Performatives, Phonetic Repertoire, Phonological Processes

Modern Türklük Araştırmaları Dergisi Cilt 5, Sayı 1 (Mart 2008) Mak. #7, ss. 93-118 Telif Hakkı©Ankara Üniversitesi Ankara Üniversitesi Dil ve Tarih-Coğrafya Fakültesi Çağdaş Türk Lehçeleri ve Edebiyatları Bölümü

Performatives, Phonetic Repertoire, Phonological Processes, Socio-emotional and Communicative Development of a Monolingual Azerbaijani Turkish Child

Farhad Mazlum Zavarag University for Teachers Education, Tehran

ÖZET Bu makalenin yazarı, çalışmanın uygulandığı katılımcının fonetik repertuarının hesabını çıkartmak, üretimlerinde erken gelişen bazı fonolojik süreçleri izlemek ve sonuç olarak sosyo-duygusal ve konuşmaya dayalı gelişmelerini incelemek için fonetik olarak uyum biçimlerini araştırmaya niyetlenmiştir. Tekdilli Azerbaycan Türkçesi konuşuru bir çocuk 10 aylıktan 16 aylık olana kadar gözlemlendi. Video-kaset ve ses kasedi verilerinin tanımlayıcı analizi verildi. Denek gözlem süreci boyunca sürekli olarak ve sıkça iki edimsel kullandı: örneğin 'rahatsızlık' ve 'rahatlık' durumlarına işaret etmek için sırasıyla /æ/ ve /e/. İlk edinim daha önce gerçekleşti ve diğerinden daha çok kullanıldı. Deneğin ünlü fonetik repertuarı ünsüz fonetik repertuarından daha zengin ve daha ileri görünmektedir. 16 aylıkken 9 ünlünün 6'sını fakat 23 ünsüzün 9'unu edindiği görülmüştür. Bundan başka veri analizleri göstermiştir ki, söz sonu ve söz başı ünsüz düşmesi diğer fonolojik süreçlerle karşılaştırıldığında daha sık görülmektedir. Çalışma boyunca deneğin yaşına bağlı olarak (beklendiği gibi) az sayıda fonolojik süreç mevcuttur. Sonuç olarak çocuğun sosyo-duygusal ve konuşmaya dayalı gelişimi Owen'in modeli kullanılarak araştırılmıştır. Veri katılımcının (deneğin) 'gelişimsel yolda' doğal olarak ilerlediğini gösteren bazı delilleri sağlamıştır. ANAHTAR SÖZCÜKLER Söz edim icraları, fonetik repertuvar, fonolojik süreç, toplum-duygusal ve bildirişim gelişmesi, Türkçe.

Modern Türklük Araştırmaları Dergisi Cilt 5 . Sayı 1 . Mart 2008

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ABSTRACT The author of this paper intended to investigate the phonetically consistent forms that the participant of the study applied, to make an account of his phonetic repertoire, to trace some early-occurring phonological processes in his output, and finally, to study his socio-emotional and communicative development. A monolingual Azerbaijani Turkish child was observed from about 10 months to 16 months of age. The descriptive analysis of the video-taped and audio-taped data revealed that the subject used two performatives consistently and frequently over the observation period; i.e. /æ/ and /e/ to express states of ‘discomfort’ and ‘comfort and pleasure’ respectively. The first performative was acquired earlier and used more than the other. The subject’s vowel phonetic repertoire seems to be richer and more sophisticated than his consonant repertoire. By 16 months of age he seemed to have acquired 6 vowels (out of nine) but about 9 consonants (out of 23). Further data analysis demonstrated that final and initial consonant deletions were more frequent compared to other phonological processes. Few phonological processes were present- as expected- due to the subject’s age during the study. Finally, socio-emotional and communicative development of the child was investigated using Owens’s model. Data provided some evidence that the participant moves on the ‘developmental track’ naturally. KEY WORDS Performatives, phonetic repertoire, phonological process, socio-emotional and communicative development, Turkish.

INTRODUCTION

1. Definition

Children go through different stages of development. Language is only one aspect, although a very important and complex one. Phonological development is a part of that highly complex phenomenon, although a complicated process itself. Phonological processes are a common and predictable part of phonological development often recognized by parents as simple pronunciation errors. Children pronounce words quite differently than adult speakers. Commonly, these differences are labeled as phonological processes (Ferguson, Menn, and Stoel-Gammon, 1992).

Hoffman (2005) believes that phonological awareness develops around the age of two or earlier. It describes the "conscious awareness of the phonological properties of language." Ingram (1990) notes that between ages of 1; 6 and 4; 0 the young child undergoes considerable development in phonological ability. Phonological ability improves through an increase in the ability to produce adult sounds and combine them into more complex phonological structures. Ingram (1976) has referred to this stages as one in which children acquire ‘the phonology of simple morphemes’.

