Language Learning: Language Socialization

• …the baby uses a word long before he asks for the object; when he wants his horsey he is likely to cry and fret, because he is reacting to an actual environment, not forming ideas (Goshgarian, 2004: 31).

In what ways are the relationship between language

and gender cross-culturally similar or different to the

relationship between language and race?

Previously:

• Social roles and language use:

--class, caste, gender, race, etc.

• Language and social meanings:

--reflects social and cultural norms

• Linguistic markers:

--sounds, grammar, morphology

Communicative Competence

Knowledge of rules of language and language use. Communicative competence entails ability to speak a particular language and knowledge

of cultural and social norms of appropriate language use in given interactional contexts.

Today’s Basic Questions

• 1. How is this communicative competence acquired?

• 2. How are children socialised into appropriate linguistic behaviour?

• 3. How linguistic practices are made to seem natural?

Linguistic Ability

• Symbolic representation

• Awareness of symbolism of sounds

• Relational situations: people, objects, and/or activities

• Discovery and creativity

• Universality of process (acquisition of language)

Acquisition of language: Steps

• 1. Learning to differentiate and produce sounds

• 2. The beginning of grammatical construction

• 3. Morphological development:

• 4. Growth in vocabulary

• 5. Syntactic development

Syntactic development

• Expansion of grammar: new propositions

• Example: negation

• Simple:N + Sentence or Sent + N = No sit there.

• More sophisticated: He not little, he big.

• Complex incorporation: I didn’t did it

Child-Rearing Practices and Language Instruction: Three

Cases• Ochs (1988) and Schieffelin (1990)• White-middle- class (USA): infants encouraged

to speak• Samoa (A group of six Polynesian islands in the South

Pacific): opposite

• Kaluli (New Guinea):opposite• Different practices and values = diff linguistic

socialization

White-Middle-Class (USA): Language Instruction

• Infants treated as persons

• Potential and actual conversational partners

• Interpretation of infant’s vocalization and gestures as meaningful

• Establishes communicative structures

• Simplification of language(caregiver) baby talk

Samoan: Language Instruction

• Infant’s mobility (Crawling) determines hiss/her status as a conversational partner

• Infant’s vocalization and gestures not “speech act”

• Stratification by age and title

• Lower-rank status: infant

SamoaChild appeals to high-ranking caregiver

(A B)High-ranking caregiver directs lower-

ranking caregiver (B C)Lower-ranking caregiver responds to

child (C A)

Turn taking sequencing in the USA (ABBA)

Samoan Communicative Interaction:

• Multiparty sequencing: along hierarchical lines

• Social hierarchy and meaning: clarification of meaning (lower rank)

• Cultural priorities through language instruction (paying attention to social hierarchy)

Kaluli: Language Instruction

• Egalitarian

• Emphasis on network of obligation and reciprocity

• Language means to ge rights and desires

• Infants: helpless, lacking understanding

• Not considered conversational partners

Socialization and language Acquisition

• Teaching how to become assertive

• Teaching by example

• Social rules transmitted through language instruction

Summary

• Discovery and creativity universal: steps

• Cultural practices to make a child language competent differ cross culturally

• Ochs (1988) and Schieffelin (1990)

• Different cultural practices reflects on linguistic socialization

Discussion Question

How do child rearing linguistic practices play a central role in making the child into a

competent member of a culture? Provide examples from your own culture.