The Process of Laguage Productio ad Comprehesio Figure 2-1 depicts the primary processes that are ivolved i spoke laguage. I laguage productio, seders ecode their thoughts ito some form of a laguage code. This code is usually spoke or writte, but it ca also be siged. I speech, which is the most commo meas of expressig laguage, the souds, words, ad seteces that express the speaker s thoughts are formed by sedig commads to the muscles resposible for respiratio (primarily the diaphragm), phoatio (primarily the laryx), ad articulatio (primarily the togue, lips, ad jaw). Sequeces of spoke souds leave the oral cavity i the form of soud waves. I listeig ad comprehesio, the soud waves eter the receiver s ear, where they are tured ito electrical impulses. These impulses are carried to the brai, where they are recogized as speech ad the decoded ito words ad seteces. Listeers iterpret the words ad seteces based o their uderstadig of the meaig of the words i relatioship to the other words that were spoke ad the speakig cotext. Thoughts ad feeligs Seder Receiver Ecoded as words ad seteces Decoded ito words ad seteces Programmed ito sequeces of speech souds Recogized as sequeces of speech souds Produced as sequeces of speech souds Figure 2-1 Acoustic Eergy Coverted ito electrical impulses A Basic Model of Speech Commuicatio Processes Iterpreted as thoughts ad feeligs
30 C hapter 2 C ommuicatio A cross the L ife S pa The Buildig Blocks of Speech Speech productio depeds o two critical compoets: phoemes ad syllables. The ext sectio explais the roles that phoemes ad syllables play i creatig spoke words. Phoemes Laguages have two basic types of souds: cosoats ad vowels. Thik about the words bee, key, ad tea. Each word eds with the same vowel, the log [ee] soud. They are spelled differetly because, i Eglish, souds i words ca be represeted by may differet letters. But, let s put spellig aside for the momet. I Eglish, these are three words with differet meaigs because the first cosoat i each oe differs. The souds /b/, /k/, ad /t/ differ i the way they are produced, ad that differece results i a chage i meaig. Souds of a laguage that cause chages i meaig are called phoemes. It is worth otig however, that ot all chages i the way a soud is produced result i a chage i meaig. The phoeme /l/ has several variats. For example, the light /l/ produced i a word such as lip is a little differet from the dark /l/ produced i a word such as dull. These variats of a soud are called allophoes. Try sayig light with both a light ad a dark /l/. It s still the same word eve though the /l/ at the begiig is ot produced quite the same way. Cosoats ad vowels differ i their basic maer of productio. Vowels are produced with o costrictio i the vocal tract, whereas cosoats are produced with a sigificat blockage i the vocal tract. The vowels of Eglish, listed i Table 2-1, are classified by jaw height ad placemet of the togue i the mouth. The togue ca move i the frot back dimesio (represeted across the top of the table) or i the high to low dimesio (listed i the left-had colum of Table 2-1). Lip positio is associated with the frot back dimesio i Eglish. Frot vowels are produced with spread lips (i.e., feel how your lips are positioed whe you say the word eat). Back vowels, such as the /u/ soud i boot, are produced with the lips rouded. Eglish also makes use of diphthogs, which are two vowels produced i close proximity to oe aother. The differece is that the togue is movig i diphthogs. Some diphthogs that are cotrastive or phoemic i Eglish are /ɔi/ (e.g., boy), /aʊ/ (e.g., cow), ad /aɪ/ (e.g., bye). The cosoats of Eglish are listed i Table 2-2. Notice i Tables 2-1 ad 2-2 that may of the symbols for souds correspod to the Eglish alphabet. Some symbols look ufamiliar. These symbols are from the Iteratioal Phoetic Alphabet. This alphabet is a special set of symbols that we use to represet the souds of speech i phoetic trascriptio. This is useful because there are may writte letters that correspod to more tha oe speech soud. For example the word garage begis ad eds with two differet souds, eve though they are both spelled with the letter g. If you look ahead to CD-ROM Box 2-3, you ca see a example of phoetic trascriptio. We talk more about the speech samples themselves a little later. Eglish cosoats are produced by alterig the maer ad place of articulatio or by voicig. Maer of articulatio refers to the differet ways that speakers ca block airflow through the oral cavity usig differet types of costrictios. For example, otice the differece betwee producig the soud /t/ as i tea ad the soud /s/
The Buildig Blocks of Speech Table 2-1 31 The Vowels of Eglish Frot High Mid Cetral Back i key u loot ɪ lip ʊ look e made ʌ, ə mud ɛ bee ɝ, ɚ curd o boat æ mad Low a hot ɔ bought Table 2-2 The Cosoats of Eglish Bilabial Plosive Fricative Liquid Detal Alveolar Palatal Velar Voiceless p pea t tea k kig Voiced b bee d dig g gap Voiceless Voiced Affricate Labiodetal f fig θ thumb s sea ʃ shoe v vest ð them z zoo ʒ garage Voiceless ʧ chew Voiced ʤ juice Cetral r rug Lateral l luck Glide w wig Nasal m me Glottal h high j you ose ŋ rig as i sea. Differet maers of blockig airflow lead to qualitatively differet souds. Aother way of modifyig speech souds is to produce blockages at differet places i the oral cavity. This is referred to as place of articulatio. For example, the soud /p/ i pea is produced with the lips, ad the soud /k/ i key is produced with the back of the togue. Fially, cosoats differ i voicig. They may be voiced or uvoiced. Voiced souds are produced with vibratio of the vocal folds (e.g., /v/) ad voiceless souds are produced with the vocal folds ope (e.g., /f/). Phoetic trascriptio of speech is useful whe we study the speech productio of youg childre or the speech of persos with phoological disorders. I both of these cases, speech patters do ot ecessarily correspod directly to those of adult or mature speakers. By usig the symbols from the Iteratioal Phoetic Alphabet (Tables 2-1 ad 2-2), cliicias ad researchers ca capture i writig precisely how