Phonological development is approached and investigated differently by

Azerbaijani Turkish Development F. Mazlum Zavarag 95

different people based on the overall learning theory they adopt. Below is a short

overview of phonological development theories.

2. Phonological Development Theories

Behaviorist Models

Phonological awareness develops through behaviorist mechanisms such as imitation and reinforcement. According to the behaviorist model children learn language by imitating their parents and/or environment and through the reinforcement method (positive reinforcement). This theory does not explain any inner process or the relationship between the children's brain development and their language development.

Biological and Innate-based Models

The biological approach argues that there are biological factors such as the development of the vocal tract, which facilitates phonological awareness. This theory therefore is based on the development and/or function of anatomical and physiological characteristics of human beings. Research has supported this theory by identifying predictable phonological processes that are present in all normally developing children. Those who believe that language development is innate attribute the presence of phonological processes to children’s cognitive limitations. As children grow and mature into adults physically, their mental capacity also develops. As their phonemic capacity increases, their sound systems become less restrained by phonological processes and their phonology transitions into that of an adult (Bernhardt & Stemberger, 1998). Literature is rich with theoreticians who believe that phonological development is internal to children.

The Cognitive Problem-solving Models

According to this theory phonological awareness arises in order to solve a problem. Language and its properties are seen as whole-word representations, which the child has to break down somehow in order to make sense of them. When the child begins to do this it can be said that they have developed phonological awareness.

The Connectionist Approach

This recently proposed theory claims that the development of phonological awareness arises through the combination of human cognitive processes. No "rules" are sufficient to determine or explain human behavior. According to this model there are connections between different cognitive processes, such as between the level of


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phonemes and mental units. Children learn to set up these connections in order to become aware of language properties.

3. A Brief History

3.1. Methodology

The first studies of child language took the form of parental diaries. Some of the best known are Preyer (1889), Stern & Stern (1907), Grégoire (1937), Velten (1943) and Leopold’s four-volume work (1939–1947). The goal of these works was mostly descriptive and often had a larger focus than just language, because little was known about children’s behavior in general. Diary studies focus on the development of one or two children; they are not very systematic, and do not provide norms for acquisition. Under the influence of behaviorism, researchers became interested in systematic measurements of language development, and in norms for acquisition, which resulted in large sample studies such as Templin (1957), in which 430 subjects participated. Of course, one could only look at certain aspects, e.g. what kind of sounds could be articulated by three-year old children. However, norms do not tell us much about how the individual child goes about acquiring the phonology of a language.

In reaction to this, new research started to look for the emergence of rules and to describe the developing grammar. The goal was to explain language acquisition and to investigate how learning is accomplished in the presence of incomplete and often contradictory input, one of the main research questions for linguists formulated by Chomsky. Related to this is the question of how much of grammar is innate and how much is learned.

With this shift in focus, the methodology also changed. Large sample studies were replaced by longitudinal language sampling, where a number of children are visited at regular intervals over a period of time, to gain representative samples of the language development of more than one child. Longitudinal language sampling studies focusing on phonological development are not abundantly available; partly because it is very time-consuming and partly because existing databases are not (easily) accessible. This will hopefully soon change: currently, some phonological databases are accessible through CHILDES (MacWhinney 1995).

In addition to longitudinal studies, experiments can be conducted to find answers to specific questions. Although this is potentially a very fruitful method to gain insight into questions such as how lexical items are stored in the mind, very few production experiments have been successfully carried out using young children as subjects: young children have a very short attention span and are often not able to carry out the tasks set.


3.2. Theoretical Frameworks

In the last decades several different theoretical frameworks have been employed in studies on acquisition of phonology: phonology of the Prague school (Jakobson 1941/68), natural phonology (Stampe 1973), Firthian prosodic phonology (Waterson 1971, 1987), while Smith’s (1973) work used the framework developed in SPE (Chomsky & Halle 1968). Since these phonological frameworks mostly dealt with features and segmental rules, this was also the central topic in the acquisition literature.

In the eighties and early nineties of this century, non-linear phonology and prosodic morphology were the dominant phonological theories. They mainly paid attention to representations and hypothesized that rules would follow from or be restricted by the representations. This paved the way for a new impulse to phonological acquisition research (cf. Spencer 1986, Iverson & Wheeler 1987, McDonough & Myers 1991, Stemberger & Stoel-Gammon 1991, Stemberger 1991, Fee 1991, Fikkert 1994a, b, Levelt 1994). Most of this work concerns the acquisition of segmental phonology, but higher phonological levels are also being considered (section 4).

