Introduction.
From the very first moments after birth, infants start interacting with a world that is brand new to them: a social world based on communication and the different forms it takes (Clark, 2016: 21). Among these, language is one of the most significant. It is thought that, even prior to birth, children are able to absorb language from their mothers (McElroy, 2013) and, once they are born, they begin the continuous metamorphosis that will transform them into adults. It is important to note that children’s growth is not a unidirectional adaptation process to the adult world, but it also entails the adaptation of adults to the infants around them, which often occurs unconsciously. This is particularly noticeable from a linguistic point …show more content…
Every linguistic component is acquired in stages, as time and practice represent two essential factors in the learning process: children go through stages in which they pronounce only a limited amount of words, namely one, two and three-word stages, as, how argued by a number of researchers, “there is a specifically linguistic processing mechanism that places limits on the amount of linguistic information processed at early stages of language development” (Berk & Martin, 2012: 122). However, going through the one, two or three-word stage does not entail that infants do not understand more than they can say: as stated by Sachs and Truswell (1976: 23), “some children who do not use more than one word at a time can make inferences based on two words from an …show more content…
The transcripts were found on the Child Language Data Exchange System, namely CHILDES, an online database storing language acquisition data. As aforementioned, the dataset comprises three transcripts that document the development of Alex, a child from Providence, at the respective ages of one, two and three. As well as Alex, the transcripts include the utterances of his parents, who were 25 at the beginning of the recordings, in 2002, and whose language was from Southern Massachusetts. Other participants in the conversations are the camera operators who mainly interacted with the parents. As well as the transcripts, the online database also provides videos for this particular
From the very first moments after birth, infants start interacting with a world that is brand new to them: a social world based on communication and the different forms it takes (Clark, 2016: 21). Among these, language is one of the most significant. It is thought that, even prior to birth, children are able to absorb language from their mothers (McElroy, 2013) and, once they are born, they begin the continuous metamorphosis that will transform them into adults. It is important to note that children’s growth is not a unidirectional adaptation process to the adult world, but it also entails the adaptation of adults to the infants around them, which often occurs unconsciously. This is particularly noticeable from a linguistic point …show more content…
Every linguistic component is acquired in stages, as time and practice represent two essential factors in the learning process: children go through stages in which they pronounce only a limited amount of words, namely one, two and three-word stages, as, how argued by a number of researchers, “there is a specifically linguistic processing mechanism that places limits on the amount of linguistic information processed at early stages of language development” (Berk & Martin, 2012: 122). However, going through the one, two or three-word stage does not entail that infants do not understand more than they can say: as stated by Sachs and Truswell (1976: 23), “some children who do not use more than one word at a time can make inferences based on two words from an …show more content…
The transcripts were found on the Child Language Data Exchange System, namely CHILDES, an online database storing language acquisition data. As aforementioned, the dataset comprises three transcripts that document the development of Alex, a child from Providence, at the respective ages of one, two and three. As well as Alex, the transcripts include the utterances of his parents, who were 25 at the beginning of the recordings, in 2002, and whose language was from Southern Massachusetts. Other participants in the conversations are the camera operators who mainly interacted with the parents. As well as the transcripts, the online database also provides videos for this particular