Institutional Repository | Satya Wacana Christian University: The Characteristics of a Mother’s Child-directed Speech Used to Her Two-year-old Daughter(A Case Study) T1 392014505 BAB II

CHAPTER II

THEORETICAL FOUNDATION

2.1. Related Theories

This study works in psycholinguistic field for it attempts to explain the language structure and how it is acquired, used in utterances, and understand the sentences in the utterances (Chaer, 2009). In this chapter, consequently, three theories that relate to how a child acquires the language and how a mother delivers the language to her child are discussed. They are first language acquisition, child language development and child-directed speech.

2.1.1. First Language Acquisition

Language is actually needed for communicating not only by adult, but also by children. That is what led children to acquire language. They need to share what they feel or to tell what they want through language as a communication tool. Hamann (2000) states that children acquire language without explicit teaching but on the basis of what they hear in a limited amount of time and under varying circumstances and identical ways across different languages. In acquiring language; Clark (2003) explains that children need sounds and words, meanings and constructions. It is because they could

build on preexisting notions of what to represent with language as well as prior notions of communication, start from nothing and discover what is represented in language.

Basically, children ability is completed with an abstract mechanism system to acquire language namely Language Acquisition Device (LAD) in their mind. This system affords children in absorbing the core of sentences from the environs and developing them into a good language that they understand. Language learning, according to Chomsky (1999, in Dardjowidjojo, 2000) is not really something that the child does, but something that happens to the child placed in the appropriate environmental stimulation from surrounding. Thus, how a language acquisition occurs, when, and the other details are mostly influenced by the environment, but then, the process of acquisition itself depends on the inner directed of LAD.

The goal of acquisition which is given by Clark (2003) is to become a member of a community of speakers that allows people to express innumerable ideas, describe events, tell stories, coordinates what we do with others, relays information and so on. Children also have to gain that goal because they are members of a society too. They need to learn to use language effectively, whatever the genre, whoever the addressee, and whatever the goal. In order to reach them, children need to acquire language in all aspects, i.e. in morphological, phonological, syntax, and semantics case until their language develops well and ready to be a member of a speech community.

2.1.2. Children Language Development

After children acquire language, their language is developing in a row with their physical infancy. There are four stages have been identified by Clark & Clark (1977) after the infant in one-year-old i.e: (1) The

Sensori-Motor Stage, which happens between about one year and one year six months

by reproducing events from memory a day or so later; (2) Single-word

Utterances, by talking about the objects around them when the age of one year

three months and two years (3) Two-word Utterances, children begin to combine single words into two-word utterances within a few months of their third stage.

In addition, Yule (2008) also states some similar stages and gives more explanation about them. The first stage is Baby Talk. These are either simplified words or alternative forms with repeated simple sounds and syllables for things in the child‟s environment. It is an interactive role to the young child even before he or she becomes a speaking participant. For the example is tummy, nana, choo-choo, poo-poo, pee-pee, wawa, or kinds of gestures such as just touches pictures, vocalizes a babble string and smiles. This stage usually occurs in a conversation between a mother with her child who in a one until eleven months.

The next stage is cooing. It is described as the earliest use of speech-like sounds. During the first few months babies can produce particularly high

vowels similar to [i] and [u] and the four months of age, they create sounds similar to the velar consonants [k] and [g]. there are some speech perception studies which have shown that by the time of five months babies, they can already hear the difference between the vowels [i] and [a] and also discriminate between syllables like [ba] and [ga].

The producing of a number of different vowels and consonants as well as combinations is described as babbling. Babies around nine to ten months can recognize intonation patterns to the consonant and vowel combinations being produced, such as ba-ba-ba- and ga-ga-ga. Then, they also become capable of using their vocalizations to express emotions and emphasis during the tenth and eleventh months. This late babbling stage is characterized by more complex syllable combinations (ma-da-ga-ba), a lot of sound play and attempted imitations.

Between twelve and eighteen months, children begin to produce word stage, a variety of recognizable single-unit utterances, named the one-word stage. When they can say: „milk‟, „cookie‟, „cat‟, „cup‟, and „spoon‟ (usually [pun]), it is indicated that they are familiar with those utterance. They speech those single terms are uttered for everyday objects because it may occur in their circumstances.

