Phonological development of children's pronunciation

Trends in phonological development 

It is very hard to be precise about phonological development and the way in which vowels and consonants are acquired as it can differ massively from child to child. Here are a few of the trends researchers have identified:

• Command of all the vowels is achieved before all of the consonants 
• At four the child is likely to be having difficulty with only a few consonants 
• The child may be six or seven before confidence in using all vowels and consonants has been acquired
• The general, sounds that occur frequently in a large number of words will be acquired before sounds that occur less frequently
• To make words easier to say children will simplify their pronunciation is certain ways like deletion, e.g. final consonants might be dropped like the 't' in 'hat' and 'cat'

Another form of simplification is substituting harder sounds with easier ones:

• R becomes w
• Th becomes d, n or f 
• T becomes d
• P becomes b

Patterns of sound changes
As well as having difficulties with individual sounds, children often use patterns of 'shortcuts' to make words easier for them to say. There are many different types of these patterns - you may have heard the following in a young child's speech:

•  leaving out the final consonant in a word; for example, 'ca' for 'cat'
• dropping unstressed syllables; for example, 'nana' for 'banana'; 'sketti' for 'spaghetti'
• repeating the first syllable of a word; for example, 'bobo' for 'bottle'

These three patterns usually stop by the time a child is three and a half years of age. Some patterns may last for longer, such as reducing sound blends to one sound; for example, 'pug' for 'plug'.

Bibliography:
http://revisionworld.com/a2-level-level-revision/english-language/child-language-acquisition/phonological-development
http://www.kidshealth.org.nz/speech-sound-development

Analysing the CDS techniques used in 'Zach 2;4'

CDS Techniques-

Halla asks Zachy lots of open questions throughout the video, for example early on in the video Halla says "what Darling?" Halla does this to let Zachy talk and give him the power in the the conversation, the combination of interrogative and endearment helps to show that she is giving Zachy the power in the conversation. The use of tag questions comes up in the video too, for example Zachy says "(.) a banana (0.5) and 3 things in the banana (0.5)" Halla replies "a banana and what? (.) 3 things?". Another technique Halla uses is repetition, it seems that Halla often appears to repeat what Zachy says when he mispronounces a word like "frough" Halla will repeat the sentence using the correct pronunciation, this is seen when Zachy says "it doesn't go frough" Halla answers with "it doesn't go through? (.) why not" Halla does this to influence Zachy to copy her and attempt to pronounce the word correctly. Halla does this again with "bolognay" and "bolognaise". Halla makes sure to praise Zachy so he knows she is happy with him, this also influences Zachy to do it again and build up a routine. We see this when Halla says "you are a star (.) little man".

Peter Trudgill, Norwich Research

Peter Trudgill studied how people's speech varied throughout in Norwich in comparison to the rest of England. More specifically he studied the final consonant in words like running and walking. He established that in Norwich, the pronunciation walkin' and talkin' is frequently heard. 

Trudgill's study discovered the following:
1. In all social classes, the more careful the speech, the more likely people were to say walking rather than walkin'.
2. The proportion of walkin' type forms was higher in lower social classes.
3. The nonstandard -in' forms occurred much more often in men's speech than in women's, and this was true for all social classes.
4. When women were questioned about what they thought they were saying, they tended to say they used the standard -ing forms more often than they really did.
5. When men were questioned about what they thought they were saying, they tended to say they used the nonstandard -in' forms more often than they really did.

 Robin Lakoff's Research

Robin Lakoff, in 1975, published an influential account of women's language. This was the book Language and Woman's Place. In a related article, Woman's language, she published a set of basic assumptions about what marks out the language of women. Among these are claims that women:

• Hedge: using phrases like “sort of”, “kind of”, “it seems like”,and so on.
• Use (super)polite forms: “Would you mind...”,“I'd appreciate it if...”, “...if you don't mind”.
• Use tag questions: “You're going to dinner, aren't you?”
• Speak in italics: intonational emphasis equal to underlining words - so, very, quite.
• Use empty adjectives: divine, lovely, adorable, and so on
• Use hypercorrect grammar and pronunciation: English prestige grammar and clear enunciation.
• Use direct quotation: men paraphrase more often.
• Have a special lexicon: women use more words for things like colours, men for sports.
• Use question intonation in declarative statements: women make declarative statements into questions by raising the pitch of their voice at the end of a statement, expressing uncertainty. For example, “What school do you attend? Eton College?”
• Use “wh-” imperatives: (such as, “Why don't you open the door?”)
• Speak less frequently
• Overuse qualifiers: (for example, “I Think that...”)
• Apologize more: (for instance, “I'm sorry, but I think that...”)
• Use modal constructions: (such as can, would, should, ought - “Should we turn up the heat?”)
• Avoid coarse language or expletives
• Use indirect commands and requests: (for example, “My, isn't it cold in here?” - really a request to turn the heat on or close a window)
• Use more intensifiers: especially so and very (for instance, “I am so glad you came!”)
• Lack a sense of humour: women do not tell jokes well and often don't understand the punch line of jokes.