32 Chapter 2 Commuicatio Across the Life Spa childre produce souds i words. This is helpful for maitaiig records of the child s speech developmet ad to compare child productio to stadard adult productio. Syllables Suppose that you are asked to read aloud a iveted osese word such as gigafibber. Try readig this oword aloud to yourself right ow. How did you go about decidig how this word is to be proouced? You probably divided the words ito shorter chuks or segmets. Most likely, you tried to say the word syllable by syllable. Syllables are uits of speech that cosist of cosoats ad vowels. Vowels are the cetral compoet or the ucleus aroud which the rest of the syllable is costructed. A syllable may cosist of a sigle vowel (e.g., the a i aloe), although syllables usually cotai combiatios of cosoats ad vowels. The most commo ad easy to produce combiatio is a cosoat ad a vowel (e.g., ba, si), but syllabic complexity ca be icreased by addig cosoats before the vowel (e.g., ri, tri, stri) or after it (i.e., am, amp). Chage i pitch, stress, itesity, ad duratio of souds i coected speech productio is called prosody. Fallig pitch ad itesity are associated with statemets, whereas risig pitch is associated with questio forms. Stress patters distiguish betwee the multiple meaigs of some words. For example, i the setece The cotrast is startlig, the word cotrast is a ou, but i the setece The red ad blue flowers cotrast with each other, it is a verb. The differece i stress patter helps distiguish the two meaigs. The Buildig Blocks of Laguage Laguage is ofte characterized as havig three iterrelated compoets: cotet, form, ad use (Bloom & Lahey, 1978). Cotet refers to the meaig of laguage, form refers to the structure of laguage, ad use refers to the way speakers select differet forms that best fit the commuicatio cotext. Ay setece requires a iteractio of all three compoets of laguage. Laguage Cotet Laguage cotet is the compoet of laguage that relates to meaig. Speakers express ideas about objects ad actios, as well as ideas about relatioships such as possessio or cause ad effect. Sometimes, these meaigs ca be expressed by a sigle word. Other times, these meaigs are expressed through groups of words. The liguistic represetatio of objects, ideas, feeligs, evets, as well as the relatios betwee these pheomea, is called sematics. Childre develop a lexico, which is a metal dictioary of words. Word learig is a lifelog process primarily because there are so may words that make up a laguage, but also because ew words are beig added all the time (thik about all the computer-related vocabulary that has become part of our daily laguage durig the past 10 years). What makes word learig eve harder is that most words have multiple meaigs. For example, the word bark ca refer to somethig that a dog does or
The Buildig Blocks of Laguage 33 the stuff o the outside of a tree truk. Imagie how cofusig the setece That tree has fuy bark might be to a youg child who had oly heard the word bark used with referece to the oise her dog made. Laguage Form Laguage form, or the structure of laguage, ivolves three liguistic systems: phoology, morphology, ad sytax. We itroduced the cocept of phoology whe we discussed writig about the souds of speech. Phoology is the study of the souds we use to make words. For example, /b/, /r/, ad /l/ are Eglish laguage souds. I Spaish, there are differet souds, such as the trilled /r/ soud, that do ot occur i Eglish. Recall that we said a phoeme was the smallest meaigful uit of speech. Take the words /fæ/, /mæ/, ad /kæ/ (fa, ma, ad ca). We kow that the souds /f/, /m/, ad /k/ are phoemes i Eglish because puttig these differet souds i frot of the root /æ/ results i a chage i meaig. Morphology has to do with the iteral orgaizatio of words. A morpheme is the smallest grammatical uit that has meaig. The word bird is a morpheme. It caot be divided ito parts that have ay meaig i ad of themselves (such as b ad ird ). Bird is a example of a free morpheme because it ca stad aloe as a word. There are also boud morphemes, which are grammatical tags or markers i Eglish. A example of a boud morpheme is the fial -s i birds, which adds grammatical meaig. I this case, -s marks plurality, meaig that there is more tha oe bird. Other examples of boud morphemes iclude -ed (which marks past tese as i the setece He jumped over the wall. ) ad -ig (which marks the preset progressive tese as i the setece He is ruig. ). I Eglish, most boud morphemes are placed o the eds of words. However, some are placed o the begiig of words. A example is u-, meaig ot as i uiterestig. Some readers may thik iformatio about liguistics is uiterestig. However, professioals who assess ad treat idividuals with commuicatio disorders eed to kow this iformatio. Sytax refers to the liguistic covetios for orgaizig word order. Basically, sytax is the formal term for grammar. I Eglish, we say blue ball; i Frech the proper order is balo bleu, or ball blue. The meaig is the same, but the rules goverig word order are differet for the two laguages. Seteces that are ugrammatical may still make sese. Imagie a youg child who tells her mother, Him holded baby doggie. The setece is ugrammatical because a object proou is used i place of the subject (he), the regular past tese marker is applied to the word hold that has a irregular form (held) for the past tese, ad the child omitted a article (the or a) before the object ou phrase (a baby doggie). Eve though this setece is ugrammatical, we kow exactly what the child meat. Laguage Use Words are combied ito seteces to express complex ideas. Laguage use cocers the goals of laguage ad the meas by which we choose betwee alterative combiatios of words ad seteces. There are socioliguistic covetios, called pragmatics, that help us decide what to say to whom, how to say it, ad whe to say it. Imagie that
34 Chapter 2 Commuicatio Across the Life Spa you are tellig your fried about a movie you saw recetly. You might say, That had to be the most uiterestig screeplay I ve ever see, or That film was so dull I could hardly keep my eyes ope, or eve Talk about a borig movie. We choose differet sets of words that we believe will best commuicate our meaigs to the audiece we are addressig. Effective laguage requires a iteractio of cotet (sematics), form (phoology, morphology, sytax), ad use (pragmatics). Speakers thik of somethig to say ad the best words to say it (cotet) ad put those words i seteces (form) that address their goal (use) give the ature of the speakig situatio (use). Similarly, listeers iterpret the words (cotet) ad seteces (form) they hear with referece to what they already kow about the laguage beig spoke (cotet ad form) ad the situatio they are i (use). The Developmet of Speech ad Laguage By the time most childre are 3 or 4 years old, they ca itegrate laguage cotet, form, ad use to uderstad ad produce basic messages. By the time they reach the age of 9 years, most childre are capable of uderstadig ad expressig quite complex messages. Commuicatio ability