Currently, Optimality Theory (OT) dominates phonological research (cf.Prince & Smolensky 1993, McCarthy & Prince 1993, 1994) by again changing the focus of attention. An interesting aspect of OT is that no division is made between segmental and prosodic phonology. This has the advantage that it can elegantly express interactions between both, for instance when certain features align with word edges. But it has the disadvantage that it does not restrict the possible interactions. Studies on acquisition of phonology in the framework of OT have emerged only very recently (cf. Gnanadesikan 1996, Demuth 1996, Pater 1997, Goad 1998).

4. Acquisition of Segmental Phonology In the area of segmental phonology two basic approaches have been taken: the first conducts research into the acquisition of segmental inventories (4.1); the second investigates the acquisition of segmental rules or processes (4.2). Surprisingly, hardly any work has been done on the acquisition of the segmental rules that play a role in the adult phonology. The focus has largely been on rules typical of child language, e.g. consonant harmony – a process in which two consonants (partly) assimilate to each other.

4.1. Segmental inventories

One of the questions that constantly recur is whether there is a universal order in which segments and/or features are acquired (cf. Jakobson 1941/1968, Rice & Avery 1995, Beers 1995). Jakobson’s theory of phonological features makes clear predictions in this respect. Jakobson proposes that the concept of maximal contrast dictates the


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order of acquisition of phonological oppositions. In general, the broad contrasts are acquired first. Gradually the contrasts become more subtle. (1) gives the first stages of acquisition, as predicted by Jakobson: Acquisition of phonological contrasts according to Jakobson (1941/1968)

1. Contrast between consonants and vowels, resulting in a CV syllable. The optimal contrast is between maximal closure – a labial stop –, and a maximally open vowel: /pa/ 2. Contrast between nasal and oral stops: /p/ versus /m/. 3. Contrast between labials and non-labials (dentals): /p, m/ versus /t, n/. 4. Contrast between wide (low) and narrow (high) vowels: /a/ versus /i/. 5. a. Contrast between front and back vowels: /i/ versus /u/; or b. contrast between high and mid vowels: /i/ versus /e/.

The first two steps make clear ‘why papa and mama’ – the title of Jakobson’s 1939/1962 article – are among the first words in every language. Jakobson further claimed that there is a relationship between the order of acquisition and the distribution of sounds in the languages of the world. Those features or contrasts that figure in all languages are acquired first. Furthermore, he claimed that there are laws of irreversible solidarity, i.e. claims about the distribution of phonological features among the world’s languages, that not only determine inventories but also dictate what kind of rules are to be expected in acquisition. For example, back consonants presuppose front consonants, and are therefore acquired later. Front consonants are also more likely to substitute for back consonants. Similarly, stops are acquired before fricatives, voiceless stops before voiced stops, and fricatives before affricates.

An important feature of Jakobson’s theory is the clear relationship between children’s phonological systems and those of adults. A child’s system may be simpler (having fewer contrasts) but not fundamentally different. In other words, the child’s initial phonological structure is relatively impoverished. If positive evidence for a particular contrast has been encountered by the child, he or she is forced to add structure. This assumption is shared by most researchers, although not by all. Smith (1973), for example, views acquisition as the unlearning or simplifying of rules; Stampe (1973) as the suppressing of natural rules. In their views the child’s system becomes simpler as the acquisition process goes along. Thus we might also assume that a child’s system is fundamentally different from that of adults with maturation being the key factor. If, however, this assumption is made, the study of acquisition is not particularly interesting or enlightening for linguists.

Jakobson’s work has been widely criticised, mainly because it predicts a universal order of development, whereas the study of acquisition data has revealed a great deal of both inter-and intra-child variation. Although Jakobson’s theory was not based on extensive longitudinal databases, he was probably not unaware of different kinds of


variation in child language data. His work was based on phonological theory, and he had a clear view of the relationship between linguistic universals and language acquisition. Even though there might be some variation, this variation is by no means random. Certain segmental inventories are more likely than others, while others simply never occur.

Several researchers have attempted to improve Jakobson’s theory by taking variation and variability into account. To gain insight into the amount of inter- and intra-child variation in the development of segmental inventories, Ferguson & Farwell (1975), Shibamoto & Olmsted (1978), Stoel-Gammon & Cooper (1984) and others made use of phone classes and constructed phone trees: for each target phoneme a child’s corresponding productions, forming a phone class, are noted; by connecting the phone classes of a longitudinal series of language samples a phone tree is constructed. This method emphasises the range of variation rather than the uniformity. The child was seen as a ‘little linguist’, an active hypothesis tester; each child can therefore in principle come up with different hypotheses. Acquisition in this view is thus more probabilistic rather than deterministic (as in Jakobson’s theory). This theory, though, does not make any predictions for acquisition. Moreover, it does not account for the large amount of uniformity that is found in children’s developmental patterns.

