Acquiring Early Syntactic Constructions

Acquiring Early Syntactic Constructions

Young Children’s Language Competence

In this paper, I am presenting the key factors of acquiring a first language. Based on Noam Chomsky’s idea that humans have an inner ability for learning languages, the aim of my essay is to reveal how first language acquisition is performed in practice, and what stages children go through while acquiring their mother tongues. In order to give a specific description of first language acquisition, I am focusing on the direct antecedents of early syntactic constructions in first language acquisition, giving an overview of the operation of the holophrastic stage, the two-word stage, pivot schemas, and item-based constructions. My paper is mainly based on the researches of Susan H. Foster, Michael Tomasello, and Thomas Scovel, therefore my essay reviews the acquisition of English as a first language.

The first step in the development of early syntax in young children’s language is, as Thomas Scovel puts it, “[crossing] the linguistic Rubicon at about one year old” (Scovel, 1998, p. 11) when the production of first words starts.  This early stage is called the holophrastic stage, as the utterances produced consist of single phrases, often interpreted as individual “skeletal sentences” (Scovel, 1998, p. 13). Children use these sentences for several reasons such as asking, expressing surprise, commanding, etc. (Scovel, 1998, p. 13) For instance, the single word “milk” might stand for asking for some milk to drink or could express surprise if the milk is split out on the table (Scovel, 1998, p. 13).

After grasping this initial sense of word-making, children generally shift from the realm of single-word utterances to the two-word stage where phrases happen to be pronounced within one single intonation contour marking the words to be part of the same phrase structure (Foster, 1990, p. 71). Some linguists argue that this phenomenon is preceded by a transitional stage when children build up strings of words from single-word utterances (Foster, 1990, p. 72). On the other hand, Branigan argues that the slight pause inserted in the intonation contour separating the two items in the string should not be treated as an evidence for the presence of a transitional stage as the presence of longer pauses only indicate that the production of words is naturally less fluent at an early age than at later stages of speech production (as cited in Foster, 1990, p. 72). Branigan’s argument seems to be proved by the fact that pauses continue to appear even after production has turned into the multiple-word stage (Foster, 1990, p. 72).

Having started to produce two-word or multiple-word utterances, children in their 18^th month begin to organise their utterances around one certain word or phrase, a method which is called pivot schematization (Tomasello, 2003, p. 114–115). These schemas are rather productive, which might indicate a possible ability for young children to be capable of creating linguistic categories (Tomasello, 2003, p. 115). The central word in the pivot phrase is called the event-word, which can bear various types of complements called the participant words. Although in pivot constructions, there seem to be a consistent ordering pattern as the pivot word seems to either follow or precede the participant word or in some cases, it seems not to appear at all, Tomasello et al. argues (2003) that it would be a far-fetched idea to talk about pivot schemas as syntax-bearing constructions as, due to the reversibility of word order, pivot schemas do not indicate the roles of the words in the schema[1] (Tomasello, 2003, p. 95).

Approaching their second year of age, English children seem to acquire an understanding of canonical English word order, and they are able to recognise subject and object roles in sentences like “Make the bunny push the horse” (Tomasello, 2003, p. 117). Also, they begin to produce transitive utterances according to the very same word order they have examined in adults’ speech before (Tomasello, 2003, p. 117). These constructions are item-based and are different from pivot schemas as they seem to bear syntactic marking since syntactic roles are clearly definable in these constructions. (Tomasello, 2003, p. 117) Tomasello et al. (2003) observed that the interpretation of syntactic roles depends on the interpretation of the verbs in the constructions, and these verbs seem always to be labelled individually in children’s minds. Therefore, Tomasello et al. (2003) calls this phenomenon the Verb Island hypothesis (Tomasello, 2003, p. 117).

However, it is not crystal clear how syntactic categories are built up in children’s minds, and there is still an ongoing debate about whether they have any knowledge about these abstract categories, or they simply learn them through the constant input coming from their environment (Foster, 1990, p. 74). One argument comes from Noam Chomsky’s theory stating that acquiring any language is an innate ability of every human being having a special Language Acquisition Device or a Universal Grammar in their minds which enables them to learn languages (Scovel, 1998, p. 18). Observing how children comprehend the relationship between noun phrases and verb phrases, some scientists claim that even young children can think in syntactic categories while others argued that it is rather the semantic approach, more specifically the action–subject or action–object interpretation of these phrases that governs children’s understanding of what roles each phrase bears in the sentence (Foster, 1990, p. 74–75). In addition, Tomasello et al. (2003) draws attention to the fact that studies on first language acquisition at an early age should be treated with care, as the impact of adult influence such as the examiner’s way of constructing experimental situations and analysing data might lead the results into a false direction (Tomasello, 2003, p. 142).

