The Child's First-self identification as "I"

1.2.1. Stages of child language

1.2.1.1. Introduction

As pointed out earlier, language development in children starts earlier than the time when adults have its manifestations. At that time, the child has his own way of communicating, using paralinguistic features such as crying, smiling, body movements, babbling which end sometime when the child starts practising real language.

1.2.1.2 Crying and smiling.

Crying is a nonverbal vocal sound people produce. It often carries meaning. When a baby cries, it expresses states of discomfort, e.g. to say he is hungry or suffers from a given pain, etc. The only one parson to interpret the child's crying is his caretaker.

As mentioned in the preceding section, children know that it is their mothers who provide them with comfort. In fact, when a child cries, his mother interacts with him one way or another. This kind of interaction constitutes a prelinguistic conversation between child and mother. That is why one can, for example, hear a mother intervene to the cry of her child saying :

Toto nyamanzaa....!

Mama'takupa nyonyo.....!

(Oh baby ! Stop crying....

Mommy is going to give you breast ! )

This kind of response of a mother results from the child's nonverbal phenomenon of addressing his mother. It is looked at by some linguists to be a precursor of language. Weeks (1979 : 121) states that:

" Infant vocalizations are precursors

of language ; some of them

eventually lead to language sounds ;

some result in paralinguistic phenomena

(aspects of nonverbal communication). "

Smiling, as opposed to crying, on the other hand, expresses states of satisfaction, happiness, contentment, etc. A child responding positively to older persons' language often does it through smiling. For example, when he sees his parents in a good mood, he also shows his happiness by smiling. This is to say that if he would have some words and the physical possibility to express his feelings, he would have produced those words.

1.2.1.3. Body movements or Kinesics

Body movements are another prelinguistic stage. Markel, N.N. (1969 : 80) refers to them as Kinesics or the systematic study of gestures and motions.

Weeks (1979 : 124 - 131), on the other hand, classifies them in terms of " explicit gestures, body postures, body rhythms and face and eyes. " They are for a child a means to reach out something useful, to touch, to make some physical exercices, etc.

Explicit gestures as well as face and eyes movements are our interest in this sub-point.

In fact, children have a repertoire of so many gestures that carry meaning and that can easily be understood by parents or caretakers. These gestures can be, for example, lifting up arms by a child to ask mother to take him ; waving an arm to say goodbye ; taking a cup to say he needs water to drink ; etc.

It is, then, up to any person accustomed to children to interpret these gestures appropriately. Haselkorn, S.L. (1977) quoted by Weeks (1979 : 125) says that

" The adult is interpreting the child's

requests on the basis of the child's

nonverbal behavior and its context

whether or not a verbalization

or vocalization is included. "

This is to say that adults do not have to take into account the child's object name, for example, a cup of water, at face value but rather consider its nonverbal meaning as to say together with Weeks (1979 : 125) that " gestures are powerful communicators. "

In connection to this, young children use the " face and eyes " body movements to communicate messages. A face movement, as Weeks (1979 : 130) writes

" is usually considered to be the principal

communicator of moods or emotions _____

a much more reliable indicator than language. "

It can be the expression of happiness, anger, fear, sadness, surprise and disgust.

Since children never hide their moods and feelings, there is no need to guess their facial movements. It is to the careteker to interpret them and know when a child is either happy or angry.

On the other hand, when a child's eye meets or avoids his mother's or caretaker's, communication takes place, and both the child and his mother get involved in it and immediately know that it is either an " eye " of affection, demand, happiness, etc. or discontent, as Weeks (1979 : 131) goes on writing :

" And just as eye contact carries with it a special kind of

communication, the complete avoidance of eye

contact signals something special ________

social distance, a disinclination to be friendly,

or outright unfriendliness. "

1.2.1.4. Babbling stage

Babbling is the most common variety of language play in which young children engage . According to Weeks (1979 : 139), babbling is a speech-type sounds that are made principally during the prespeech period of infancy (from perhaps six months to one year).

Actually, it is at the babbling stage when people hear the child producing syllables like

ba ba ba

pa pa pa

ta ta ta

ya ya ya

As mentioned in the first section of this chapter, it is at the babbling stage that the child produces his first sounds. Linguistically, these sounds, for example " papa ", " mama " are randomly produced since the child is still at a pre-language stage. To understand how this strange creature happens to produce such sounds, Alby N. et al. (1976 : 485) say that

" ... Ces échanges sont absolument universels (les bébés chinois ou anglais font des " a-re " comme les bébés français) et malgré les apparences, ils sont très riches en combinaisons de tous ordres, l'enfant utilisant cependant, aux début d'avantage des voyellesque des consonnes (...) Les linguistes modernes, Jakobson enparticulier,qui se sont interessés au fonctionnement du langage enfantin pensent que l'enfant progresse en jouant avec les sons et tout spécialement en provoquant des sons contractés. Par exemple, l'enfant prend plaisir à associer une consonne fermant la bouche, /p/, à une voyelle l'ouvrant au maximum, /a/, ce qui donne /p'a/, maintes fois répété. En réalité, il lance les sons un peu au hasard, et devant la joie qu'il provoque, surtout quand sa mère l'y encourage, il les redit à qui mieux mieux. De la même façon, il associe volontier une consonne explosive comme le /p/ avec une consonne fermant ensuite la bouche comme le /m/, d'où /p'am/, puis /mam/ et enfin /mama/. "

