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Exemplar Child Language Acquisition Essay without transcript
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An example essay of a model essay to the transcript featured in paper 1 section b of A-level English Language.
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‘Language development is less about just learning vocabulary and grammar and is moreabout using them in social interactions’. (30 marks).
Although I agree that Social Interaction is probably the most significant part of language
development, I think that when children have social interactions, they are learning
vocabulary and grammar simultaneously and therefore, language development is also about
learning vocabulary and grammar since they both go hand in hand.
Bruner and Vygotsky theorised the idea of the Interactionist theory, stating that interaction
is the most important part of a child’s language development. Bruner conceptualised a
‘Language Acquisition Support System’ which means that children must have the stimulus of
a ‘More Knowledgeable Other’, as stated by Vygotsky, to aid them through social situations.
They do this, not just by repeating words to get the child to try to learn them but through
Child Directed Speech which scaffolds the child’s linguistic development. An example of this
in the transcript is when the ‘MKO’ uses recasting, when Karl says, ‘you take a I … you take a
piso of me’ and then the dad replies, ‘Mia are you going to take a picture of Karl’. The parent
realises that Karl repeated, ‘you take a’ with a false start, perhaps implying that Karl was
struggling to pronounce the lexeme, ‘picture’, so the ‘MKO’ uses CDS in the form of a
question to reinforce what Karl was attempting to say, showing how important interaction is
when scaffolding a child’s language acquisition. Throughout the transcript, the dad continues
to ask questions to encourage the children to develop their speech. The cruciality of
interaction in developing children’s language is also evident in the case studies Bard and
Sachs, which studied a boy named Jim who was raised by two deaf parents. He watched
television and listened to the radio; however, the lack of social interaction and an absence of
the ‘LASS’ failing to scaffold his linguistic development, stunted his overall language
development. Furthermore, Genie, the ‘feral child’, was isolated for 12 years without any
stimulus from a ‘MKO’ and when she was released, she had passed the critical period for
learning a language which meant that she could never fully develop her linguistic ability. All
of this evidence reinforces the importance of social interactions and the impact it is upon
children, enabling them to gain a better grasp of vocabulary and grammar.
Furthermore, Piaget’s Cognitive theory is also essential when evaluating the different
methods which accelerate a child’s ability to learn language. This is the idea that a child must
understand their surroundings to be able to develop their use of language and Piaget
theorised four key stages for this development. It appears that Mia and Karl are in the
‘Preoperational stage’ and have passed the ‘sensorimotor stage’. In the extract, the children
appear to understand the concept of object permanence, a feature of the sensorimotor
stage, when Mia says, ‘are you take a picture of snuffy pig’ which implies that Mia
understands the permanence of her toy, combined with the use of the proto word, ‘snuffy
pig’, even though it is not in her sight. This example also indicates that the children are
beginning to understand, through social interaction, that speech can be used for different
functions. The use of the virtuous error, ‘are you take’ shows Mia is asking questions,
reinforcing Halliday’s ‘heuristic’ function. Another of Halliday’s theories is also indicated by
the use of the proto word to suggest that the children are playing, thus illustrating the
imaginative function. Mia and Karl also explore other range of functions, which can be
highlighted when Karl says, using the personal function, ‘I take a picture’. This illustrates the
pre-operational stage of Piaget’s theory, as Karl is utilising the idea of egocentric language,
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