cotiues to chage ito adulthood, where it plateaus aroud age 50. Late i life, commuicatio skills ofte declie as a result of hearig loss ad the loss of metal fuctios. Some of the basic milestoes of speech ad laguage developmet are listed i Table 2-3. We describe some of the importat milestoes i commuicatio developmet from ifacy to very old age i the ext sectio of this chapter. We refer to the period from 0 to 24 moths as from cryig to short phrases. We refer to the period from 2 to 5 years as from early seteces to stories. The school-age years start at kidergarte (age 5) ad go through high school (age 18). Fially, we discuss laguage chage durig adulthood. We discuss importat laguage characteristics related to cotet (sematics), form (phoology, morphology, sytax), ad use (pragmatics) i each of the four developmetal stages. Kowledge of speech ad laguage developmet is importat to speech-laguage pathologists, audiologists, ad deaf educators. To idetify atypical developmet, you must kow what is typical. To assist childre ad adults with commuicatio disorders, you must be able to determie what their commuicatio abilities are. These skills require a solid groudig i speech ad laguage developmet. Idividual Differeces It is importat for you to uderstad that there is a fair amout of variatio i the rate of commuicatio developmet. That is, some childre develop laguage faster tha others do, ad some adults laguage skills declie faster tha others do. There is also some variatio i the way laguage develops. Some childre are risk-takers; they will try to say words that are difficult for them to produce eve if the words are ot proouced correctly. Other childre prefer ot to produce words that may be difficult for them to say util they are sure they ca say them correctly. Some childre lear
The Developmet of Speech ad Laguage 35 Table 2-3 Basic Milestoes of Speech ad Laguage Developmet ad the Typical Age Rage at Which They First Appear Speech ad Laguage Milestoes Uderstads simple words (mommy, daddy, dog) Reduplicated babblig (ba-ba) Variegated babblig (ba-do-ke-ga-do) First word Two-word utteraces First grammatical morphemes Multiword seteces Combiatios of seteces that describe evets Uderstood by ufamiliar listeers (95% of cosoats produced i adult-like maer) Idetifies begiig souds i spoke words Decodes words Tells complex stories Writte stories are more complex tha spoke stories Combies iformatio from multiple sources ito research papers Refies persoal speakig ad writig styles Uses vocatio-specific vocabulary Cosistet difficulty recallig ames ad cotet words Age Rage of First Appearace 6 8 moths 6 8 moths 6 8 moths 10 14 moths 16 20 moths 1;10 2;2 years 2;2 2;6 years 3;2 3;6 years 3;10 4;2 years 5;0 5;8 years 6;0 6;6 years 8 10 years 11 13 years 14 15 years 15 20 years 21 24 years 45 47 years Footote: Childre s ages are represeted by the covetio years;moths. So, 1;10 idicates the age, 1 year, 10 moths. lots of ous (50 or more) before they start producig two-word utteraces; other childre lear ad use social phrases (e.g., thak you, see ya later, hi daddy) some time before they have 50-word vocabularies. Fially, there is variatio i commuicatio style. Some childre ad adults are relatively reticet; they ted ot to say a whole lot about aythig. Other childre ad adults are quite gregarious; they ted to say too much about everythig! As a result it is difficult, if ot impossible, to pipoit what is ormal. Neither ca we pipoit what exactly happes i laguage developmet at a particular developmetal age. Because there is so much idividual variatio, we talk about typical developmet istead of ormal developmet, ad we provide age rages for the first appearace of the speech ad laguage behaviors that we discuss. We celebrate diversity i laguage developmet ad use, ad we recogize that differeces betwee
36 Chapter 2 Commuicatio Across the Life Spa speakers make commuicatio more iterestig. However, we also kow that some childre have developmetal difficulties that place them at sigificat risk for social, educatioal, ad vocatioal difficulties later i life. The well-iformed speech-laguage pathologist kows how to tell whe laguage developmet is so far outside the typical rage that it ca result i egative social, educatioal, or vocatioal cosequeces. From Cryig to Short Phrases: Ages 0 to 24 Moths Cotet Childre do ot seem to uderstad differet words util they are aroud 6 moths of age. The, they begi to wave bye-bye whe they are ecouraged to do so by their parets, or they may hold up their arms whe their sister says, How big is baby? Soo big! By the ed of their first year of life, ifats usually uderstad about 20 differet words. They start to say words other tha mama ad dada betwee the ages of 10 ad 14 moths, ad their vocabulary ca expad to 200 or more words by the time they reach 2 years of age. It is iterestig that childre ofte lear words that cotai souds that they have difficulty sayig (Storkel, 2006). Oce childre have built a adequate lexico (a persoal metal dictioary), they begi to combie words ito two- ad three-word utteraces. This happes a little before or a little after they are 18 moths of age. The ability to produce two-word utteraces marks the child s desire to express relatioships betwee ideas, ad it shows that childre are learig about word order. For example, childre will combie a modifier like big or more with ous to create such utteraces as big dog or more cookie. May of their utteraces describe relatioships betwee agets (someoe or somethig that causes a actio), actios (the activities), objects (thigs that are acted upo), ad locatios (places). These combiatios of meaigs result i utteraces like the followig: Frog go Frog pod Go back Daddy shoe (Aget + Actio) (Aget + Locatio) (Actio + Locatio) (Aget + Object) Form (Phoology) Eve before they are bor, youg childre are actively sortig out ad groupig the souds of the laguage they hear. I experimets, mothers have repeatedly read the same ursery rhyme aloud to their ubor childre. At birth, these ifats have bee foud to liste loger to the ursery rhyme read by their mothers tha to a rhyme read by aother woma (DeCasper, LeCauet, Busel, Graier-Deferre, & Maugeais, 1994; DeCasper & Spece, 1986). At birth, ifats prefer to liste to speech tha to other types of complex souds (Vouloumaos & Werker, 2007). Also, ewbors liste loger to the soud patters of their ow laguage tha to those of aother laguage (Jusczyk, 1997). Thus, from as early as childre are exposed to speech, they are begiig to process iformatio about the speech ad laguage patters of their ative laguage.
