A STRUCTURAL AND PRAGMATIC INVESTIGATION OF QUESTION FORMS IN NORMAL AND LANGUAGE DISORDERED CHILDREN.
Item
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Title
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A STRUCTURAL AND PRAGMATIC INVESTIGATION OF QUESTION FORMS IN NORMAL AND LANGUAGE DISORDERED CHILDREN.
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Identifier
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AAI8112366
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identifier
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8112366
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Creator
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LINDNER, LAURIE GILDEN.
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Contributor
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Dr. Norma S. Rees
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Date
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1981
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Psychology, Developmental
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Abstract
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It has frequently been reported by speech-language clinicians, and mentioned in a few research studies, that language disordered children seldom ask questions. The purpose of this study was to provide an empirical investigation of question forms and their associated pragmatic speech acts and to characterize a particular aspect of conversational performance, questioning, in a language disordered population in comparison to a normal population matched for level of language development.;The question forms of six normal and six language disordered subjects, all of whom had attained a mean sentence length of 4.2-5.2 words per utterance were examined. The subjects were matched for mean length of utterance and socio-economic levels and screened for average mental development and normal hearing acuity. Transcriptions were made of their language samples as they interacted with different partners in familiar settings. The normal children interacted with their mothers and another child. The language disordered children interacted with their mothers, another child, and their speech-language clinician. All question forms identified from the texts were analyzed according to question type, degree of grammatical complexity, and pragmatic intentions. The data base resulted from analyses of transcriptions made from tape recordings of all of the children interacting with their respective partners. The question forms were extrapolated from the text and noted, adapted from the format set forth by Tyack and Gottsleben (1974). The questions were classified into conversational acts according to a modified version of Dore's (1978) coding system. Dore's Conversation Act system provided a pragmatic analysis of children's utterances. In this system an utterance is defined through intention(s) conveyed by the utterance and is usually associated with a specific grammatical form.;This study demonstrated that language disordered children do ask a variety of questions primarily in a home environment with their mothers and under this condition, their language samples closely resembled those of the normal children. Quantitative as well as qualitative differences were found when comparing the two groups. The findings also demonstrated significant differences in both groups' production of questions when the environments in which their language was sampled changed. Each group produced significantly more questions at home with their mothers than they did in the classroom with peers and clinicians. Observations made by speech-language clinicians that language disordered children seldom ask questions, were not supported by these findings.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Speech and Hearing Sciences
