FORM AND FUNCTION IN EARLY LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT.
Item
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Title
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FORM AND FUNCTION IN EARLY LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT.
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Identifier
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AAI8801713
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identifier
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8801713
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Creator
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GERBER, SIMA.
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Contributor
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Norma Rees
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Date
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1987
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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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The primary purpose of this investigation was to examine the developmental influence between form and function at early language levels. In addition, the study addressed individual differences in form-function development and the use of MLU to describe this development.;Three children were chosen as subjects for the study based on their linguistic levels. The three linguistic levels considered were the single word stage, early syntactic development, and later syntactic development. Communication samples were collected during natural play interactions. These samples were examined with respect to various types of form analysis, two levels of functional analysis (social function and speech act function), and analysis of form-function combinations.;With respect to functional development, trends included the expression of the majority of speech acts at the first linguistic level and expression of new speech acts such as Routines and Acknowledgments at subsequent linguistic levels. Form-function developments included encoding of frequently expressed speech acts with a range of forms and multifunctional use of frequently produced forms throughout the linguistic stages. Lexical tokens of single words varied relative to uni or multifunctional status, while lexical tokens of multiword combinations were consistently unifunctional.;Form-function developments, such as the use of multiword combinations to express Requests, the emergence and frequent use of the Verb + Object structures for Requests, and the use and non-use of Subjects were explained on the basis of both global and specific functional motivations. Slobin's (1973) notion, "New forms first express old functions and new functions are first expressed by old forms" was extended to the pragmatic domain with respect to speech acts. Evidence for both primacy of form and primacy of function in early development was found.;In terms of individual differences and form-function development, a three-style picture rather than the more typical two-style picture emerged from the data. With respect to MLU, aspects of form-function changed both across and within MLU levels. Finally, the three children demonstrated diversity in form-function combinations at MLUs of 1.75 to 2.25, suggesting that richness in addition to complexity is a hallmark of early syntactic stages of language acquisition.
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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