From Cryig to Short Phrases: Ages 0 to 24 Moths 37 Box 2-2 Examples of Jargo ad Early Words CD-ROM segmets Ch.02.02 ad Ch.02.03 show a little boy, Rya, playig with Megha, who is a graduate studet i speech-laguage pathology. Liste carefully to what Rya says i segmet Ch.02.02. Ca you uderstad aythig Rya says? He souds like he is talkig, but he is ot usig ay idetifiable words i this segmet. This is a good example of jargo. Sometimes Rya uses setece-edig itoatio patters. Toward the ed of the segmet, you ll hear Rya say somethig that souds a lot like a questio. If you ca figure out what the words are, you are a better trascriber tha we are. Whe you play segmet Ch.02.03, you will hear Rya say the word cup pretty clearly. The rest of his utteraces are examples of babblig ad jargo. Notice that his babblig souds a lot like Eglish. Oe loger utterace cotais variegated babblig ad eds with the word cup. Speech is secodary to biological fuctios such as respiratio ad feedig. As ifats gai cotrol over these motor fuctios, speech begis to emerge. The earliest phase of speech developmet is called babblig, i which ifats begi to produce a umber of types of souds such as growls, squeals, raspberries, ad adult-like vowel souds. As childre gai greater idepedet cotrol of the muscles that produce speech, they combie differet cosoats ad vowels ad strig sets of differet syllables together i a way that has a speech-like quality. Aroud the age of 7 moths, ifats start to use their voice to make syllable-like strigs, a process called caoical babblig. I babblig they produce rhythmic syllables over ad over (e.g., bababa), termed reduplicated babblig, as well as combiig differet syllables (e.g., bawabedo), termed variegated babblig. Later, their babblig starts to take o adult-like itoatio patters. This type of speech is kow as expressive jargo, which souds like statemets ad questios with the exceptio that oe of the strigs of syllables are recogizable words. Childre exhibit expressive jargo iterspersed with real words util they are 2 years old. As childre approach their first birthday, they begi to use words. Early words cotai the same souds observed i the later stages of babblig. Commo first words, such as mama, dada, or papa, cotai those souds that the child regularly uses i babbled speech. Form (Morphology ad Sytax) The ability to sequece actios is oe of the critical foudatios of laguage, which ivolves joiig sequeces of souds to make words ad sequeces of words to make seteces. Therefore, sequeced orgaized behaviors such as combiatios of symbolic play schemes (pretedig to pour tea ito a cup ad the pretedig to put the cup to a doll s mouth) are importat prerequisites of morphology (sequeces of morphemes) ad sytax developmet (sequeces of words that form seteces).
38 C hapter 2 C ommuicatio A cross the L ife S pa As most childre ear 2 years of age, they start to use two-word utteraces such as Billy go or go there. These utteraces are best characterized by sematic relatios such as aget + actio ad actio + locatio. Utteraces of this type are the buildig blocks of sytax because they usually reflect the word order of laguage. Laguage Use (Pragmatics) I maistream America culture, we commuicate with our childre from the first miute we see them. Mothers ad fathers hold their ifats, look ito their faces, ad talk to them. Whe ifats make gurglig oises, their parets are quick to say thigs like, Yes, I kow. You re all full ow, are t you? We build coversatios with our childre by treatig everythig they say ad do as if it was true itetioal commuicatio. It is importat to remember, parets from some cultures do ot treat their youg childre i quite the same way. Dr. Peña ad Dr. Jackso discuss this i greater detail i Chapter 3. Childre commuicate without words before they commuicate with words. For example, whe ifats wat somethig they caot reach, they may poit to it ad vocalize loudly, uh, uh, uh! Eve though they are ot sayig words, they are clearly commuicatig a form of a commad, Get that for me, Mom! Other forms of early itetioal commuicatio iclude lookig at a paret, ad the lookig at a object, ad the lookig back to the paret, ad the back to the object, ad so o util the paret gets what they wat. This behavior is very importat because it shows childre that commuicatio gives them some degree of cotrol over their eviromet. Oce childre start to produce words, they ca commuicate may differet fuctios with just a few words. I a famous study of his so s early laguage developmet, Michael Halliday (1975) idetified eight commuicatio fuctios that Nigel used before he was 2 years old. These fuctios are listed i Table 2-4. Table 2-4 Early Commuicatio Fuctios Evidet Durig the First 2 Years of Life Label Fuctio Words ad Gestures Istrumetal To satisfy eeds wat + poitig Regulatory To cotrol others go (meaig, go away) Iteractioal To establish cotact hi Persoal To express idividuality mie Heuristic To get iformatio What that? Imagiative To preted you batma Iformative To explai Sara ball (meaig, that ball belogs to Sara) Source: Based o Halliday, M.A.K. (1975). Learig how to mea. Lodo: Arold.
