first words

[Alison Crutchley]

Tina highlights part of the difficulty in establishing what a 'first word' is. In the first few months we made up stories for our son involving elk, igloo(s) and legs, as these were all 'words' that he produced on a fairly regular basis. Of course there was no reason to think he was 'using' these 'words'. (Not many igloos in Yorkshire, although I did jump when I was carrying him down the road in the sling at about 4 months and he shouted 'Bears!').
 
So it's not just the children who may be relying on a convergence of linguistic and non-linguistic cues to establish meanings...
 
Incidentally, I think our son's first 'real' word was 'hiya' - only said when clamping a phone (or phone-shaped object) to his ear.
 
Alison
 
 
............................................................................
Dr Alison Crutchley
Course Leader, English Language 
School of Music, Humanities and Media
University of Huddersfield
Queensgate
Huddersfield, UK. HD1 3DH
 
a.crutchley at hud.ac.uk
http://www.hud.ac.uk/mh/english/research/ac.htm
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________________________________

From: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org on behalf of tina.bennett
Sent: Tue 12/09/2006 10:17 PM
To: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org
Subject: 



One of my daughters used, as her first word (at
about 6 months) /da/, meaning "that", with rising intonation,
accompanied by pointing to objects she wanted us to name.

She also produced a very credible "hi" when just
two weeks old and we were ignoring her in favor
of a football game on television. Even my father,
a speech pathologist, heard it and his mouth dropped open.
It was the first thing we used to say to her every time we
initiated interactions. But of course
it is impossible for a newborn to have done such a thing.

-Tina Bennett-Kastor






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