The above quotation can be translated into English as follows :

" ... These exchanges are absolutely universal (Chinese or English babies as well as French ones produce " a-re ") and despite apparent facts, they are rich in combinations, producing at an early age more vowels than consonants (...) Modern linguists, particulary Jakobson, think that the child evolves in playing with sounds by contrasting them. He gets pleasure, for example, in associating the consonant /p/ to the vowel /a/ closing his mouth and opening it widely.This consonant-vowel association gives /p'a /, repeatedly produced. Actually, this is produced randomly but it gives him pleasure in case his mother encourages him to do so. In the same way, he associates a plosive like /p/ with another consonant, like /m/ to give /p'am/. Then he produces " mam " which finally results in " mama ".

From the above quotation, one may discover that language acquisition in children of the early age is already a complex phenomenon which follows a predictable order, with the combination and contrast of both consonants and vowels. This is what can be schematized :

Stage 1 : CONSONANT + VOWEL = CV (repeatedly)

p + a

p + a

p + a Pa pa pa ...

* * *

* * *

* * *

Stage 2 : CONS + CONS = CVC = CVCV (repeatedly)

p + m = p'a m

mam = mama ...

* * * *

* * * *

* * * *

These sounds give the impression of a given language with meaning, as Lewis, M.M. (1963 : 20) quoted by Weeks (1976 : 86 ) writes :

" When a child is babbling

he gives us the impression

that he is making sounds

" for their own sake." "

As said earlier, babbling begins during the early months of infancy and continues up until when real speech begins. Though it is often interpreted to be a child's way to communicate, it does not express any meaning. To follow Kambale, M.B. (2003/4)'s ideas, babbling only " indicates the child's preparedness for verbalization, that is the use of words to express one's thought. "

However, Lenneberg (1967) and Jakobson (1968) quoted by Weeks (1979:86) stated that babbling is in no way a predictor of language behaviour.They respectively say that babbling does not represent "practice stages for future verbal behavior and that it is an articulatory exercise that is unrelated to later speech. " Fortunately, even if babbling is qualified as " play ", Weeks (1979 : 86) goes on writing that

" recent studies offer evidence that babbling

is more than random noise ;

there is a continuity between babbling

and meaningful child speech. "

Following this, speculations can be made to know whether there can be some relationships between the babbling of a child and future speech production. These speculations are to know about any cause-and-effect relationship between the child's babbling and his future speech production.

Providing an answer, Weeks (1979 : 86-7) followed some children's language development and came to the conclusion that

" a very small amount of babbling may be considered a predictor, not a

cause, of slow speech development during the early language

development period. "

This is to say that babblers should be encouraged by adults in their everyday speech-type sounds. In doing so, the former will profit from it and repeat some of the sounds pronounced by the latter. That is why Norman (1936), referred to by Weeks (1976:88), describing some aspects of the babbling of a nine month-old girl says :

" When she heard her own strings of

nonsense syllables said to her by her

campanions, she showed real delight,

and was able to repeat these syllables

in turn after the adults. In this

there seemed to be the first

communication in the sense of a give

and take of speech-sounds, or of

sounds that were later to become speech. "

Indeed, in producing babbling that is similar to adult speech, the child gets great satisfaction and pleasure.

However, by the fact that babbling is a stage of meaningless sounds, the attitude of parents as well as of any other educator vis-à-vis the babbler should show the child that he is understood. Parents, therefore, should adopt a soothing attitude in case the child babbles to trouble them. In addition, parents' attitude will even be a boast of the linguistic performances of their babies, learning now to say

" ti-ti-ti " to refer to a car, for example.

A pedagogical implication is that the teacher should be attentive to the

learner's language production by using the " Silent Way Method ".

Following Kambale, M.B. (2002 - 2003), this method is referred to as an approach in which the teacher should talk less and less, to remain silent so that there will be more and more pupil talk. This method was developed in 1963 by Calleb Gattegno in comparison to the " silent period " during which a child does acquire his mother tongue, but cannot verbalize what he is taking in. But, any way, the child's first utterances are pieces of evidence that language learning has already taken place.

The babbling stage then takes end with the practice of real language by children, at about one year of age.

1.2.1.5. One-word stage

At the end of the babbling stage (1 : 3), the child starts producing utterances which are made of one word only. The words concerned are only content ones, those expressing concepts.

A concept, as Weeks (1979 : 25) writes, is a thought or an idea ; in logic it is more specifically an idea comprehending the essential attributes of a class of logical species.

When a child names something, he indicates that conceptualization has taken place in his mind. This is what, for example, people hear from him :

Ua ( mua ) (Sugar cane)

Ai ( chai ) (Tea )

Ali (ugali) ( Cassava bread)

Yola (Solange ) ( Female name )

Uu (Kuku ) ( Chicken )

Accordingly, Weeks (1979 : 23) observed that at 1 : 7 years, Brandon had learned the word cow. He says that this child had learned this word well enough that he could always identify a real cow or a picture of a cow correctly up until he learned a new word.