From Early Seteces to Stories: Ages 2 to 5 Years 39 From Early Seteces to Stories: Ages 2 to 5 Years Cotet Childre s vocabulary grows almost expoetially durig the preschool years. Childre say approximately 200 differet words at 2 years of age, ad this icreases to approximately 1,800 differet words by age 4, whe they probably uderstad as may as 3,000 or 4,000 differet words. Durig this period, childre cotiue to expad their ou ad verb vocabularies. They also lear prepositios (over, uder, i frot of, betwee), words that express time (before, after, util), words that express physical relatioships (hard, soft, large, small), adjectives (blue, red, big, little), ad proous (me, you, they, our, herself). Childre are also busy learig how to create seteces that express complex relatioships betwee words. For example, childre say seteces like, Billy is ridig his red bike i his backyard. This setece expresses at least five differet relatioships. The basic relatioships are aget (Billy) + actio (is ridig) + object (bike). The words, red bike tell about the state (color) of the bike. By addig the word his i frot of red bike, the speaker specifies a owership relatioship. The proou makes it clear that it is the aget (Billy) who is the ower. The prepositioal phrase i his backyard states two importat relatioships. We kow where the evet occurs (i the backyard), ad we also kow that the backyard belogs to Billy. This example shows how may relatioships ca be expressed i a relatively simple setece. Form (Phoology) From age 2 years o, childre begi to produce speech souds with icreasig accuracy. The earliest set of phoemes acquired by childre is /m, b,, w, d, p, h/; these souds are ofte acquired by the time childre are 3 years old. The ext set of phoemes that childre acquire, typically betwee 3 ad 5 years of age, icludes /t, ŋ, k, g, f, v, ʧ (ch), ʤ (j)/. The last set of phoemes to be acquired icludes / (sh), θ (voiceless th), s, z, ð (voiced th), l, r, Ʒ (ge as i garage)/. These souds are sometimes referred to as the late eight souds. Childre may start to acquire these souds as early as 4 years of age, but these may ot be fully acquired util 7 or 8 years of age. It is importat to remember that childre will use these phoemes icosistetly for a log time before they are mastered. Thus, childre might use a phoeme i places where it does t belog i a word, as whe they substitute /t/ for /k/ resultig i /tæp/ tap for /kæp/ cap or distort a soud such as /s/ (e.g., youg childre may produce a slushy soud Box 2-3 Two-Word Utteraces Watch segmet Ch.02.01. Bradi ad her little sister Eri are lookig at a book together. Liste to Eri s two-word utteraces. How might we describe the utteraces, goig ight-ight ad gettig out?
40 C hapter 2 C ommuicatio A cross the L ife S pa i which the air comes out over the sides of the togue istead of /s/ i which the air comes out over the tip of the togue). Speech soud acquisitio is a gradual process. Box 2-4 Examples of Jargo ad Early Words If you look at the trascriptios of the speech samples i parts 1, 2, ad 3 of the CDROM segmet Ch.02.01, you ca see that each child uses icreasigly more of the souds that are expected for his or her age. You ca also see that idividual childre differ from the orm. For example, /g/ was i the middle set of souds acquired for 3 to 5 years, but Eri, who is 2, is already usig it i her speech. Part 1: Eri (Age 2) ad Bradi B: What is that? E: A frog. /ə fɑg/ B: A frog! B: Ad what are they i, Eri? B: Look, what are they i? E: A room. [ə bum] B: A room, that s right. B: Ad do you kow what that is? E: M-hum. [mhəm] B: What is that? B: Is that a widow? E: (ods head yes) B: Yea. Now what is goig o, what are they doig there? E: Goig ight-ight. [go aɪaɪ] B: They re goig ight-ight. B: What s the frog doig? E: Get, gettig out. [gɛ gɛɪ aʊ] B: He s gettig out! Part 2: Older Eri (Age 4) There was a little frog. [dɛ wɑð ə lɪdəl fɑg] Ad the, he, the frog, that frog was mea ad that frog was happy. [æ dɛ hi də fɑg dæ fɑg wʌð mi æ dæ fɑg wʌð hæpi] Ad he would> [æ hi wʊð] Ad there was a possible thig. [æ dɛr wʌð ə pɑsəbəl fɪŋ] Ad the frog look like> [æ də fɑg lʊk laɪk] Ad he was mea. [æ hi wʌð mi] Ad he, ad he was sad. [æ hi æ hi wʌð sæd] Ad he was mad. [æ hi wʌð mæd] Ad they were mad. [æ deɪ wʌ mæd] Ad he was mad ad he was sad. [æ hi wʌð mæd æ hi wʌð sæd]
From Early Seteces to Stories: Ages 2 to 5 Years 41 Form (Morphology ad Sytax) Durig this period, childre progress from producig primarily oe- ad two-word utteraces to producig seteces that may cotai up to 10 words. As childre begi to express more precise meaigs with multiword utteraces, the use of grammatical morphology ad sytax becomes importat. Some of the earliest grammatical morphemes to emerge iclude forms such as the plural -s (The boys ride), the possessive -s (The girl s bike), ad the progressive -ig (The dog s barkig). Aroud 3 years of age, childre begi to mark verb tese usig the third perso sigular -s (e.g., my sister swims) or the past tese -ed (e.g., The ma jumped). Later, childre icrease the complexity of their utteraces usig the copula ad auxiliary form of be as i Daddy is a clow (a copula form) or He is ruig (a auxiliary form). As childre produce loger seteces, they must use appropriate word order (sytax) if they are to be uderstood. From the time that childre use two-word combiatios, chages i word order reflect differeces i meaig. For example, a child may say daddy shoe to idicate the shoe belogs to daddy ad shoe daddy to ask her daddy to put her shoes o. Ways that youg childre (betwee 2 ad 3 years of age) add sytactic complexity iclude usig modifiers (e.g., wat blue ball) ad usig ew forms such as questios (e.g., see ball? with a risig itoatio). By age 3, childre start to use prepositios (It s o my chair), they use ad to cojoi elemets (I wat juice ad cookie), ad they use loger questio forms (e.g., Why you ot here?). By age 4, childre are usig passive seteces such as The girl was bitte by the sake ad some complex forms like I kow how to cut with scissors. Use (Pragmatics) Before childre ca produce short seteces, adults assume most of the resposibility for coversig with them. By age 3, childre begi to play a much larger role i coversatio. Look at the example of a coversatio betwee Jeifer ad her mother. Notice that Jeifer does ot have cotrol over all the morphology ad sytax ecessary to express her ideas grammatically. Noetheless, she is assertive as she expresses ew ideas ad asks a questio, ad she is resposive whe she aswers her mother s questio. Box 2-5 Morphosytactic Developmet Go back to the speech samples i CD-ROM segmet Ch.02.01 agai ad otice how the childre s seteces icrease i morphosytactic complexity. For example, whe Eri uses a two-word utterace to describe a actio, she uses the progressive -ig oly (i.e., goig ight-ight ). The older Eri is able to express past tese forms such as was ad were. However, she does ot use the past -ed o the ed of look as might be expected. Eve after childre have begu to use these forms, they may apply them icosistetly.