Reaching towards the end of my paper, it can generally be stated that children go through different stages when approaching to the syntactic level of language production. The production of their first words starts at about the first year of age, and children soon begin to use holophrastic phrases as skeletal sentences expressing a certain purpose of their speech act. Around their 18^th month, children start using two-word utterances; however, many linguists question the existence of a transitional stage between the usage of single-word and two-word utterances. Two- or multiple-word constructions are generally built up as pivot schemas which show a great reversibility in word order; therefore, as verb order is a key determining factor in identifying syntactic categories in a sentence in English, they are yet to be called syntactic constructions. True syntactic constructions begin with the use of item-based constructions which are generally organised around a verb bearing a central role in the utterances. However, young children’s early syntactic construction is a field yet to be studied enough, and more observations are needed in order to create a more appropriate hypothesis on how the development of early syntactic constructions happen.

References

Foster, Susan H. (1990): The Communicative Competence of Young Children. London & New York: Longman. p. 71–75.

Scovel, Thomas (1998): Psycholinguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 95–143.

Tomasello, Michael (2003): Constructing a Language: Usage-Based Theory of Language Acquisition. Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London: Harvard University Press. p. 7– 19.

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[1] Note that this is stated concerning the operation of the English language, in which word order plays a crucial part in determining the different roles of phrases and words constructing the sentence. In other languages such as Hungarian, word order can be more flexible, therefore it does not have such a central part in determining the syntactic categories within the sentence. Rather, syntactic categories seem to be marked by inflections in Hungarian (my note).

The Conversation Issues of Immigrants

The Conversation Issues of Immigrants

   

     This essay is about the topic of The Conversation Issues of Immigrants, and it focuses on long-term immigrants, who are going to live or work in a country for years. This is an important area because it is not just immigrants’ problem in a new country, but also a problem of people in a non-mother tongue country has to face. With different knowledge and cultural backgrounds, people’s consideration of communication style, pluralistic perspectives, and psychological activities decide that the conversation will be multiple. In this essay I am going to talk about the impact of cultural background in second language learning.

     One definition of language is that it is a set of symbols shared by communication meaning and experience (Jandt, 2007). Language bonds a people together and reflects what people see, eat, and think. Each of us lives not in the midst of the whole world but only in that part of the world that our language permits us to know. Every speaker of the same language does not share exactly the same meaning for every word. That problem is compounded when you attempt translation between languages. Thus, the world as each of us knows it is, to a large extent, predetermined by the language of our culture. And differences between languages represent basic differences in the worldview of diverse culture.

     Based on multicultural environment, different languages would present many differences. Because of the different culture backgrounds, although they use a same word, it would be used variously. Because of the differences on culture, although they use the same conception word in two languages, they just could say they are similarity, but not the same!

     There is not denying that culture is a deeply ingrained part of human beings’ life, but language is for communication among members of a culture, which is the most visible and available expression of that culture. In considering the relationship between second language learning and second culture learning, it is very important to consider several different types of second language learning contexts. (a) One context is technically referred to as the learning of a second language, or learning another language either (i) within the culture if that second language or (ii) with one’s own native culture where the second language is an accepted use for education, government, or business within the country. (b) Another context is foreign language learning, which is learning a non-native language in one’s own culture with few immediate and widespread opportunities to use the language within the environment of one’s own culture (Brown, 1980). Therefore, the cultural background directly influences learning effect, when they learn a second language.

     When Chinese people arrive America, and go through relocation camps experienced fear and humiliation in dehumanizing conditions, resulting in passivity, dependence and learned helplessness. Staying for a period, newcomers see opportunities but also experience fear, uncertainty, and unhappiness.

     In addition, one more interesting issue is immigrant families’ life. Family structure changes as children and grandchildren begin to take their places in the new culture and become strangers to their family. The urban environment and value placed on individualism reduces the need for interdependence traditionally provided by the family. Somehow, cultural background is a big influence, and it may change their way of communication and language use.

     Human being do not live in the objective world alone, nor alone in the world of social activity as ordinarily understand, but are very much at the mercy of the particular language which has become the medium of expression for their society… The fact is that the ‘real world’ is to a large extent unconsciously built up on the language habits of the group… We see and hear and otherwise experience the world very much as we do because the language habits of our community predispose certain choices of interpretation (quoted in Whorf, 1956). Sapir-Whorf believes that the way one culture sees the world may not be the same as the way another culture sees the world. What you believe to be true is based on the language you speak. Thus, when you come into contact with a speaker of a different language, you are entering a different view of the world (Cooper, Calloway-Thomas, and Simonds, 2007).

     As an international student studying abroad, I have so many problems when I use the English. When I learned in China, for instance, my pronunciation was quite different from both my tutor and my classmates; somehow the grammar is different, as well. In addition, my thought and my conversation style are different from them, as well.  With different knowledge and culture background, the beginning of my abroad life was quite tough, I am still thinking whether some other barriers exist when I communicate with others.