If the children are two years old, they can produce a variety of combinations between two or more words which brings multi interpretations of the children utterance. But it can begin around eighteen to twenty months,

as the child‟s vocabulary moves beyond fifty words. This stage called the two-word stage. For instance, baby chair, means this is baby’s chair (an expression of possession, or put baby in chair (as a request), or baby is in the

chair (as a statement). Those are depending on different circumstance the

utterance occurs.

The last stage is telegraphic speech. The children between two-and-a-half years old begins producing a large number of utterances that could be classified as „multiple-word‟ speech, appear variation in word-forms, and characterized by strings of words (lexical morphemes) in phrases or sentences, e.g.: this shoe all wet, cat drink milk and daddy go bye-bye. While this type of telegram-format speech is being produced, a number of grammatical inflections begin to appear in some of the word-forms and also use simple prepositions like in or on.

Moreover, Clark (2003) has also examined that the capability of two years old children. They already can combine words and gestures, and produce their first word combinations followed by the production of ever more complex. They also can modify their requests in accord with what their mothers already know.

2.1.3. Child-directed Speech (CDS)

CDS is defined as a kind of strategies by making simplify the language input (e.g. slow pronunciation, phonological exaggerations, simplified vocabulary and syntax), which makes it easier for children to understand (Corsini, 1999 in Zambrana, 2007). For other linguistic experts, for instance Thomas (1999), it also usually called ‘motherese’ Language. It is a special style used in speech to young children.

There are six characteristics of CDS according to Ferguson (1977, in Kayani, 2001) namely substitution, accentuation, intonation and pitch, use of diminutives, short grammatically sentence, and repetition. As the first characteristic, substitution has two usages. The first substitution deals with difficult sounds with easier ones. For baby is not able to produce some sound at an early age like /r/, /p/ and /k/, the adult should use the easier sounds or pronunciation that the baby could produce. The mother usually changes the sound of /p/ to be /b/, for example she uses “baba” instead of “papa”. Besides that, the mother uses “itut ya” instead of “ikut ya” to change the sounds of /k/ to be /t/. The second is substitution of first and second person-pronoun by proper names. When the parents want to make sure that their children know who is being meant, they use proper names instead of pronouns, for example “Mummy is sleepy and little Charlotte has go to bed now too” instead of “she is sleepy and her little daughter go to bed now too” In addition, they omitted

declination by talking repetitively in the third person for it will be easier for the baby to have the basic vocabulary understanding before learning the correct declination at a later age.

The next characteristic is emphasizing new information by accentuation. In other word, accentuating is to make longer intervals between phrases and sentences. By accentuating a new word the mother attempts to tell the baby to listen carefully that is a new word which the baby does not know as yet. For example “That is Daddy. He is eating a ba-n-ana.” The mother tries to put emphasis on the word “banana” so that the baby notices the difference to the other vocabulary which being used.

The third characteristic is intonation and pitch, which is deal with tone. According to Wells (1981), tone or direction of pitch movement can be divided into rising, falling, and level; and pitch height, which may be high, mid, or low. In communicating to children, adults usually use exaggerated-sounding intonation contour and higher pitch. Some words as the example can only be presented in audio because it is of phonological nature. But then, when adults talk to young children,

“Adults may double the range for intonation – in English from about three-quarters of an octave to one-and-a-half octaves-and produce higher intonational peaks with steeper rises and falls. This gives the effect of exaggerated intonation pattern.” (Clark, 2003, p. 38)

This characteristic is used to attract children‟s attention (Clark & Clark 1977). Garnica‟s (1975a, in Clark & Clark, 1977) study on two years old concluded

that they used a wider pitch range and the stressed syllables in words. Additionally, according to Werker & McLeod (1989), baby tend to be more attentive to very high pitch in speech, and the younger they are, the more attentive to it they are. This high pitch or rising pitch also is used as attention-holder rather than its normally function to signal a question (Clark & Clark, 1977).

Use of diminutives is the fourth characteristic. According to Kayani (2001) the use of diminutives has no special function for the child. It results from the fact that everything connected to the baby is “tiny” and “cute”. These associations result from a biological and phonemic background. That is the way adults delimit their world from the babies world. They prefer using some words that familiar with the children. It also has a closely connection with the next characteristic.