42 Chapter 2 Commuicatio Across the Life Spa Jeifer: Sara be at school. Mother: She ll be home pretty soo. Jeifer: Ca I go school, Mommy? Mother: Some day. Right ow, you get to go to Mother s Day Out. Do t you like Miss Sally? Jeifer: Yea, that fu to go there. Oe importat developmet durig the preschool years is the begiig of arratio, the ability to express a chai of evets i the form of a story. Childre s first stories are persoal arratives that cosist of oe or two seteces. For example, a early persoal arrative might go as follows: Look, I paited a picture. Ad it got o me. See my shirt? I washed it ad it s ot go away. Toward the ed of the preschool period, childre start to tell stories that cotai fictioal elemets. May fictioal stores follow a similar sequece called a story grammar. Stories usually cotai settig iformatio plus oe or more episodes. To have a miimally complete episode, the arrator eeds to say what motivated the mai character to take a actio (the iitiatig evet), what actios the character took i respose to the iitiatig evet (attempts), ad what the result of the actio was (cosequece). As childre develop, they produce more complete ad complex episodes that iclude the character s thoughts ad feeligs about the iitiatig evets (iteral resposes), the character s ideas about the actios he ca take (plas), his thoughts or feeligs about the cosequece of his actios (reactios), ad the resolutio or moral of the story (edig). From Oral Laguage to Writte Laguage: The School-Age Years Cotet (Sematics) Childre s vocabularies cotiue to expad dramatically durig the school-age years. It has bee estimated that childre acquire as may as 3,000 differet words aually durig the school-age years. At that rate, high school seiors may kow as may as 80,000 differet words (Miller & Gildea, 1987). School-age childre have a greater uderstadig of relatioships betwee cocepts ad icreasig kowledge about the meaigs of words. This is see i their ability to comprehed ad use figurative laguage such as metaphors ad idioms. Metaphors are expressios i which words that usually desigate oe thig are used to desigate aother. For example, All the world is a stage. Idioms are expressios that have literal ad figurative meaigs. For example, the expressio readig betwee the lies could mea lookig for words i the white space betwee the lies of this book. However, you probably kow that this idiom really meas to comprehed meaigs or to make ifereces about meaigs that go beyod the literal meaigs of the idividual words.
From Oral Laguage to Writte Laguage: The School-Age Years 43 Form (Phoology) Beyod the age of 5 years, childre s speech cotiuously becomes more adult-like. As metioed earlier, some of the latest souds are ot perfected util childre are 7 or 8 years old. Childre this age also become more adept at producig cosoat clusters such as str- ad sl-. They produce most words accurately, but some phoological processes are occasioally observed i the productio of complex words or i the productio of words cotaiig souds that are late to be acquired. For example, childre may still have difficulty producig multisyllabic words such as spaghetti or pharmacy. I the late preschool years ad early school-age years, childre become aware of ad start to metally maipulate the soud structure of the words they say ad hear. This ability is kow as phoological awareess, ad it has bee show to be a skill that is critically importat for learig to read. For example, childre ca tell that fa ad ma rhyme. Later, they realize that hot ad horse begi with the same souds. By the time they are i secod grade, childre should be able to segmet words ito all their costituet phoemes (su is /s/ -/ʌ/ - //) ad to delete phoemes (say school without the /s/). Form (Morphology ad Sytax) Childre use a greater variety of complex setece forms durig the school-age years. That is, they become adept at puttig multiple clauses (subject verb combiatios) ito sigle seteces. The earliest ad most commo complex seteces are formed with cojuctios such as ad (He came to my party ad brought me a preset). Later, childre lear to use adverbial clauses that express time (After we wet to the movie, we got a ice cream coe) or causality (I wat you to come over because I do t like to play aloe). By the time they are 8 years old, childre routiely form seteces that have multiple clauses such as, We wated Steve to help us study for our sciece test, but he would t because he thought he was so much smarter tha everyoe else. A importat part of laguage developmet durig the school-age years is learig literate (more formal) laguage structures. As they read ad write with greater frequecy, childre s laguage sometimes takes o a literate soud. For example, the setece Readers might be pleased to discover that we will ot require memorizatio of the craial erves souds more like writte laguage tha I ll bet you will be glad to hear this. We are ot goig to make you memorize the craial erves. Near the ed of the elemetary school years ad ito the middle school years, childre experimet with the kids of sytactic devices that are required for literate laguage, ad they discover whe ad how to use these structures. Use (Pragmatics) A umber of importat chages i laguage use occur durig the school-age years. School-age childre egage i loger coversatios. They also become more adept at shiftig topics ad at shiftig the style of their speech to match the ature of the speakig cotext ad their relatioship with the perso they are talkig to. Similarly, their arratives become loger ad more complex. School-age childre ca weave multiple