Ingram (1981, 1988) criticises Jakobson’s theory of acquisition, because it is not falsifiable, in that no criteria for acquisition are given. This criticism can hardly be taken seriously, especially since he proposes to amend this by merely stipulating norms for acquisition. He also criticises Ferguson & Farwell’s work because of its sensitivity to all kinds of variability, not only due to competence factors, but also to performance factors. Criticism of Ferguson & Farwell’s work was already implicit in Jakobson’s work. What Ingram proposes is in fact only a method for analyzing children’s data, not a theory of acquisition, let alone an improvement of Jakobson’s theory.

Another model that takes both uniformity and variability into account is that of Rice & Avery (1995). They hypothesise that inventories expand gradually, but systematically. Structure is built up only as required, by increasing the number of contrasts in the inventory. Furthermore, elaboration must follow a predetermined path within any particular organising node, in the Jakobsonian sense that certain features imply the existence of others (i.e. the presence of fricatives presumes the presence of stops), thus accounting for the universality of certain features. However, there is a certain freedom as to which organising nodes are first elaborated on, accounting for inter-child and cross-linguistic variability. With respect to intra-child variability they argue that in the absence of contrast considerable variation can be found, while in the presence of contrast the amount of variation decreases.


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All the works mentioned above have in common that they are concerned with individual features and/or phonemes. Although they may take different positions in the word into consideration, they fail to explain why differences between different positions exist. Some recent work shows that it is useful to look at whole words (Macken 1979, Stoel-Gammon 1983, Levelt 1994, Velleman 1995), and to consider a child’s whole vocabulary as some point in time (Levelt 1994).

4.2. Segmental processes in child language

Many articles on child phonology provide lists of processes that can be found in child language (cf. Ingram 1976, 1989, Stampe 1973, Smith 1973, Menn 1971, 1977, Iverson & Wheeler 1987). Processes or rules are often formulated in such a way that they take an input that is more or less identical to the adult target form, and perform changes to this form so that they deliver an output, the child’s production form. In other words, these processes describe the relationship between the adult and the child form. Examples of such processes are given in below, from Ingram (1976), who divides processes into three types: assimilation, substitution, and syllable structure simplification processes.

List of segmental processes in child phonology (Ingram 1976/1999)

A. Assimilation processes (reduplication) 1. Total reduplication: a CV syllable is repeated in the child’s word Patrick [bæbæ] 2. Partial reduplication: either a consonant (consonant harmony) or a vowel (vowel harmony) of a target syllable appears twice in the child’s word. Peter [bibə] Andrea [æjæ ] B. Substitution processes 1. Stopping: the change of fricatives and affricates into stops, e.g.: Vinegar [bidu] 2. Prevocalic voicing: the voicing of obstruents before vowels, e.g. pocket [bat] 3. Final devoicing: the devoicing of final voiced obstruents, e.g. Knob [nap] 4. Fronting: the production more towards the front of mouth, e.g. Duck [dat] 5. Gliding: the changing of a liquid into a glide, e.g. rock [wat] C. Syllable structure processes 1. cluster reduction: a consonant cluster is reduced to single consonant; e.g. play [pe] 2. deletion of final consonants: a CVC is reduced to CV; e.g. bike [bai] 3. deletion of unstressed syllables especially if it precedes a stressed syllable e.g. banana [næn ]

Smith (1973) formulates these rules – which he called realisation rule- and assumes that they are simplified and ultimately unlearned in the course of development; Stampe (1973) calls them natural rules, which have to be suppressed in the course of acquisition. Spencer (1986) reanalyses Smith’s data in a non-linear phonological framework. Iverson & Wheeler (1987) analyse many of the assimilation


processes using non-linear phonological tools. A non-linear framework allows us to formulate the rules much more elegantly. However, even in a non-linear phonological framework, where representations are enriched and the number of rules severely limited – only spreading (assimilation) and delinking (deletion) rules are allowed – the problem mentioned above remains. Although, for instance, stopping can now be elegantly described as the delinking of the feature [continuant], and consonant harmony as the spreading of one or more features from one consonant to another, in the formulation of the rule reference still has to be made to an underlying representation that resembles the adult target form.

These works have been criticised because the rules do not seem ‘psychologically real’: it is hard to believe that a child, having an underlying representation which resembles the adult form – based on the fact that the child’s perception is far more advanced than his or her production – subsequently changes it to create a new impoverished form. Nevertheless, this is often implicitly assumed. If the input form is the underlying form and resembles the adult target form we have to conclude that the rules are performance rules and do not reflect competence.

