A Child's First Year & Consonant Acquisition

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Phonology - A Child's First Year

Even before a child is born, they can start to ‘hear’ sounds.

17-week-old-foetus

From around seventeen weeks, a foetus can hear sounds in utero. This is often shown when a child reacts more when they hear a certain voice or when they hear a certain piece of music.
This is often shown again after birth.

Mehler

In 1988, Mehler found that French babies had a stronger reaction to French sounds at four days old than they did to English, Spanish or Italian.
- This proved that babies become accustomed to their native language before birth.

Phonology - Pre-Lingual Stage

Before a child can pronounce words, they go through what is known as the ‘pre-lingual’ stage. This is formed of six key stages.

Word of warning

As a word of warning, all theories/concepts which you learn in this module are rough guides and all children are subject to individual variation.

Stage 1: Biological noises – 0-2 months

This involves a lot of crying (which usually takes the form of the long a sound (/a:/)).
The child begins to gain control of their air stream.
This is universal – parents of all nationalities can recognise the different types of crying. As a result, this isn’t really a ‘language’.

Stage 2: Cooing and laughing – 2-5 months

We begin to see a control of vocal chords, but the sounds are meaningless, like ‘coo’,’ hoo’ and ‘ga’.
Tongue control is evident when coos get strung together.

Stage 3: Vocal play – 5-8 months

The child begins to experiment with different vowel and consonant sounds.
The child begins to play with pitch.
There is no meaning behind these noises – they are playing.
Parents may respond very positively to certain sounds and as a result, the child may produce these again and again.

Stage 4: Babbling – 6-12 months

After starting, babbling happens for a long time, permeating even into the holophrastic stage.
Consonants begin to get linked to vowels. There is still no meaning to these sounds.
Parents will react if ‘da’ or ‘ma’ is formed (coincidently).
There are two types of babbling – reduplicated and variegated.
- Reduplicated babbling happens when the sound is repeated. For example, ‘mamama’.
- Variegated babbling happens when the sound is differed, like ‘dabama’.

Stage 4: Babbling (cont.)

To start with, a child will try as many new sounds as they can – this is called phonemic expansion.
At roughly 9/10 months, the child narrows their range to those found in their native language. This is called phonemic contraction.
At this point, a parent can recognise a child of the same nationality.

Stage 4: Babbling (cont.)

A child gains more control over their body and face at this point, and so paralinguistic features develop (gesturing and facial expressions).
A child also develops intonation as of real speech. This includes rising intonation at the end of the interrogative mood.

Stage 5: Melodic utterances – 9-18 months

A child lets out utterances containing rhythm.
Tone is developed.

Stage 6: protowords – around a year

A child starts to use protowords. These are utterances which resemble words and are word-like ‘dap’ for a phone. These protowords would not make sense outside of the context of primary caregivers.

1Language Levels

1.1Assessment Objectives

1.1.1Assessment Objectives

1.2Lexis

1.2.1Introduction

1.2.2Common, Proper, Abstract & Concrete Nouns

1.2.3Collective Nouns

1.2.4Adjectives

1.2.5Main, Auxiliary & Copular Verbs

1.2.6Dynamic & Stative Verbs

1.2.7Transitive, Intransitive, Active & Passive Verbs

1.2.8Mood of Verbs

1.2.9Adverbs

1.2.10Personal, Possessive & Reflexive Pronouns

1.2.11Relative & Demonstrative Pronouns

1.2.12Determiners

1.2.13Conjunctions

1.2.14Synonyms, Antonyms & Phonological Features

1.2.15End of Topic Test - Lexis

1.3Grammar

1.3.1Morphology

1.3.2Clauses

1.3.3Phrases

1.3.4Present Tense

1.3.5Past Tense

1.3.6Future Tense

1.3.7End of Topic Test - Grammar

1.4Semantics & Pragmatics

1.4.1Semantics

1.4.2Pragmatics

1.5Discourse Structure, Graphology & Orthography

1.5.1Discourse Structure

1.5.2Graphology & Orthography

1.5.3End of Topic Test - Semantics, Graphology etc.

2Language, The Individual & Society

2.1Children’s Language Development

2.1.1The Exam

2.1.2Phonemes, Vocal Tract & Articulation

2.1.3Writing About Phonemes

2.1.4Phonological Simplification

2.1.5A Child's First Year & Consonant Acquisition

2.1.6Beginning Stages of Language

2.1.7Lexical Development

2.1.8Stages of Development

2.1.9End of Topic Test - Child Language Development

2.2Children's Language Development - Theories

2.2.1Behaviourism

2.2.2Interactionism

2.2.3Challenging Interactionism

2.2.4Nativism

2.2.5Nativism - Exam Answer

2.2.6Cognitivism

2.2.7Social Constructionism

2.2.8Writing About Spoken Acquisition

2.2.9End of Topic Test - Development Theories

2.3Literacy Development: Reading

2.3.1Introduction

2.3.2Phonics vs Whole Word

2.3.3Debates in Reading

2.3.4Modelling Reading Acquisition

2.3.5Other Reading Theories

2.3.6End of Topic Test - Reading

2.4Literacy Development: Writing

2.4.1Orthography

2.4.2Kroll's Theory

2.4.3Barclay's Theory

2.4.4Creativity vs Accuracy

2.4.5Other Writing Theories

2.4.6The Exam

2.4.7End of Topic Test - Writing

3Language Diversity & Change

3.1The Importance of Gendered Language

3.1.1Writing About Gender

3.1.2Dominance Theory

3.1.3Interruptions - Zimmerman & West

3.1.4Deficit Theory

3.1.5Difference Model

3.1.6Difference Model - Men

3.1.7Diversity Model

3.1.8End of Topic Test - Gendered Language

3.2Social Groups

3.2.1Writing About Social Groups

3.2.2Social Class

3.2.3Social Class 2

3.2.4Age

3.2.5Age - Teen Speak

3.2.6Milroy’s Belfast Study

3.2.7Labov’s Martha’s Vineyard Study

3.2.8End of Topic Test - Social Groups

3.3Occupational Groups

3.3.1Writing About Occupational Groups

3.3.2Jargon

3.3.3Conversations

3.3.4Hierarchy & Power

3.3.5End of Topic Test - Occupational Groups

3.4Accents & Dialects

3.4.1Writing About Accent & Dialect

3.4.2Introduction to Accents & Dialects

3.4.3Accents - Matched Guide Experiment

3.4.4Accents - Received Pronunciation & Brummie

3.4.5Dialects - Dialectal Variations

3.4.6Accent & Dialect Case Study - London

3.4.7End of Topic Test - Accents & Dialects

3.5Language Change

3.5.1Writing About Language Change

3.5.2Modelling Change

3.5.3Modelling Change 2

3.5.4Lexical Change

3.5.5Semantic Change

3.5.6End of Topic Test - Language Change

3.6History of English

3.6.1Old English

3.6.2Old English 2

3.6.3Middle English

3.6.4Middle English 2

3.6.5Early Modern English

3.6.6Late Modern English

3.6.7Present Day English

3.6.8Global English

3.6.9American English

3.6.10Modelling Global English

3.6.11End of Topic Test - History of English

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