Paper 3 Section B (last edited on April 14th)

  Firstly, let’s talk about how Raina exhibits the first few stages of early development in child language acquisition. Raina displays very holophrastic language. One word, immaturely expressed sentences such as “WHY, WHY?”  are perfect examples of this. She also doesn’t use sentences that describe anything in detail and instead just tells the person to look in a direction which is part of the holophrastic stage and is common for her age group.

Secondly, let’s talk about the different linguistic functions Raina exhibits in her speech. She exhibits the Regulatory and instrumental functions of language. She exhibits Regulatory function through statements like “look (.) this way (.) i'm going to (.) go over here” This is regulatory because she is trying to get her mother to look a certain way. She also displays the Instrumental function. She does this through saying “... can we go in this field”

I also noticed that the Imitation and Reinforcement Theory was backed through this example. The use of the word “mummy” is prevalent throughout the conversation. “Mummy” commonly refers to someone/something that is mummified. In this case, “mummy” is referring to Raina's mother. Similar to how, in the United States and Canada, we say “Mom” instead of “Mum” like people do in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, etc. She probably learned this from her own mother and people with whom she has conversed. 

Let’s not forget about the mother! Her mother uses what is called “Caretaker Speech.” This is what most people call “Baby speech.” This is when people use a higher tone of voice and dumbed-down language to talk to young  children. Some argue that this can be detrimental to the child because of the aforementioned “Imitation and Reinforcement Theory.”