The further characteristic is short grammatically sentences. As founded by Broen (1972), mothers usually use fewer words when she is talking toward their younger children. Clark & Clark (1977) reported several studies which shown that adults tend to use very short grammatically sentences when talking to young children. In additional, Clark (2003) added that the shorter sentences used to two-year-olds are also simpler in structure that those used to older children or adults. It also supported by Phillips (1973), Adults‟ speech addressed to children is syntactically less complex.

The last characteristic is repetition of words and clauses. In talking to young addressees, Adults usually repeat themselves a lot (Clark, 2003). Especially in asking young children to do things, they use extensive repetition with small variations. For example is when adult try to get a two-year-old to pick up some locks, they would say “Pick up the red one. Find the red one. Not the green one. I want the red one. Can you find the red one?” The reason to repeat the word several times is that the children rely heavily on a small number of constructions that combine a small “sentences frame” with noun phrase or a nominal.

2.2. Related Studies

Many linguistic specialists claim that CDS is very interesting. It has been extensively studied over the past 30 years. As a reference of this research, there are two related studies that the writer used to taken from Journal of Academic and Applied Studies written by Fahim & Rahimi (2013) and also by Hill (2010). These studies help the writer in providing information in relation to putting the steps of data collection (i.e. recording, transcribing, and reviewing the transcription) into an acceptable procedures and drawing features under each of the characteristics and their analysis.

The first study is conducted by Fahim & Rahimi (2013), compares the structures and prosodic feature used by two Iranian mothers of two different aged

children, i.e. two years six months and four years and carried out through mothers‟ speech recording while describing picture book to their children. They revealed that the amount of one-word or two-words utterances and imperative and declarative ones along with prosodic feature (intonation), used by mothers, depends on child semantics knowledge and age. Then, declarative utterances were used the most and fewer imperatives with different intonation referred to their age to draw their attention. This study has similarity with the writers‟ in investigating the CDS‟ characteristics. Otherwise, this study also differs with the writer because the data is recorded during shared reading activity only.

The second study is conducted to see the difference speech styles between mother and father when speaking to their child (Hill, 2010). The result showed that mother uses greater variation in pitch, rising pitch, more collaborate, more demands and criticism than fathers. It gives presumption for the writer about the features of CDS‟ characteristics that used by mothers in real situation. However, the child used in this study was a six years two months old boy.

as the child‟s vocabulary moves beyond fifty words. This stage called the two-word stage. For instance, baby chair, means this is baby’s chair (an expression of possession, or put baby in chair (as a request), or baby is in the chair (as a statement). Those are depending on different circumstance the utterance occurs.

The last stage is telegraphic speech. The children between two-and-a-half years old begins producing a large number of utterances that could be classified as „multiple-word‟ speech, appear variation in word-forms, and characterized by strings of words (lexical morphemes) in phrases or sentences, e.g.: this shoe all wet, cat drink milk and daddy go bye-bye. While this type of telegram-format speech is being produced, a number of grammatical inflections begin to appear in some of the word-forms and also use simple prepositions like in or on.

Moreover, Clark (2003) has also examined that the capability of two years old children. They already can combine words and gestures, and produce their first word combinations followed by the production of ever more complex. They also can modify their requests in accord with what their mothers already know.

2.1.3. Child-directed Speech (CDS)

CDS is defined as a kind of strategies by making simplify the language input (e.g. slow pronunciation, phonological exaggerations, simplified vocabulary and syntax), which makes it easier for children to understand (Corsini, 1999 in Zambrana, 2007). For other linguistic experts, for instance Thomas (1999), it also usually called ‘motherese’ Language. It is a special style used in speech to young children.

There are six characteristics of CDS according to Ferguson (1977, in Kayani, 2001) namely substitution, accentuation, intonation and pitch, use of diminutives, short grammatically sentence, and repetition. As the first characteristic, substitution has two usages. The first substitution deals with difficult sounds with easier ones. For baby is not able to produce some sound at an early age like /r/, /p/ and /k/, the adult should use the easier sounds or pronunciation that the baby could produce. The mother usually changes the sound of /p/ to be /b/, for example she uses “baba” instead of “papa”. Besides that, the mother uses “itut ya” instead of “ikut ya” to change the sounds of /k/ to be /t/. The second is substitution of first and second person-pronoun by proper names. When the parents want to make sure that their children know who is being meant, they use proper names instead of pronouns, for example “Mummy is sleepy and little Charlotte has go to bed now too” instead of “she is sleepy and her little daughter go to bed now too” In addition, they omitted

declination by talking repetitively in the third person for it will be easier for the baby to have the basic vocabulary understanding before learning the correct declination at a later age.

