Transcript analysis:
The text is a conversation between an 18 month old baby and
her mother. The conversation seems to be had whilst Katherine (the baby) is
getting dressed.
Katherine begins the conversation by saying: “I stuck”
instead of saying “I am stuck”. This process which Katherine uses is deletion.
It often occurs in child language acquisition and is part of phonological
development. She perhaps says ‘I’
instead of ‘I am’ as it is a shorter way of saying it as syllables are missed
out. By missing out the primary verb of ‘am’ her sentence doesn’t make complete
sense, and therefore her mother corrects her subtly by saying: “You’re stuck”.
By correcting her language throughout the conversation her mother is also
helping Katherine’s language acquisition. This is an example of re-castings
from Katherine’s mother which is a feature of CDS as well as her constant
asking of questions such as: “What colour are your slippers?” which is another
feature. Katherine’s virtuous error indicates she is in the two word stage or
perhaps the early telegraphic stage which is part of David Crystal’s theory.
She is in these stages and not the late telegraphic stage as she has left out
the primary verb and used deletion.
Katherine’s mother has a hidden agenda to help her learn
language and more specifically colours. She does this by talking about her
clothes whilst she is putting them on by asking her daughter what colour the
different items of clothing are. The mother also expands Katherine’s utterances
after Katherine answers the question of what colour her socks are with the one
word answer of ‘Pink’ by saying: “Yes, they are pink”. This use of utterance
expanding is yet again a feature of CDS. By interacting with her daughter by
helping her develop language the transcript supports Vygotsky’s theory of
social interaction which suggests children need to interact with others to
develop their language. There is also a link to BF Skinner’s theory of operant
conditioning where throughout the transcript her mother gives positive
reinforcement to Katherine when she uses language correctly, for example: “Yes,
your slippers are red and blue. They are red and blue slippers” by repeating
the information which her daughter has already said correctly; Katherine is
more likely to repeat the language correctly again, as opposed to if her mother
had said she was wrong. The use of repetition is also a feature of CDS.
Michael Halliday’s taxonomy is evident in the transcript.
For example, regulatory speech is used by Katherine. This sort of speech is
used according to Halliday to persuade, command or request things to other
people to do things that the child wants the other person to do. This is
revealed when Katherine says: “I stuck” which would indicate that she wants her
mother to help her get out of the situation as she is unable to do it herself.
Her mother does so, but at the same time corrects her language. This is an
example of BF Skinner’s operant conditioning theory, as Katherine receives praise
when she says a word properly and is corrected by her mother when she says a
word incorrectly.