44 C hapter 2 C ommuicatio A cross the L ife S pa Box 2-6 A Fictioal Story CD-ROM segmet Ch.02.01 shows six childre who were filmed as they told the story, Frog Where Are You? (Mayer, 1973). We spliced sectios of their arratives together to create the etire story, startig with Eri (age 2) ad edig with her sister Bradi, who is a eighth-grader. Note that as childre get older, the legth of childre s laguage icreases ad their descriptios become more complete ad complex. Notice that, begiig at age 8, the childre s laguage souds more literary. The story propositios are amed i paretheses followig the childre s utteraces. Frog Where Are You? Part 1: Eri (Age 2) ad Bradi B: What is that? E: A frog. B: A frog! B: Ad what are they i, Eri? B: Look, what are they i? E: A room. (Settig) B: A room, that s right. B: Ad do you kow what that is? E: M-hum. B: What is that? B: Is that a widow? E: (ods head yes) B: Yea. Now what is goig o, what are they doig there? E: Goig ight-ight. (Settig) B: They re goig ight-ight. B: What s the frog doig? E: Get, gettig out. (Iitiatig Evet) B: He s gettig out! Part 2: Older Eri (Age 4) There was a little frog. Ad the, he, the frog, that frog was mea ad that frog was happy. Ad he would> Ad there was a possible thig. Ad the frog look like> Ad he was mea. Ad he, ad he was sad. Ad he was mad. Ad they were mad. Ad he was mad ad he was sad. (Settig)
From Oral Laguage to Writte Laguage: The School-Age Years 45 Part 3: Trey (Kidergarter) Trey: Well, he escaped while they were sleepig. (Iitiatig Evet) Trey: Ad the they woke up. Ad ad it was morig, ad he was goe. Adult: Oh o. Trey: He looked i the book ad the puppy looked i the jar a little bit more closer. (Attempt) Trey: He stuck his head i there. Adult: M-hum. Trey: Ad the the little boy, ad Tom ad Spot looked out the widow. (Attempt) Adult: Yes, they did. Trey: Ad Spot fell out. Adult: Ad the, the what? Adult: Well, what s happeig here? Trey: The the glass broke. Adult: It sure did. Trey: Ad the they were yellig with, ad ad see if the frog would come out. (Attempt) Part 4: Ashley (Grade 3) Jimmy wet outside i the woods with Spot callig, Mr. Frog, Mr. Frog, where are you? (Attempt) Jimmy looked i a mole hole ad called, Mr. Frog. (Attempt) Ad the mole shot up, scoldig Jimmy. (Cosequece) While Spot was ear a beehive shakig a tree, ad it fell. Jimmy was lookig i a owl hole callig, Mr. Frog, Mr. Frog. (Attempt) The owl came out ad Jimmy fell. (Cosequece) Part 5: Jorge (Grade 6) The boy was surprised to fid the owl i the hole ad fell to the groud, (Reactio) while the bees were still chasig the dog. The owl chases the boy aroud the rock. Whe the owl leaves, he climbs the rock. Ad the owl said the frog s ame. (Attempt) Ad the, the a deers, a deer lifted his head, ad the boy was o top of the deer s head. (Settig) Part 6: Jeifer (Grade 6) Ad the moose took off! (Iitiatig Evet) The dog was barkig at the moose. (Attempt) The the moose stopped at a cliff, ad the dog ad the boy flew over the cliff ito a marshy area. The boy fell i the water. (Cosequece)
46 Chapter 2 Commuicatio Across the Life Spa The the boy heard a soud. (Iitiatig Evet) The dog crawled o top of the boy s head. Ribbit, ribbit. Shhhhh, the boy said to the dog. Part 7: Bradi (Grade 8) The little boy told the dog to be very quiet. He was goig to peek over to see what was there. (Pla) So the boy ad the dog looked over the wall. (Attempt) They foud two frogs, a mother ad a father. (Cosequece) The they climbed over ad oticed a whole buch of little babies were hoppig through some grass. Ad the little boy said, There s our frog! (Reactio) So the little boy scooped up their frog, ad the dog ad him started goig back home. (Reactio) Ad they said, Goodbye to the little frog family, sayig they would come back to see them soo. (Edig) The ed. episodes ito their stories, ad they ca tell ad write i differet geres (persoal accouts, mysteries, sciece fictio, horror stories, etc.). Childre also improve at persuasio ad egotiatio durig the school-age years. To be persuasive, speakers eed to be able to adjust their laguage to the characteristics of their listeers ad state why the listeer should do somethig that is eeded or wated. Politeess ad bargaiig are ofte helpful as well. The first grader s use of persuasio may be limited to gettig a fried to share a ew toy. However, by high school, studets eed to use persuasio ad egotiatio quite well to gai privileges such as use of their paret s car for the eveig. Adulthood By the ed of the school-age years, developmet i laguage form, cotet, ad use has reached a very high level of complexity. As youg persos trasitio from high school to higher educatio or the workplace, their laguage cotiues to chage i ways that reflect their vocatioal choices ad iterests. Later i life, laguage begis to declie as a result of cogitive, motor, ad evirometal chages. Cotet (Sematics) Vocabulary cotiues to expad throughout the adult years. This is especially true for vocatio-specific words. Biologists have differet vocabularies from pharmacists, egieers, or speech-laguage pathologists because members of these professios ted
Adulthood 47 to talk about differet thigs. Shared vocabulary is ofte used to create social ad ecoomic bods betwee members of a vocatio or people with shared iterests. Late i life, eurological chages may lead to declies i some sematic fuctios. The ability to comprehed words does ot declie much with age. However, the umber of differet words that are used decreases, as does the speed with which words ca be recalled (Bejami, 1988). There appears to be a use it or lose it quality to the metal lexico. Older adults who have remaied metally active (those who still work, have busy social lives, ad read ad write frequetly) ad have better memory have fewer declies i sematic abilities tha do older adults who watch more televisio. Form (Phoology) As part of the agig process, muscles atrophy ad cartilage stiffes. Physiological chages lead to some chages i the voice. For example, older male speakers may use a somewhat higher pitch ad their voice may soud hoarse compared to youger male speakers. I additio, respiratory support for speech dimiishes so that it may be ecessary for some speakers to pause more frequetly. Specifically i regard to articulatio, it has bee observed that older speakers produce cosoats less precisely tha do youger speakers. Speakig rate may also slow. Geerally speakig, articulatory chages i speech productio of older adults are ot cosidered problematic. Form (Morphology ad Sytax) Older speakers demostrate some chages i their use ad uderstadig of morphology ad sytax. Older speakers ted to use a dimiishig variety of verb teses ad grammatical