After this step, he learns and uses short utterances to ask for food and make some conversations with older persons.

All these three examples suggest that the hearer may not exactly be aware of what the child is saying about the thing, the place, people, animal, ... that he

mentions. Yet, he needs additionnal information from the context in which the child produces his utterance as to have an idea of what he has in mind.

By producing the above words, it is up to the listener to know that the child wants to be given a sugar cane, tea or food ; he also wants to show the chicken passing by and probably wants Solange (Yola) to hold him.

A pedagogical conclusion is that the educator should be ready to accept good one-word answers from learners ; to encourage them at the very early ages to answer in one-word only ; to teach single concepts in order to facilitate learning at the very early stage. Then after, he can teach two concepts, at the second step.

In doing so, he will be encouraging the development of the sense of achievement at the end of every learning session. One can have :

Step 1 : One-word utterance : One concept

e.g. Cup Chair

Step 2 : Two concepts

e.g. Cups

Chairs

1.2.1.6. Two-word stage

Two-word utterances happen at about 1 : 9 years. It is a characteristic of utterances given in a fixed order. One may hear utterances like :

- This is ?

- Towel bed

- Baby chair

- Mommy sleep

- More read

- Daddy car

- etc.

The above examples indicate that the child's cognitive sphere is now capable of organizing information in patterns, following some predictable principles. And this is what makes a child differ from a chimpanzee, however adult it is because research studies have shown that it still remains mentally disorganized and unstable. This difference can well be stated throughtout the following comparative chart ; as mentioned by Kambale, M.B. (2003-2004).

Table 1 : Table of child & Chimp utterance structure differences.

CHILD		CHIMPANZEE	UTTERANCES (1) More sweet Sweet go (referring to the respbery bush where berry grows on) Structures Mod + head Place + verb UTTERANCES (2) Car gone This is Go sweet Structures S+ V V + Place

The above chart suggests that while the human child gives manifestations of higher mental power, the old chimp shows mental disorganization. For the child, even if the meaning of his utterances still brings in confusion, their order is predictable. On the other hand, the chimp has no idea of any standard order.

1.2.1.7. Three-word stage

Although the bulk of children fall somewhere in the language practice they indulge in, it has been noted that children's earliest language productions are already fluent at the age of two when three-word utterances happen. Three-word utterances are characterized by the appearance of word inflections as in the following :

- My talk John ( = I was talking to John)

- Yeah, these are ?

- Pants change.

- Daddy go car.

1.2.1.8. Increasingly sophisticated language

Three-word stage is a passing phase which ushers in a more increasing and sophisticated language. This is already observed at the age of 2 : 8 when the child can produce sentences like :

- What he can ride in ?

- He not taking the walls down

- I want to open it

- Ile bike yangu nipe (Give me that pen belonging to me)

- The cup broke

At two and three, his vocabulary increases so rapidly that, as Alby et al.

(1976: 496) put it, he is capable of building up organised and meaningful sentences with the structure S+ V + C.

Between 2 : 10 and 4 : 00 years the child will be producing utterances like :

- Lady bug. Lady bug won't hurt me

They love me

- My teacher holded the baby rabbits

and we patted them (...)

- No, she holded them loosely.

- ... And roses maked him sneeze.

The example here above is to say that the child's language is a long process

that develops from one stage to another until it reaches the adult version as to form lexis and other aspects of language.

Yet, it still contains some grammatical weakness. However, as mentioned by Kambale, M.B. (2003-2004), the child grows in selecting appropriate structures to mean the same thing in different circumstances as in the following :

- Give me beans

- I need beans

- Can I have beans ?

- Can I have beans, please ?

- I see beans

- Could I have beans, please ?

- Beans taste well.

On the other hand, at 3 : 00 the child can already answer some WH-questions. He is at the age called " the questioning period" where he asks any question to adults, even though he still has difficulties in everyday spoken language. His questions are puzzling because he already knows to differentiate a question from an answer.

Following Weeks (1979 : 8/9) quoting Halliday (1973 : 8), it is easy to say that .

" The young child is very well aware of

how to use language to learn, and

may be conscious of his aspect of language (...)

Many children (...) know what

a " question " is, what an " answer " is,

what " knowing " and " understanding "

mean, and they can talk about

these things without difficulty. "

Because " children do things with their language " although limited as it may appear, a child of 3 : 00 knows how to use his " poor " words in a useful way to convey a given message in connection with real life situations.

To talk to people, a three year -old child addresses them with the third person singular. Deictically speaking, using this third person justifies the fact that the child is still limited since he has not mastered the first person singular yet, and since the third persons " he, she, it or they " are the words adults use to address him very often.

e.g. (1) Aline, unyamanzeee ... Mama'takubebaaa ...

( Keep quiet oh, Aline ... Your mother

is going to carry you.)

(2) Mammy's going to lift Tommy up

(3) Daddy wants to brush Julie's hair.

By the ages of 5 and 6 the child will have picked up all that one needs to qualify as a full-fletched member of a language community.