Journal of Child Language Acquisition and Development - JCLAD

Development of anticipatory coarticulation of /u/ in typically Malayalam speaking children in the age range of 3-6 years

Litna A. Varghese — 2024-12-30

Coarticulation is the articulation of two or more speech sounds together, so that one influences the other. Coarticulation is language dependent and can vary from children to adult. Studies in the past have shown that children have more coarticulation than adults; adults have more coarticulation than children; children and adult have similar coarticulatory patterns. Malayalam is a Dravidian language with extra lip rounding feature and also with five place of nasal articulation. The present study investigated the development of anticipatory coarticulation of /u/ in typically developing Malayalam speaking children in the age range of 3-6 years. The data was collected from 60 participants using bisyllabic meaningful words depicted in flashcards. Data were recorded using Sony audio recorder and analyses were done using PRAAT software. Results showed that children did not follow a particular developmental trend, but 4.6-5 years old children showed a different trend compared to children in other age groups.

Creativity in children’s speech development: a case study of Persian speaking children

Samad Mirza Suzani — 2024-12-30

This study aimed to investigate the innovations in speech development of Persian speaking children based on naturalistic paradigms of child language research. To this end, following a longitudinal observation approach, the naturalistic and experimental aspects of child language acquisition were examined as it was considered to have the advantage of producing spontaneous natural data. The data consisted of utterances by a number of children at an age range of 1;10 to 4;10 since it is considered a productive period for the creation of new words. The participants of the study included the researcher's own son, his brother-in-law's son, his niece and nephew, his neighbors' children, as well as a few children from a child-care center in Noshahr, Iran. To investigate the innovations in speech development of these children, instances of deletion, substitution, and inversion as well as creative processes such as making negative verbs, innovative rule-making in the utterances, and rule-overgeneralizing for inserting inflections were collected and recorded. The findings of this study chiefly support Clark's (1981) argument that creativity in children's speech results from the need of finding an acceptable word to fill a gap in the lexicon. Moreover, the findings confirm Lust’s (2006) claim that children rely on their creative theory construction as a compensatory tool and productive device to create new words. Alternatively, the innovations that do not conform to the adult forms indicate that children have not learned the exceptions to the rules and less productive inflections conveying the same meaning; or may tend to convey the message from their own perspectives and to encode the events accordingly. The small sample used was a limitation of this study, nonetheless to arrive at broader generalizations, more supporting evidence from conducting studies on children’s differences, their social interaction with others, and the role of linguistic input are recommended.

The acquisition of pharyngeals by Arabic-English bilingual and monolingual Arabic children: A case study

Hakam Ghanim — 2024-12-30

This study investigates and compares the acquisition of pharyngeal consonants /?/ and the /?/, which are part of the guttural consonants in Arabic, by Arabic-English bilingual children and Arabic monolingual children based on a case study of two children. The study also looks at claims made by researchers regarding the order of acquiring these sounds. The study was conducted by collecting speech samples from two children: one is monolingual in Arabic, and the other is an English-Arabic bilingual child. Data were collected using the free speech method and picture naming while recording the children as they were speaking. The analysis of the recordings is focused on whether the child can pronounce these pharyngeals or not and compares the two cases, the monolingual and the bilingual. The results of the study show that phonological complexity does not play a big role in the acquisition of these sounds, as claimed by Jakobson (1968). Moreover, the findings of this study also show that bilingual children acquire pharyngeals later than monolingual children despite the fact that these sounds are common in Arabic and have a high functional load.

Investigating willpower's role in child language acquisition: a theoretical perspective

Iftekhar Ahmed Noton — 2024-12-30

Language translates emotions, thoughts, and ideas. Linguists have long delved into how little ones learn their native language through diverse theories and perspectives, such as behavioral, cognitive, and nativist theories. This study, however, takes a unique perspective, seeking to understand how and why children learn and acquire their first language by examining child language acquisition through the lens of three major theories— Innate Theory, Behaviorist Theory, and Cognitive Development Theory. The study adopts a qualitative design, it assesses secondary data from earlier research via a thematic examination. Innate Theory considers the Language Acquisition Device as an inborn biological mechanism for language learning purposes. However, this study suggests that Willpower is what gets the LAD running. In contrast, Behaviorist Theory heavily focuses on the effects of outside influences on language learning. This paper contends that Willpower is necessary to prompt the child to respond with inhibitory control and, therefore, counteract the facilitation of performance that would otherwise follow from stimulus-response learning relationships between motivating and nonmotivating stimuli. Furthermore, the stages of language development by a child are explained, including how Piaget represented his Cognitive Development Theory. This study shows that strong Willpower gives children the emotional resilience to concentrate for a more extended period and use their brain power in learning a language. Moreover, this study provides an insightful understanding of Willpower and how it directs individuals to set realistic goals and helps one self-regulate in language acquisition — essential conduct for young learners to develop this motivation later.