Another problem with formulating rules to express the relationship between adult and child forms is that rules can only operate on input or adult forms, while many phenomena seem to be better accounted for by assuming constraints on the output, the child’s forms. For example, if in a particular position not only fricatives are changed into stops, but also other types of consonants, such as liquids and nasals, we could still try to formulate a rule, but this will result in a collection of ad hoc statements (cf. Menn 1978). By constraining possible output forms the relationship between adult and child forms can be expressed more accurately. This idea has found support in recent literature (cf. Macken 1992, Levelt 1994, Fikkert 1994a, b, Demuth 1995a,b, Demuth & Fee 1995); it is now often assumed that children have certain canonical forms or templates onto which the adult forms are mapped. Since these canonical forms or templates are constrained in certain ways, the child’s production form often differs from the adult target form. Development means getting rid of constraints and/or elaborating templates so that the child forms resemble the adult target more and more.

To summarise, all approaches assume an input form that is more or less identical to the adult target form, and an output form – the child’s production. They differ, however, in the way they formulate the relationship between input and output forms. In recent work attention has been shifted to explaining this relationship on the basis of a child’s developing phonological system, rather than merely describing it by formulating a rule or process. One segmental ‘rule’ that has been topic of much debate lately is consonant harmony (cf. Levelt 1994).


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4.3. Considering the whole lexicon

Waterson (1971) observed that all early production forms of her son fitted into one of five basic word structures, also called ‘prosodies’ or ‘canonical forms’. Furthermore, she noted that these early production forms often did not have a straightforward relationship with the adult forms: the relationship could not be expressed by any of the rules or processes described in 4.2. Nevertheless, on closer inspection, adult and child forms had certain features in common, although the distribution of these features in the word might be completely different. She accounted for those phenomena by assuming that what is perceived best is produced earliest, and that the schemata of these early production forms or prosodies facilitate both the production of other forms and the acquisition of new forms, through pattern recognition. Development takes place when the child perceives more phonetic detail, which differentiates new prosodies, until the final state is reached in which each word has its own prosody. Although Waterson’s analysis may account for the initial stages, it has been convincingly shown that incomplete perception at best accounts for a small subset of the production data and that in most cases the child can perceive differences that he or she cannot produce (Smith 1973, Macken 1980, Dinnsen & Barlow 1998).

Recently, the focus of explanation has shifted towards output constraints. Macken (1992) noticed that many words are built according to the same recipe: labial consonant – vowel – coronal consonant – vowel, so that a Spanish word like sopa ‘soup’ is produced as [pota]. Levelt (1994) makes the same observation for Dutch at a particular stage in the development. Usually, this stage is preceded by one in which children only have words that are either completely labial or completely coronal, that is, one place specification per word. Gradually, more differentiations are made. In the first ‘mixed’ forms, labials are always attached or aligned to the left edge of the word, explaining why zeep can become [pe:p] and sopa [pota]. Similarly, when dorsals are produced by the child, they are first obligatorily attached to the right edge of words, explaining why a Dutch word like kip ‘chicken’; /kip/ is produced as [tik] or [pik]. Alignment constraints are also proposed by Velleman (1995). Thus, as the child’s phonological system develops, features are first aligned to word edges, rather then to the whole word. Later, these alignment constraints are gradually relaxed, so that features can be attached to any segment in the word. As a result the child is able to expand the set of word forms, until each word has its own form.

Work like this shows that it is not sufficient to look at features or segments in isolation, but that one needs to take whole words into account. Furthermore, it is also important to consider a child’s whole vocabulary at certain stages to gain a deeper understanding of (a) how segment inventories and vocabularies develop and (b) why processes such as those mentioned in 4.2 take place. This shows once more the


importance of longitudinal databases. Work from a holistic point (emphasis added) of view has only just begun, and much more research is needed.

The new approach assumes that the child learns to recognize recurring patterns of sound sequences, and then learns to contrast them on the basis of smaller units, first words, then syllables, then segments/ features (emphasis added). In his paper ‘the measurement of whole-word production’, Ingram (2002) introduces a measure for phonological development similar to MLU, called phonological mean length of utterance (pMLU). The main aims of the measure are (1) to quantify phonological development in a straightforward way, and (2) to focus on the child’s whole-word production instead of the production of specific segments. PMLU reflects the length of the child’s words and the number of correct consonants, and is formally defined as the length of the child’s word productions (in segments) plus the number of correct consonants in each production divided by the total number of word tokens. Thus, if a child says ‘nana’ for ‘banana’, the score for this particular utterance would be six pMLU points, i.e. four for the length in segments, plus two for the correct consonants (the two /n/s). PMLU is computed by averaging the score over a number of utterances (preferably 25 or more). Ingram considers pMLU as a measure of ‘phonological proficiency’ and of course provides the readers with the detailed account of computing pMLU. (see Ingram, 2002)

5. Speech Production in the Infant

The case in this study was 10 months old when observation began and about 16 months old when data collection stopped. A brief preliminary remark; therefore, follows on the nature of the procedures children during that period; i.e. 10 to 16 months, undergo.

