Examining the language of E (2;7) and Z (2;4) to compare their language capabilities and skills
Evie (2 years 7 months)
When asked who they should photograph next E replies "some more" to respond she wants to choose several for the next photograph without being specific as to who she's going to pick. Some is a Quantifier Determiner and E has used it appropriately to tell her grandmother how many more she wants in the next photograph. Another Determiner E uses in her language during the transcript is Demonstrative Determiners, for example, when E is given the chance of choice she makes her decision by supposedly picking up the item as she declares "this". She also later says "that nice" to describe something as nice following an action. When being more specific of what she wants or what she's talking about E uses the Article Determiner "the", two examples being "in the picture" and "the wolf" which is more specific than just "in picture" which is from the Two Word Stage E may have developed out of now, or "wolf" rather than a specific wolf toy being addressed. The next determiner E uses is Numeral Determiner when counting how many animals are in the photographs as her grandmother encourages her to do as counting skill development encouragement. "One two" and "one two three four five" are examples from E of her using this determiner, she may not be specific of what she's counting such as "2 sheep and 3 chickens" but she's not been asked to count them in groups but just as a whole collection together as what's in the photograph. The final determiner E has demonstrated is Possessive Determiner with an example such as "my smile" which she says to recognise herself in the photograph she took and that it's her smiling in the photograph and not another child or her grandmother.
"Picture wolf" is an example of Agent and Action E has demonstrated, this shows E is beginning to understand components that make a sentence but still has a little way to go to get the possible full sentence "take a picture of the wolf". She has the most important parts of the sentence so her grandmother knows what she wants to do but she's missing the words in between those two to make it a proper sentence. An example of Negative shows E is at Stage 1 of Negative, "no put it all" is stage 1 of 3 a child will go through to use negatives in sentences. Stage 2 E will later move her "no"s from the start of her sentences to the middle, then Stage 3 she will attach the negative to auxiliary verbs and the copula verb "be" securely. The final technique for this section E uses is Recognition of Possession of Others, declaring and recognising what is yours is easy but for a child being able to recognise what belongs to others like E does with "grandma bed" is a key development they'll need in later life to be able to share for example.
The first thing noticeable at first glance at the transcript for E is that there is a code or key even next to certain words E more than likely struggles with such as "picture [pItfIt]". I think the transcripter does this because writing the word how E says it would confuse the reader as to what she's really saying as that certain word is a bit of a struggle to get at so by having a key/code to capture sounds and pronunciations E tries next to the correct word spelling will be easier to transcript and read. An example of Fillers in the transcript is an interesting on, "uh (.) uh?". I think the first "uh" is E processing what her grandmother said but when she doesn't quite understand she changes her tone to get "uh?". The final technique for this section is Pauses in E's Speech, E has several pauses in her speech which we can guess means she's interacting as well as talking or she's talking a second to process and think before carrying on as examples that follow show; "(2) gon (.) get (.) out now" and "what (.) panda wa- panda".
At one stage of the transcript E extends the "o" in "show" as "sho-o-o-w", it's not clear why but we can guess she's perhaps making the word more fun to say for herself or doing it for enthuses but we can't be sure without the video. The final thing I picked up from E's language in the transcript is Misuse of Tense, E says "I sneeze" when she should of said "I sneezed" because it would have been past tense after the sneeze has occurred. She appears to know present tense and what she's doing but past and possibly future tense too don't make sense to her yet.
Zach (2 years and 4 months)
Regarding just Deteminers again, Z uses all the Determiners effectively like E. "This is my little pad" is an example of Z's understanding of Possessive Determiners, he's able to declare and knows the pad is his. "Where's my little pad gone?" Is another example from Z so we know he has the understanding of how to use this technique. We already know E uses one Article Determiner, but when looking at Z's language skills too we see he can use two effectively. "A banana" and "the banana" are just two examples of that skill Z has, this means he can talk about the subject of his drawing (a banana) directly or indirectly effectively. Z also demonstrates he can use Quantifier Determiners effectively too, when asked by his mum what he ate earlier he replies "some biscuits. Z doesn't have to make it a Numeral Determiner by saying exactly how many biscuits his mum let him have because he wasn't ask to tell the exact number so he can be brief and just say "some" as I doubt he would of even counted anyway. The final determiner Z demonstrates he can use is Demonstrative Determiners with "what's this lasagne", he knows it's not lasagne but looking at the meal but he uses "this" to make it clearer to his mum what he's labelled "lasagne" so she can give him it's correct name or label.
Z seems to be beginning to understand Present Tense Progression by looking at examples he says suck as, "I cutting round the edge", his sentence is almost perfect and all there so we can expect to see him begin to use this technique more as his understanding grows linguistically. Another technique E demonstrates that Z shows he can do too is Recognise Possession of Others, when his dad brings in meals for himself and Z's mum Z says "and daddy's dinner" which lets us see his starting to recognise possessions of those of people as well as own which was shown near the beginning of my investigation for Z.
Z uses the Filler "erm" in his example of the technique "ere (.) some biscuits" as a response while he's thinking of his answer to his mum's question, this shows Z heard the question and is planning his response and instead of staying silent doesn't appear to be ignoring the question addressed to him. As I mentioned while investigating E's language when E mispronounced something there appeared to be a code/key for how she said it, but while Z the word has been transcripted as he says it; examples include "it doesn't go frough" and "I don't like bolognay". My guess is that Z's attempts at the more tricky words wouldn't effect the reader's understanding of what Z is saying because he's almost grasped those words while that couldn't be done for E as she's not quite at the same stage as Z which is okay as children develop at different rates. The final example of techniques Z uses in his language during the transcript is like E, Z has Pauses in his Speech when he gets distracted or pauses to think before responding to questions that require him to think back on earlier. Examples from Z include "uh (1) here it is" and "erm (.) I got food on the floor".
