Responses due Wednesday, Nov. 12, at class time
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In the book-Teaching Grammar in Context by: Constance Weaver
Linguistic Tools for Understanding and Analysis
This chapter focuses on how speakers acquire grammatical competence in their native language. Grammar should “explain the unconscious but functional knowledge of grammar that enables all of us to comprehend and produce language, rather than analyze the language actually produced.”
A Linguist named Noam Chomsky introduced the differences between surface structure and deep structure. Chomsky believed that grammar should account for the native speakers’ intuitive understanding of language structure rather than analyzing the language actually produced. He also thought of deep structure as being grammatical in nature. Chomsky developed these structures because he wanted to account for speakers intuitive knowledge of grammar.
Surface Structure- the linear sequence of words, phrases, clauses, and sentences as they are uttered or written.
Deep Structure- one of more basic structures that underline the structure of actually spoken or written sentences.
Grammar Competence and Its Acquisition
Before children even enter school; they acquire a complicated set of grammatical structures and a complex set of rules for combining elements into such structures. In this chapter, Weaver discusses the 4 different invitations that talk about the rules that we all use unconsciously in our own speaking and writing.
Invitation 1
Proper order of auxiliary (“helper”) verbs that sometimes come before a main verb when the sentence is ‘active’ not ‘passive’.
Example:
Mary is leaving at one today.
Tom will be taking over her job.
Invitation 2
The usage of 'any'(or anyone, anything, etc), 'some' (or someone, something etc.)
Add the appropriate choice to each blank without thinking about it; let your response be natural.
I don't want ____ pie.
I can't imagine ____one doing that.
I'd like_____ ice cream please.
Invitation 3
This invitation is not strictly grammatical, but yet involves an intersection of the sound or phonological, system with the grammatical system. It involves the pronunciation of the regular past tense ending. Think about the sounds we add in making the regular verbs past tense. Say these regular verbs with a past tense and think about what seems to determine which sound or sounds we add.
Stop
Lick
Play
Slam
Wish
Laugh
Invitation 4
Making sentences negative:
- Put no or not at the beginning of the entire sentence.
- Put no or not between the subject and predicate pares of the sentence.
- Add an appropriate present or past tense form of do to carry the negative n’t and put it before the main verb.
- Add the appropriate present or past form of do to carry the negative marker and remove the tense marker associated with the main verb
It is not known how young children acquire such "rules." But what is known is that these rules are not directly taught to children, and that children show evidence of beginning to acquire them by about the age of two or three. Even though children do imitate adult speech in some way, it is clear that imitation, repetition, and habit formation are nowhere near adequate to account for the acquisition of one's native language, including grammatical patterns or rules.
For Discussion: Do you think that these 4 rules are correct? Do you believe that children really acquire these rules unconsciously or are they more from an imitation of adult figures?
14 comments:
I see where the author is coming from with the 4 rules. Children do seem to learn all of these rules, but I don't think that they would learn them without first hearing the rules from another speaker. I think it has more to do with hearing another speaker than learning the rules unconsciosly.
The rules are correct, but like Sarah, I don't think that they acquire these rules on their own. They assume that the speaker who is older than them is speaking correctly; therefore, they will imitate the language according to who they learned it from regardless of whether it is correct grammar or not. There is more of an imitation factor rather than an unconscious act of grammar rules.
I do not believe that children would acquire these rules on their own, but I do not think that this acquisition is solely imitation. If this were so, then no sentences that children made would be original.
Children are able to observe and understand behaviors, and this includes language. Chomsky was correct in his observations - they observe complexities in language and display their understanding by using rules that have not been taught.
We learned about something similar to this in a psychology class I took, but all I really remembered from it was that babies start imitating language even in their first syllables. I think it said something about how babies raised around the Spanish language tend to make more vowel-oriented sounds (aaah oooooh, etc.) while babies raised around the English language tend to have more consonant-oriented sounds (gaa, maa, da, etc.). Apparently imitation is something we learn really early, and if that was the case, I think it would just continue on throughout a kid's life.
