first words
Deborah Gibson
debgibson at telus.net
Wed Sep 13 21:35:28 UTC 2006
I’m interested in the definition of ‘word’ in a child’s first word,
as I’m researching my autistic son’s delayed language acquisition.
He had many unconventional early ‘words’; for example, intentional
vocalisations, such as squeaks and growls, and lexical signs (taught
and invented), that were consistent in form and meaning but which did
not contain speech sounds. His first word (at 3.1.25) with speech
sounds was “Daddy’ [d«d«d«d«], which was whispered as were all his
early words that contained speech sounds. I am unsure of the
criteria for determining word status in both his signs and his early
productions, and in differentiating ‘real’ words from what are
variously termed as phonetically under-specified sound patterns,
phonetically consistent forms, protowords, non-words, marginal words,
performatives, pre-lexical terms, situational words, indices of
meaning etc! I have a few questions that will help me to establish
which of his early words qualify as real words, in order to compare
his lexical development in terms of rate, vocabulary count,
compilations of early semantic categories, and the timing of his word
spurt to those of studies of typical children.
My questions are: Is the definition of a ‘word’ in child language
acquisition determined by form or consistent meaning, or both? If by
form, how close to adult pronunciation does it have to be to be a
word? Can a ‘word’ include an unconventional non-speech
vocalization, like an imitation of an animal sound, or a gesture, or
must it fall within the speech sounds of the native language and be a
recognizable approximation of adult pronunciation, subject to the
motor articulation skills and emerging phonological rules of the
child? To be a ‘word’, can it be comprehensible to the only the
child’s intimates, or understandable to more than the child’s
immediate circle?
If being a ‘word’ depends on having a regular extension of the word’s
meaning, will an intentional non-speech sound or gesture with
consistent context-bound meaning that is understood by the child’s
intimates qualify? Or, at the other end of the spectrum, must the
‘word’ have conventional adult extensions of meaning to be considered
a ‘real word’? Will possessing some extensions of the adult meaning,
even if irregular and underextended, suffice? My question boils
down to this: What are the various criteria for determining where on
the continuum, between the two milestones of the onset of intentional
vocalizations and the word spurt, do researchers distinguish
vocalization from word?
I’m sorry this is such a long post, and I hope it doesn’t go beyond
the limits of this board!
Deborah Gibson
Ph.D student
Dept of Language and Literacy
Faculty of Education
UBC
debgibson at telus.net
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