According to James (1990), a new-born baby has a poor repertoire of sounds. The most common sounds are crying and vegetative sounds. By about two months of age, the child makes vowel-like sounds called cooing. When they are five or six months old, children produce sequences of vowel- and consonant-like sounds that seem to serve as a bridge between cooing and true babbling. The reduplicated consonant-vowel syllable productions are referred to as babbling and appear around 6 months of age. Examples are bababa, nanana…. The earliest consonant-like sounds among the child’s reduplicated babbling are sounds produced in the front of the mouth, such as /p/, /b/, /m/, /t/, /d/, and /n/. Between 9 to 18 months of age, more complex babbling utterances are produced. Their repertoire of consonant-like sounds gets richer, and the consonant and vowel sounds change within a babbled sequence of syllables. This kind of babbling which usually begins at 9 months of age has been called non-reduplicated babbling or sometimes variegated babbling. As children grow, their babbling begins


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to sound more like adult speech. There is controversy over the relationship between babbling and the emergence

of intelligible speech. Jakobson (1968) believes that sound production in babbling is essentially unrelated to the child’s acquisition of adult phonology. He notes that babbling reflects a range of speech sounds that the child produces randomly. Other investigators (Elbers & Tom, 1985) found a close relationship used by any particular child in late babbling and in early words.

When children are 9 to 10 months of age, they begin to use some idiosyncratic sounds consistently in certain situations or along with particular behaviors (James, 1990). These consistent vocalizations are significant since they seem to serve as a link between preverbal communication and meaningful speech (James, 1990). These particular vocalizations have been called phonetically consistent forms or performatives. For example Engel (1973) described her son’s use of /u/ to indicate disapproval. Carter (1974) did a thorough analysis of a child’s use of consonant-like phonetically consistent forms between 12 and 16 months and found that these prelinguistic communications gradually evolved into meaningful words. For instance, utterances with an /m/-initial phoneme plus an object-reaching gesture eventually evolved into the words more and my/mine.

The Present Study

Regarding the period through which the child was observed; i.e. 10 months of age until 16 months of age, the purpose is threefold: firstly, it is intended to focus on the child’s earlier sound productions with a specific focus on his phonetic repertoire and his performatives; second, it is hoped to trace some phonological process at the later stages of data collection. Lastly, based on Owens’s (2001) model of developing children, a comparative analysis will be carried out to see the subject’s position in that model.

METHOD

Participant

The subject is Amir Mahdi (henceforth Amir). His father is a shopkeeper and his mother is a housewife. They both use Azerbaijani Turkish (henceforth AzTurkish) at home with each other and with the child. The mother has finished her high school education but not the father. They do not have a house of their own. Socioeconomically, then, it can be said that they are below-average. The child spends his time mostly with his mother and his mother is the major source of input.


Data Collection

The mother was provided with a handy camera and a walkman cassette player. She was also given some forms to fill in when video- or audio-taping was not possible. The procedure was thoroughly explained to her as how, when and how often to do data-collecting. The researcher tried as much as he could to establish a friendly relation with the child but could not. That was the main reason the child’s mother was required to collect data. Amir was about 10 months of age when data collection began and he was about 16 months old at the end of this study.

Data Analysis

I. Amir’s Phonetic Repertoire

Reduplicated babbling usually appears around 6 months of age and they are carried over to the later stages. (James, 1990) It was naturally expected to observe some such babblings in Amir’s sound production. Actually the data is rich with such phenomena even when he is about 16 months old. According to James (1990), “The earliest consonant-like sounds among the child’s reduplicated babbling are sounds produced in the front of the mouth, such as /p/, /b/, /m/, /t/, /d/, and /n/.” Earlier, Amir’s babbling is heavily dominated with the consonants /d/, /b/, and /m/. Consonants /t/ and /n/ seem to have been acquired later than expected. His sound repertoire gets naturally richer as he grows up. Table 1 below shows the chronological emergence of his consonants.

Table 1: Amir’s consonant repertoire in order of appearance Amir’s age in months and days

His consonants in order of appearance

Example Context

10; 2 /d/ da-da, du-du In response to his mom who asked: what are you doing?

11; 7 /b/ baba, buba His mom calls him and he responds this way.

12; 3 /m/ im Playing with Fatima who is about 7 years old

12; 18 /p/ bop (ball) Fatima has his ball in her hand 14; 10 /g/ gagi (refreshments) His dad comes home with a full

paper bag 15; 2 /n/ and /dĵ/ 1.en-en,

2. ji-ji 1. riding his bike 2. when his mom asks him to call ‘ju-ju’

16;2 /v/ həvi? (carrot) His mom asks him to repeat ‘həvij’ [hævidĵ ]


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• /dĵ/ is used for the sound found initially in ‘job’. • /?/ is used when the child fails to produce the target form

It needs to be pointed that he repeated his earlier-acquired consonants in his later productions quite often. Also data seem to suggest that his vowel repertoire is richer and more sophisticated than that of his consonants. Not to be neglected is the nature of the input to which Amir is exposed; i.e. AzTurkish. According to Mohammadi (1998) and Hadi (1995), Azerbaijani Turkish has nine vowels and 23 consonants. This may contribute to the subject’s richer vowel sounds repertoire. Table 2 shows AzTurkish vowels along with examples.

