query about the pace of early child language development - follow up

[Brian MacWhinney]

Folks,

Let me suggest an all-too-obvious explanation for this frequently  
reported pattern of a pseudo-decline.  Somewhat pompously, we could  
refer to it as Linguistic Special Relativity.  The first thing to note  
is that language is always changing.  Second, this change is occurring  
more radically and quickly in children than in adults.  Given this,  
the gap between adults and children continues to widen throughout the  
adult's lifetime.  It is almost like a Doppler shift as the ambulance  
moves out into the distance.  The net result of the continually  
increasing gap between the adult and the child would be the sensation  
in the adult (but not the child) that language is deteriorating in  
younger generations over time.

--Brian MacWhinney

On Jul 31, 2009, at 6:12 PM, Gisela Szagun wrote:

> I think this is an interesting question. I wonder whether you are  
> thinking of any particular language, some languages or all languages  
> world wide?
>
>  In a number of European societies educators and clinicians have the  
> view that children's language abilities are deteriorating. It is  
> unclear on which systematic empirical evidence their view is based.  
> It would probably be hard to find it. Many child language studies  
> are based on small samples often biased in favour of children with  
> more highly educated parents. Clearly, we would need large  
> representative samples and data collection over a long period of  
> time preferably using the same language assessment tools. One study  
> in Germany by Hermann Schoeler compared children's results in  
> language assessments at school entry 7 years apart. The samples were  
> large and representative of the population. This is not a large time  
> gap, of course. But the result is interesting. On the whole, he  
> found no difference between the two samples, whereas the clinicians  
> and educators who had done the testing reported that children's  
> language had deteriorated as compared to 7 years before. (I'm not  
> sure if it was exactly 7 years apart, but something like that).
>
> Regards,
> Gisela
>
>
> On Fri, Jul 31, 2009 at 6:03 PM, Nan Ratner <nratner at hesp.umd.edu>  
> wrote:
>
> Actually, what is even more interesting is that this morning, as I  
> got this e-mail inquiry, a student completing a thesis compared her  
> current study of DSS in children to Lee's (1974) values: these more  
> "current" children had values greatly in excess of Lee's normed  
> values.
>
> Nan
>
>
> Nan Bernstein Ratner, Professor and Chairman
> Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences
> 0100 Lefrak Hall
> University of Maryland
> College Park, MD 20742
> nratner at hesp.umd.edu
> http://www.bsos.umd.edu/hesp/facultyStaff/ratnern.htm
> 301-405-4213
> 301-314-2023 (fax)
>
> >>> "Philip Dale" <dalep at unm.edu> 7/31/2009 1:00 PM >>>
>
> This is a fascinating question, especially in light of the research  
> on the
> "Flynn effect" - the fact that IQ and other tests have to be renormed
> periodicaly because scores go up and the average would no longer be  
> 100. And
> certainly language is a core piece of IQ. A good place to start  
> would be the
> chapter by Dorothea McCarthy in the 1954 Handbook of Child  
> Psychology. I had
> this volume at one time, but have lost it in the course of moving. She
> reports some figures about vocabulary size and length of utterance  
> that
> could potentially be compared to current figures. Of course
> representativeness of samples wasn't as big a deal then as it is  
> now. This
> would be an excellent research topic.
>
> Philip Dale, Professor and Chair
> Speech & Hearing Sciences
> University of New Mexico
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: info-childes at googlegroups.com [mailto:info-childes at googlegroups.com 
> ]
> On Behalf Of Nan Ratner
> Sent: Friday, July 31, 2009 10:56 AM
> To: info-childes at googlegroups.com
> Subject: query about the pace of early child language development
>
>
> A colleague of mine has asked a question that perhaps you can help  
> me with.
> He wonders if the rate of language development (e.g., ages at which  
> major
> milestones are achieved, or ages associated with values for measures  
> such as
> MLU) has "sped up" over the years? Aside from trying to compare  
> current
> studies that report a value for something like MLU with early work  
> by Brown
> and colleagues, for example, has this question been addressed in any  
> formal
> way?
>
> best regards to all on the list,
>
> Nan
>
>
> Nan Bernstein Ratner, Professor and Chairman Department of Hearing and
> Speech Sciences 0100 Lefrak Hall University of Maryland College  
> Park, MD
> 20742 nratner at hesp.umd.edu
> http://www.bsos.umd.edu/hesp/facultyStaff/ratnern.htm
> 301-405-4213
> 301-314-2023 (fax)
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> -- 
> Prof Gisela Szagun PhD BSc
>
> Vertraulichkeitshinweis:
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> ist. Jede Veröffentlichung ist ausdrücklich untersagt.
>
> Confidentiality:
> This message is intended exclusively for the persons it is addressed  
> to. Publication is prohibited.
>
>
>
> >


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