forms. Older speakers also may produce grammatical errors somewhat more frequetly tha youger speakers do. Some chages observed i the area of sytax are more closely related to chages i the lexico ad pragmatics. For example, older speakers may rely more o proous tha o specific ous whe tellig a story. Errors may be observed i the productio of complex structures such as passive seteces or embedded structures that place demads o memory. It may also be more difficult for older speakers to uderstad sytactically complex utteraces such as I saw the lady who had a rose i her hair that the little girl picked from a garde o her way to school. This difficulty relates to declies i memory, processig ability, ad vocabulary (Waters & Capla, 2005). Use (Pragmatics) Throughout their adult lives, idividuals cotiually refie their discourse to match the eeds of the situatio. They use persuasio, argumet, arratio, ad explaatio i differet ways depedig o their commuicatio goals, their uderstadig of the formality of the situatio, ad assumptios they make about what their listeers already kow or thik about the topic. Commuicatio style is also related to social ad cultural expectatios. Maers of expressig oeself are used to create bods amog members of subgroups of society. For example, compare the way ewscasters explai
48 Chapter 2 Commuicatio Across the Life Spa a story o Natioal Public Radio s All Thigs Cosidered to the way the same story might be reported by the ewscaster o your local rock-ad-roll statio. With agig come shifts i icome levels, employmet, social status, ad leisure time. May times, older adults relocate to settigs like retiremet commuities or ursig homes where there are few youger idividuals. A recet study o perceptios of older persos commuicatio oted chages i discourse style that icluded domiace of coversatios, uwilligess to select topics of iterest to listeers, icreased verbosity, failure to take the listeer s perspective, ad more of a ramblig style (Shadde, 1988). Discourse chages like the oes just metioed could be related to memory loss, a desire for prologed cotact, ad decreases i opportuities for socializatio with a wide rage of people. Oce agai, it is worth metioig that there are large idividual differeces i the degree of discourse chage ad the ages at which these chages occur. Summary People commuicate by exchagig meaigs with oe aother. This ca be doe overbally, through gestures ad facial expressio, but meaigs are usually exchaged through spoke, siged, or writte laguage. Laguages are symbolic systems that require the itegratio of form (phoology, morphology, ad sytax), cotet (sematics), ad use (pragmatics). Nearly all childre begi to develop laguage durig the first year of life, but there is a great deal of idividual variatio i the rate of developmet. Durig ifacy, childre explore the world aroud themselves with their sesory ad motor systems, begi to commuicate a variety of meaigs overbally, ad lear their first words. Childre begi to produce two-word utteraces aroud age 18 moths, ad they create their first short seteces aroud age 2. Laguage developmet literally explodes durig the preschool years. By the time childre are 5 years old, they kow more tha 4,000 differet words, produce early all the souds of speech correctly, use complex seteces, ad tell short stories. The developmet of readig ad writig creates may more opportuities for laguage developmet durig the school-age years. By the time studets graduate from high school, they kow as may as 80,000 differet words; they ca create complex stories with multiple episodes; ad they kow how to weave seteces together to explai, persuade, ad egotiate effectively. Laguage becomes more specialized durig the adult years to match career ad social choices. There is a gradual reductio i laguage skills i older adults. Just as there was idividual variatio i the rate of laguage growth, there is also a great deal of idividual variatio i laguage declie. The most commo aspects of laguage declie ivolve word retrieval difficulties, difficulty comprehedig uaces of meaig, ad a tedecy toward a more ramblig verbal style.
Summary 49 Box 2-7 Persoal Story by Ro Gillam Oe day, whe my daughter Jeifer was early 3 years old, she ad her older sister, Sara, were playig with some toys together. Jeifer had some zoo aimals i a small trai, ad she was pretedig to drive the trai to aother part of their make-believe zoo. She said to Sara, Move over. I m goig over there. Sara respoded, You sure are bossy. Je replied, I am t either! Sara moved, Je maaged to get her trai where she wated it, ad they resumed playig without further icidet. I foud Je s use of am t to be particularly iterestig. I was relatively certai that she had ever heard ayoe say am t before. Her utterace was ugrammatical, but it showed a great deal of grammatical kowledge about copula verbs ad egative cotractios. I suspect that she realized that people ofte used is t, are t, was t, ad were t. If it was all right for people to add the egative cotractio to the copula verbs is, are, was, ad were, why could t she add the egative cotractio to the copula am? Her error was cosistet with a umber of grammatical morphology rules, but it was ot cosistet with some phoological rules related to coectig asals i Eglish. The importat poit is that Jeifer, like early all childre, was actively re-creatig the rules of laguage that she was exposed to. Her creativity withi the learig process resulted i a iterestig ad amusig error. Study Questios 1. What is the differece betwee laguage productio ad comprehesio? 2. What is the critical differece betwee these terms: phoemes, syllables, ad morphemes? 3. What liguistic systems are ivolved i laguage form, laguage cotet, ad laguage use? 4. Why ca t we pipoit the laguage abilities a child should have at 3 years ad 9 moths of age? 5. Name oe importat developmet that occurs i each area of laguage (cotet, form, ad use) durig each of the four major developmetal periods (ifacy, the preschool years, the school-age years, ad adulthood). 6. What are some examples of souds that may be difficult for childre to produce at the time they eter kidergarte?