The next characteristic is emphasizing new information by accentuation. In other word, accentuating is to make longer intervals between phrases and sentences. By accentuating a new word the mother attempts to tell the baby to listen carefully that is a new word which the baby does not know as yet. For example “That is Daddy. He is eating a ba-n-ana.” The mother tries to put emphasis on the word “banana” so that the baby notices the difference to the other vocabulary which being used.

The third characteristic is intonation and pitch, which is deal with tone. According to Wells (1981), tone or direction of pitch movement can be divided into rising, falling, and level; and pitch height, which may be high, mid, or low. In communicating to children, adults usually use exaggerated-sounding intonation contour and higher pitch. Some words as the example can only be presented in audio because it is of phonological nature. But then, when adults talk to young children,

“Adults may double the range for intonation – in English from about three-quarters of an octave to one-and-a-half octaves-and produce higher intonational peaks with steeper rises and falls. This gives the effect of exaggerated intonation pattern.” (Clark, 2003, p. 38)

This characteristic is used to attract children‟s attention (Clark & Clark 1977). Garnica‟s (1975a, in Clark & Clark, 1977) study on two years old concluded

that they used a wider pitch range and the stressed syllables in words. Additionally, according to Werker & McLeod (1989), baby tend to be more attentive to very high pitch in speech, and the younger they are, the more attentive to it they are. This high pitch or rising pitch also is used as attention-holder rather than its normally function to signal a question (Clark & Clark, 1977).

Use of diminutives is the fourth characteristic. According to Kayani (2001) the use of diminutives has no special function for the child. It results from the fact that everything connected to the baby is “tiny” and “cute”. These associations result from a biological and phonemic background. That is the way adults delimit their world from the babies world. They prefer using some words that familiar with the children. It also has a closely connection with the next characteristic.

The further characteristic is short grammatically sentences. As founded by Broen (1972), mothers usually use fewer words when she is talking toward their younger children. Clark & Clark (1977) reported several studies which shown that adults tend to use very short grammatically sentences when talking to young children. In additional, Clark (2003) added that the shorter sentences used to two-year-olds are also simpler in structure that those used to older children or adults. It also supported by Phillips (1973), Adults‟ speech addressed to children is syntactically less complex.

The last characteristic is repetition of words and clauses. In talking to young addressees, Adults usually repeat themselves a lot (Clark, 2003). Especially in asking young children to do things, they use extensive repetition with small variations. For example is when adult try to get a two-year-old to pick up some locks, they would say “Pick up the red one. Find the red one. Not the green one. I want the red one. Can you find the red one?” The reason to repeat the word several times is that the children rely heavily on a small number of constructions that combine a small “sentences frame” with noun phrase or a nominal.

2.2. Related Studies

Many linguistic specialists claim that CDS is very interesting. It has been extensively studied over the past 30 years. As a reference of this research, there are two related studies that the writer used to taken from Journal of Academic and Applied Studies written by Fahim & Rahimi (2013) and also by Hill (2010). These studies help the writer in providing information in relation to putting the steps of data collection (i.e. recording, transcribing, and reviewing the transcription) into an acceptable procedures and drawing features under each of the characteristics and their analysis.

The first study is conducted by Fahim & Rahimi (2013), compares the structures and prosodic feature used by two Iranian mothers of two different aged

children, i.e. two years six months and four years and carried out through mothers‟ speech recording while describing picture book to their children. They revealed that the amount of one-word or two-words utterances and imperative and declarative ones along with prosodic feature (intonation), used by mothers, depends on child semantics knowledge and age. Then, declarative utterances were used the most and fewer imperatives with different intonation referred to their age to draw their attention. This study has similarity with the writers‟ in investigating the CDS‟ characteristics. Otherwise, this study also differs with the writer because the data is recorded during shared reading activity only.

The second study is conducted to see the difference speech styles between mother and father when speaking to their child (Hill, 2010). The result showed that mother uses greater variation in pitch, rising pitch, more collaborate, more demands and criticism than fathers. It gives presumption for the writer about the features of CDS‟ characteristics that used by mothers in real situation. However, the child used in this study was a six years two months old boy.