Table 2: AzTurkish Vowels (Hadi, 1995)

Vowel

Not-rounded Rounded

Open Semi-open Open Semi-open Long a

Ana (mother)

i dil (language)

o Yol (way)

u uymaq ( sleep)

Short

e

Ev (house)

i Adin (your name)

ö ölüm (death)

ü üch (three)

Table 3 below demonstrates Amir’s vowel sounds in order of appearance.

Attempts have been made to include those vowels that are used consistently over a relatively long period of time. It seems Amir needs further input to enrich his vowel sounds, though he used almost all his L1 vowels during the observation. The reason for excluding some vowels like /ö/ is the inconsistency of its use or its disappearance in later stages. For instance Amir used the vowel /ö/ when he was about 10 months of age. He, however, did not produce it later.

ə gəl (come)


Table 3: Amir’s vowels in order of appearance

Amir’s age in months and days

His vowels in order of appearance

Example Context

10; 2 /a/, /o/, /u/ da-da, do, du-du in response to his mom who asked: what are you doing?

10; 25 /ә/ dәdә Wants to call his dad

11; 7 /ü / bübü Playing alone.

13;1 /e/ eda Fatima goes away and Amir follows her

14; 10 /i/ abji (sister) His mom wants him to call ‘abji’

II. Amir’s Phonetically Consistent Forms or Performatives

When children are 9 to 10 months of age, they begin to use some idiosyncratic sounds consistently in certain situations or along with particular behaviours. These consistent vocalizations are significant since they seem to serve as a link between preverbal communication and meaningful speech (James, 1990). These particular vocalizations have been called phonetically consistent forms or performatives. For example Engel (1973) described her son’s use of /u/ to indicate disapproval. Dore, Franklin, Miller, and Ramer (1976) studied four children’s use of phonetically consistent forms between 11 and 16 months of age. They found that the children frequently expressed affect through the use of vowel sounds, such as /ae/ to express pleasure and /i/ to indicate protest.

As indicated earlier, it is intended to navigate the present data to trace, if used frequently and consistently, Amir’s performatives. Scrutinizing Amir’s sound use during this period provides evidence that two phonetically consistent forms appear to have been used quite frequently and systematically. They are /æh/ and /eh/. The findings seem to provide further support to the above studies particularly if one chooses to focus more on the contrast between /æ/ and /e/. More navigation reveals two other points: firstly, the first form has been used more than the other, and secondly, /æh/ was acquired earlier. Table 4 shows some contexts in which each form appeared.


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Table 4: Amir’s phonetically consistent forms (performatives) Amir’s performatives Context of Use

/æh/

his toy falls down cannot turn off his toy cow pulls Fatima’s dress angrily and wants his cookie back not interested in the elicitation procedure his mom uses does not like his mom’s insistence his mom avoids giving him some juice and he protests his mom wants him not to touch the buttons of his toy car feels uncomfortable being videotaped and consequently ignored

/eh/

offers generously his favourite red toy car to keep daddy home longer playing hide-and-seek with daddy finding money on the floor and looking vividly at his parents excited when kicking his ball

Each form, the first one in particular, has been used more than the cases presented in the table yet they were repetitive. A close analysis of the two contexts reveals that Amir uses each form for expressing different attitudes. All the examples for performative one clearly demonstrate a state of ‘discomfort’ whereas the instances for the second performative suggest states of ‘pleasure’ and ‘comfort’. The findings are in line with Dore et al’s (1976) results that: “children frequently express affect through the use of vowel sounds.”

III. Phonological Processes

According to Ingram (1990), between ages of 1;6 and 4;0 the young child undergoes considerable development in phonological ability. Even though data collection took place from about 10 to 16 months of age, Amir seems to be one step ahead of his phonological development schedule because he has just begun some of the common


processes that take place earlier. The next section is devoted to the subject’s phonological processes which naturally have taken place at the later stages of data collection (Table 5). Although reduplications are considered phonological processes, few examples are given below because Amir repeatedly and frequently reduplicated dada, dudu, dadu, baba, bubu, buba etc. Care has been exercised to include processes that appear consistently and frequently.