I think these four rules make sense, though. Is there any way that
children can acquire these rules unconsciously while imitating adult figures? I think the two of them kind of go together more than one or the other. Children might start by just imitating adults, but eventually they would learn from that, right? They might not be able to explain making verbs past tense the same way that a fifth grader would, but at some level, they would probably have some understanding of "that's just right".
The four rules addressed in Chapter 3 I believe are correct. I have noticed small children using them correctly, and it is strange how humans do this. However, unlike most of the people who have posted so far I think its a mixture of both imitating and it coming naturally. Like Laura was hitting upon, in Psychology we learn about language development. Many psychologists believe that our brains are already wired with what it takes to create these rules on our own. I think that listening to an adult has a child mimicking, but they also know these rules inherently.
A lot of my friends have children, so i have been able to witness them slowly develop speech pattern over a period of time. Almost every child starts to take on district grammatical characteristics of their parents, so it seems logical that they are learning these rules directly from them without realizing it. It seems unlikely that they would learn these rules on their own, so I think that Chomsky was right, they exhibit these rules unknowingly by repeating the sentence structure that they are most exposed to. the children that i know who watch a lot of television usually end up struggling more with sentence structure more because of the many varieties that are available. the children who have limited television viewing seem to be able to convey their thoughts in more competent sentence structure.
The four rules certainly seem accurate to me. From watching my five-year-old son learn to speak properly, the past tense rule really stuck out to me. Children learn to apply the -ed ending to verbs to indicate that they happened in the past before they learn irregular verbs such as "went". If the child was simply learning by imitation, he or she would say "went", but what typically comes out of their mouths is "goed". This shows that children do learn some basic rules at a very early age.
I might add that the ability to make words plural also makes a case for this. After all, children will often say "mouses" before learning the word "mice". Imitation is very important in almost any learning process. No one is expected to be handed a baseball bat know the mechanics of a proper swing unless someone shows them first, but intuitive learning must also play a part.
I believe it is definitely a mixture of the two. Children obviously do imitate the adults they hear, but I also believe that some of it is innate. It would be interesting to read information on studies around the topic. Researching whether or not children develop these grammatical skills at similar levels regardless of how often their parents speak to them, for example, would be interesting.
I believe the rules are accurate. I also believe that there is a mixture of children learning them on their own and learning from adults that play an influential role in the child’s life. To clarify, when children are young they express themselves with little knowledge about tense, however, as they grow older they become more aware of how others communicate and thus correct their own grammar accordingly.
I think that these four rules are imitated and learned during the earlier stages of development. After six years old, however, I believe that these rules are in our unconscious. If a certain event from our childhood could resonate in our unconscious, then language skills could reside there as well.
These rules seem to make a lot of sense. I remember this one little girl that I used to babysit and she used to talk a lot like her mother. I definitely believe that imitation plays a large role in learning grammar. The only rule that I do not fully agree with is the first one--about helper verbs like 'is' and 'will be.' It seems like many young children have some type of problem with these helper verbs, like trying to figure out how to a sentence future tense. Other than that, I believe that these rules are pretty much accurate. However, I'm not sure how children pick up these rules; I believe that it is mostly imitation, but like others have said, I believe that there is some other factor at work.
I think that these four rules are correct, because younger children tend to acquire these rules. I think they actually pick them up on their own as well as from adult figures. Mainly, everything as a child is picked up from your parents or older people in general.
I think that toddlers may be underestimated at times. They learn so much faster than most imagine, which is why some people are so shocked when their three year old is running around at school repeating family secrets. I think that when children are learning to speak they learn by repetition and word association. They repeat what mommmy and daddy say, or they simply remember that when I touch this, mommy says, "hot," so that must be what it is a hot. Sounds silly, but I think that is how it works. As they get older they use different reasoning skills, but for the most part I believe that children are simply sponges trying to absorb all they can.
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