Childhood language Acquisition

There are primary objectives:

 Learn Linquistic concepts, methods, and approaches of SPOKEN LANGUAGE

 Create cohesive analysis of info based on spoken sources (multiple)
 Learn how spoken language features reflect relationship + purpose of the speakers/participants.

Partner Question – On what occasion might we speak with a low pitched voice & why ?

 If you’re in a chorus , Trying to sound like someone older/a man

 Trying to scare someone
 Emotion – often negative ones like anger
 Features of Spoken Language


Why might a person raise or lower the volume of their voice when they speak?

 If they’re mad
 If they’re confused
 Entering different environment.
 Intimidation
 Emphasizing

Conversation : Monotone, change pace often, avoid eye contact,

How it felt:

It was very weird. Felt unnatural and forced. But it made me wonder what my partner’s personality was
like. Makes the conversation feel less energetic and dead/vague.

Who breaks these conventions:

People with autism, small children, sociopaths, neurodivergent people, maybe certain religions/cultures

My Analysis (8.1 homework)

Paralinguistic and prosodic features are vital components of a healthy and successful conversation;
healthy in regards to the utterance’s “properness”. A conversation without these features honestly
seems like an NPC interaction; almost scripted, reading off of a paper. It was also hard not to clash while
we spoke, because some features usually indicate whether the current speaker on the conversational
floor is done speaking or not, and the participant’s status. Not having any body language also made it
seem like the listener was uninterested; along with the prosodic features being absent. Feedback is
essential in utterances, paired with prosodic features, to demonstrate one’s interest in the discourse.
Topic shifts also feel very forced; flipping from one question to another rapidly and not maintaining a
fluid pace. Tone, volume, and speed all contribute towards the continuation of the conversation, and
when implied into utterances, lead to more topic shifts, turn-taking availability (i.e. you can tell when it
is your turn). I’m sure that without these features, a lot of feelings would be hurt and eventually the
world would turn into an emotionless black and white universe like the Giver.
 My Analysis (8.1 homework)
.

Activity 4 : 8.2 : Reflection on one’s own analysis.

Consider how well the student response addresses these things :

 the role of each participant in planning the trip

 the extent to which each participant supports or counteracts the suggestions of the
other two
 the clues to the relationship/extent of understanding between the participants,
including their mutual understanding of the topic
 specific discourse features

In this student response, it seems a bit like a blur in regards to the first bullet point. Even
though it is eloquently thought out and very well explained, the area of identifying the
participant roles in this student response is unclear. They are outlining certain things that could
fall into that category, but no defined statements. For example, “the planners are all engaged in
a collaborative activity” and “Elision avoids repetition…” Who are the planners? Is a planner
also involved in a different role? It’s unclear, as the student is mostly stating activities being
done, what they say, and how they say or do things. Instead of just saying the name of the
participant, they should say; “Elision, the one who picks out the traveling location…” to make it
clear why this participant is doing what they are doing. However, it is nicely demonstrated how
the participants support and counteract each other’s suggestions. The student mentions how
friends are mindful of their commentary and decisions; and don’t throw their suggests above
another participant’s head. An example of this is “…friends must keep to their equal status by
softening assertions and taking account…” This is wonderful to understand how the
participants interact with each other and the general tone of the discourse. Not to mention the
student includes generalizations like in the first paragraph, giving something to compare the
participant’s conversation to. This is useful because you can continuously go back to this to
further understand the utterance you are reading, since it is hard to completely know how
exactly an utterance is being spoken when you are reading and not listening. This leads us into
our next point, the relationship and the extent of understanding. The student does a decent job
at showing the relationships between the participants. She puts their utterances in quotation
marks and then further defines them, and explains why they might be saying this, outlining
specific discourse features.
 8.2 & 8.3 – Conversational Interaction and Transcribing Speech
Activity 3

The babbling stage

The holophrastic stage

The telegraphic stage

The post telegraphic stage