Lakoff suggested that women's language is deficient in comparison to men's language, this is shown in her findings, for example she concluded that women speak less, they apologize more than males and that women do not tell jokes well and often do not understand the punch lines of jokes. 

Language and Gender

I think that in some cases language varies quite significantly between genders. For example when males read something or talk about some they don't know they automatically make the assumption that the writer or the person they are talking about is a male. In speech we will relate to someone we don't know using "him" or "he". I don't know why we do this but it could perhaps be put down to unintentional sexism. I think this is because we live in a society where men believe we are superior to women. Women seem to have been placed in a lower position in society which is wrong. Most women cannot compete with men physically but it is absurd for them to be placed below men in society. Sexism in language has stemmed from a very long time ago when women had very few rights, there is no reason for sexism in language to have continued until now
The main scholars I found who have studied power and dominance thoroughly in speech are Spender, Zimmerman, West, O'Barr and Bowman.

Behaviour - Text Analysis

The very first thing that I noticed about the text was the title. 'Behaviour' is very clear and to the point. The reader is made aware right away of what the intentions of the writer are and what the letter is about. I feel as if the title gives off an instant negative feel to the entire letter.
I feel that an instrumental power is shown throughout the text through the use of specific lexical choices and the formal register used in the letter, this is almost known before you read the letter as it is written by someone working in a school.  In the letter the school repeats a lot of words, these include 'discipline', 'expect' and 'behaviour'. These words emphasise the negative tone in the text. I think the school repeated these words to drill the point of the letter into the mind of the reader. In the letter 'SELF DISCIPLINE' is written in capital letters. I think the school does this to draw readers attention back to the letter and to remind them what the letter is mainly about.

How has the language of the chat room text been influenced by technology?

How has the language of the chat room text been influenced by technology?

The new forms of technology have managed to change the world in what seems like overnight. One day there were hand written letters and phone calls, the next there were emails and text messages. Some people long for the good old days when communication was more personal. Some people love that they can simply type a message and click send. No matter what type of person you are though, there is no getting around the fact that technology has changed the spoken (and written) word forever.

The audience for this chat room is clearly people involved in the chat (people who listen to snow patrol). The overall register of the chat is very informal, there is no flow in the conversation and people in the chat are struggling to keep on topic. This text is multimodal, it is typed on a computer so it is written language although it is in a 'chat room' making it spoken language too. The purpose of the chat room is to get people talking about the release of snow patrols new album. 

The language used in the chat room seems as though it has been heavily influenced through the use of technology. You can see this based on the language used in the chat room. They initialise words like you to a simple 'u' and see to just 'c'. They do this as it is much easier and quicker than writing out a full word. One person in the chat room keeps using the word 'meh'. This is a word used only on the internet by people who are not that interested in what other people are saying. The person saying it clearly isn't interested in the topic of the chat room and just wants to aggravate the person trying to get answers to his question. 

In conclusion I think that it is evident that technology is changing the way people speak not only online but in real life too, more and more words being used in everyday activity online are being added to the English Dictionary every year, selfie, twerk and derp just to name a few. Some say it won't be long until internet speech dominates the English language, personally I disagree, I think it's just a phase but the internet is expanding more and more everyday.

Twitter Article:

I feel like the article on twitter acronyms and other twitter language was very good and went into good detail although some of the things listed were irrelevant as some of the acronyms are very rarely used on the social networking site as I know from first hand experience. Apart from the the few irrelevant points they also make many valid points. This is a very good article to use if you have just signed up for twitter and want to know what you are meant to do on the site as the writer clearly knows a great deal about this particular social networking site.

The article I found: http://techcrunch.com/2013/11/11/leveraging-the-specialization-of-our-species/

This article lists some great reasons why everyone should have a twitter account although some of the points made are debatable.