Reference

Sam, D. L., & Berry, J. W. (2006). The Cambridge Handbook of Acculturation Psychology. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press

Jandt, F. E. (2007). An Introduction to Intercultural communication. America: SAGE Publications

Valdes, J. M. (ed.) (1986). Culture-Bound: Bridging the Cultural Gap in Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Brown, H. D. (1980). Principles of Language learning and Teaching. Reprinted by permission of Prentice-Hall, New Jersey

Cooper, P. J., Calloway-Tomas, C., & Simonds, C. J. (2007). Intercultural Communication a Text with Reading.

Multicultural classroom interactions

Influence of multiculturalism on the behaviour of students during classroom interactions

Students from different cultural backgrounds react and behave in different ways as for the level of interaction during classroom work. This means that our cultural and social identity can affect our manner and degree of participation. In case of a multicultural class, students from different cultures bring different cultural knowledge and attitude which may not always be compatible with each other.

Interactions play an important role in second language acquisition. It improves critical thinking and helps students react suitably in real life situations. However, when different cultures meet students may feel anxious about participation. They might fear that what they say or the way they contribute to the discussions during classes may offend others coming from distinct cultures. It is often hard to avoid misunderstandings. As they were brought up in various cultures following different behavioural patterns they will be more likely to approach the same tasks in different manners. They will have different attitudes towards group work, problem solving and expressing their views and opinions.

As Legutke and Thomas (1991) recorded, problems with communication were common in multicultural classes. There were breakdowns in participation between Swiss and Brazilian students who had different views on learning conduction and strategies. One teacher reported that an Arab male did not want to collaborate when a Portuguese woman got the leading role because of his conception about the roles of women and learning. As cited in Chaudron (1988), in 1982 Sato found that non-Asian students took more self-selected turns than their Asian classmates. Asian students were more patterned to the traditional form of turn-taking instead of simply speaking out. This is all due to the distinct types of their education that they earlier received. These are extreme examples showing how cultural differences can affect our learning and work. All these factors hider the development of classroom dynamics and the number of interactions. As students’ anxiety grows because they feel uncomfortable in the unfamiliar environment, they are more likely to choose to stay silent instead of interacting. This tension is created by multiculturalism. The biggest differences may occur when students from Western (print) cultures and from Non-Western (oral) cultures (Reyhner, Martin, Lockard, 2000) are told to cooperate. The authors wrote about a case study where teachers were comparing Navajo students and their learning styles with that of American students. As they come from different types of education that concentrate on different subjects matters and approach the same tasks and problems in different ways, they may face some difficulties in communication. Western cultures tend to focus on the details; we are highly competitive and prefer individual work. People from oral cultures prefer to look at everything as a whole, like a picture. They are better in group work and share information more easily. Also, they are more likely to interact without any difficulties than their group mates. What teachers can do is to try and make mixed groups of students so they may get to know each other better. Understanding their peers from other cultures can help students resolve and feel their selves more comfortable. They need to learn to appreciate diversity.

In case of young children there is an opportunity to teach them to be more open and cooperative when they grow up. Children are more flexible and open towards other people and new things; they often show interest in meeting and understanding other cultures. They do not care about any differences concerning skin colour and in some cases they do not even realize if there are cultural differences. Multicultural classroom dynamics often work better with children. They can be educated more easily in a multicultural environment. The Child Care Education Institute wrote an article in its December Newsletter (2008) about Creating a Multicultural Classroom Environment. Amongst their main goals they are assisting children in recognizing differences and similarities between people. This might help them to understand that people from different cultures can share common traits. This can increase students’ acceptance and eliminate racism and prejudice. They are also aiming to encourage cooperative social skills. As children learn more about different cultures they will be able to work together more effectively. They will see other’s viewpoint as individuality rather than a possibility for offensiveness and hostility.

  The best thing in multicultural classes is probably that both teachers and students can acquire new learning strategies from each other. Unfortunately, as soon as students are out of their comfort zone their level of interaction decreases. The teachers’ role in case of multicultural classes is to eliminate prejudices and make students know each other’s culture better. If they understand each other’s background they are more likely to accept other opinions. It is important for them to see cultural differences as new opportunities to learn and to explore rather than an inconvenience.

References:

Chaudron, C. (1988). Second Language Classrooms. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP.

ChildCare Education Institute. (2008). Creating a Multicultural Classroom Environment. Teacher Enrichment Training Solutions, 3. Retrieved from http://www.cceionline.com/newsletters/December_08.html/

Legutke, M., & Thomas, H. (1991). Process and Experience in the Language Classroom. New York, NY: Longman Group.

Reyhner, J., Martin, J., Lockard, L., & Gilbert, S.W. (2000). Learn in Beauty: Indigenous Education for a new Century. Flagstaff, AZ: Northern Arizona University.

The Revitalization of Navajo Language and Culture

The Revitalization of the Navajo Language and Culture

There are several languages all over the world that are in the danger of extinction for various reasons, and if people mean to prevent them from disappearing for good, measures have to be taken in order to save them. The North American Navajo language can be considered such a language; therefore, in my essay I would like to write about the underlying problems and the efforts that were made in the schools of Chinle, Arizona, at the turn of the century, to revitalize the Navajo language and culture in Navajo/English dual language classrooms.

The Navajo language is spoken in the south-western part of the United Sates. The Navajo is the largest tribe of the U.S. that is federally recognized. These people live in Navajo Nation, a semi-autonomous Native American-governed territory that is located at the Four Corners, the only place in the United States where four state borders meet: the borders of Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Utah( Reyhner & Martin, 2000).

Although 175 American Indian languages are still spoken in the United States, only 11% of them are taught to children in schools. Navajo belongs to this small percentage and is luckily in the best shape with about 148,500 speakers in 1999. Chinle is a small town that is located in the central part of the Navajo Nation. Its school district enrols over 4,000 students in seven school; more than 90% of them are American Indians (Reyhner & Martin, 2000).

The Dual Language Program was first put to the test in 1997 in two primary school classrooms. Each class was taught by a bilingual teacher. Half of both classes were Navajo dominant Limited English Proficient(LEP) students, the other half were English proficient students. The curriculum was extended with a special Summer Dual Language Camp during the long summer holiday (Reyhner & Martin, 2000).

These actions were needed because of the suppression of Navajo culture and language in the middle of the 20th century. This period has been called as the “era of termination”. For instance, Willard Beatty’s words at a 1948 congressional hearing reveal the way this culture was treated. He was the Director of Education for the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and testified that the “basic purpose of Indian education for Navajo children is to teach them to speak, think, and read and write in the English language”(Reyhner & Martin, 2000).

Based on the report of those teachers who entered school in the 1950s and 1960s, the Navajo language was not used by teachers although they were Navajos, just like their students. It was also common for students to be punished for speaking Navajo, this way they were “forced to change their Navajo language into English”(Reyhner & Martin, 2000).

The training of bilingual teachers with the cooperation of nearby universities was essential for the success of the Dual Language program. The aim was to graduate over 200 teachers by 1996 who were required to select an academic specialization in Navajo language, culture, and history. These teachers were then able to apply what they had learnt later in the dual language classrooms.(Reyhner & Martin, 2000)

There were several challenges that the teachers had to face. One of them being that Navajo people’s worldview and how they perceive the world around them differs from the way of thinking of the Western people (Berlo, 2011). First of all, there is more emphasis on visual images. Secondly, Navajo systems of thought, language, and art “focus on dynamic motion”. An example, which is provided by Janet C. Berlo(2011), is the more common use of “to go” in sentences rather than “to be” which is a static and non-dynamic verb.

Moreover, according to the writing by Dalia Rodriguez Navajo children are prone to learn new things more effectively by remaining silent and observant. That can cause problems when they are taught according to Western teaching methods. They can benefit much more from an educational setting that is formed based on their needs. (Rodriguez, 2011)

Furthermore, special methods were needed in the Mathematics classes in Chinle as well, with the use of visual models for measurement. Traditionally, Navajos did not use cups, yardsticks, or any type of measuring tools but they used their hands to measure flour and estimated a day’s travel not in miles or kilometres but in the length of a day on horseback. Therefore, teachers in Chinle asked their students to use visual models to estimate the distance, and then confirm their estimations using sticks as units of measurement. (Reyhner & Martin, 2000)

The families played a significant role in the education of these children since from the very beginning the curriculum extended beyond the classroom. Parents were asked to talk in Navajo to their children for at least one hour a day (Reyhner & Martin, 2000).

 The ultimate aim of the Dual Language Program was to try to graduate students who are proficient in both English and Navajo by finding solutions to ensure the survival of the Navajo language. The supporters of this program wanted to save this language from extinction since thereby they intended save an entire culture that is based on the specific language. Every language is a separate system and deserves efforts to be preserved, just like the unique identity of the speakers.

References

Berlo, J. C. (2011). Navajo Cosmoscapes – Up, Down, Within. American Art, 25(1), 10-13. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/660025 .

Reyhner, J., & Martin, J. (Eds.). (2000). Learn in Beauty: Indigenous Education for a New Century. Flagstaff, AZ: Northern Arizona University

Rodriguez, D. (2011). Silence as Speech: Meanings of Silence for Students of Color in    Predominantly White Classrooms. International Review of Qualitative Research, 4(1), 111-144.    http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/irqr.2011.4.1.111 .