Table 5: Amir’s Phonological Process

• /dĵ/ is used for the sound found initially in ‘job’. • /tĵ/ is used for the sound found initially in ‘chair’

Target forms and Equivalents

Amir’s production

Phonetic transcription

Turkish Phonetic transcription

English

Phonological process

buba /buba/ baba /baba/ father Reduplication and vowel replacement

mama /mama/ maman /maman/ mother final consonant deletion

dadu /dadu/ davud /davud/ Davud reduplication

dada /dada/ dadaş /dadaś / older brother

final consonant deletion

ab?i /ab?i/ abci /abdĵi/ sister Stridency deletion

ji-ji /dĵi dĵi/ ju-ju /dĵu:dĵu:/ An animal or an insect

Reduplication and vowel replacement

bop /bop/ top /top/ ball labial assimilation

Ami /æmi/ Amir /æmi:r/ Amir final consonant deletion

a?ma /a?ma/ alma /alma/ apple Cluster reduction

piş /piś/ pişi /piśi/ cat Syllable deletion

on be? /onbe/ on beş /onbeś/ fifteen Final consonant deletion

?andi? /?andi/ sandis /sandi:s/ A brand of fruit juice

Initial & final consonant deletion

ama /ama/ ana /ana/ mother labial assimilation

u /u:/ yu /yu:/ wash Initial glide deletion

әx /ækh/ çәx /tĵækh/ bike Initial consonant deletion

әmbu /æmbu/ zәnbur /zænbu:r/ bee Initial consonant deletion

Labial assimilation

Final consonant deletion

hәvi? /hævi/ hәvic /hævi:dĵ / carrot Final consonant deletion

?api /?api/ hapi /hapi/ doggy Initial glottal deletion


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• /ś/ is used for the sound found initially in ‘she’ • /?/ is used when the child fails to produce the target form

In terms of the frequency of the phonological processes, table 5 shows that the most frequent one is the deletion of consonants both finally and initially. Of course final consonant deletion has happened more than its counterpart.

IV. The Developing Child

Owens (2001) proposes a general child-development chronology with four related, but separate, developmental areas: physical, cognitive, socio-emotional, and communicative growth. Detailed criteria are provided to see if a given child is moving ‘on the track’; i.e. she is developing normally and as expected. Two areas were selected for this study; namely, socio-emotional and communicative. The reason for choosing these area lies with the fact that they are more clearly manifested in data. There is always someone by or around Amir and this makes the two selected areas more accessible. Amir’s mother was also interviewed for further support or confirmation Tables 6 and 7 demonstrate Amir’s Socialization and Communication development respectively. It needs to be pointed out that for further support of data Amir’s parents were interviewed for each one of the categories. It is also worth mentioning that more pieces of evidence and examples could have been included in both tables but the most frequent or the most dominant examples were selected.

Table 6: Amir’s Socialization Development Socialization Observed? Examples and Context

Age (months) activities or behaviours

Yes No

10 Displays mood

Helps dress & feed self

Becomes aware of approval or disapproval

*

*

*

feels uncomfortable with the researcher

takes his hand full of rice to his mouth and misses much of it

He turns and looks at his mom when taking the vase because his mom says /eh/

11 Seeks approval

*


Anticipates mother’s goal and tries to change it by protest

May assert self

*

*

After repeating for a long time, he leaves his mom and shouts in anger

12 Expresses preference

Expresses many different emotions

*

*

Shouts in protest when playing with toys and disturbed by elicitation procedure

1. he gets angry when

Fatima takes his toys

2. shows excitement over hearing ‘daddy is coming’

3. feels shy and uncomfortable with strangers

13 – 15 Looks for adults when left alone

Likes music and dancing

Pushes toys

Imitates

housework

begins make-believe play

laughs when chased

*

*

*

*

*

*

Calls mama when his mom is in the kitchen

Dances in taxis when there is music

Dances when his mom asks him to

Pushing his toy cars many times

Taking the sweeper along himself

Wants water because he wants to go to the kitchen. Some electronic toys are kept there.

When playing hide-and-seek

The above table seems to provide some support that Amir is developing socio-emotionally with an acceptable pace.


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Table 7: Amir’s Communication Development Communication Observed? Examples and Context

Age (months)

activities or behaviours

Yes No

10 Imitates adult speech if sounds in repertoire

Obeys some commands

*

*

Imitates frequently his mom saying ‘dadu’

Gives his toy to his mom when she says ‘ver’ {give}

Looks at his mom or dad when one says ‘bax’ {look!}

11 Imitates inflections, rhythms, facial expression, etc

* He seems to imitate mainly rhythmic patterns

12 Recognizes own name

Reacts to ‘no’ intonation

Speaks one or more words

Practices words he knows and inflections…

*

*

*

*

He seems to recognize that the parents just used his name.

Refuses to keep his head up when he receives ‘no’.

dadu, baba, mama

he practices the words he knows but no inflection practicing

13-15 Points to clothes, persons, toys, and animals named

Uses jargon and words in conversation

Has 4 to 6 word vocabulary

*

*

*

Points to people he knows and his toys. He points to a few animals.

Mama, baba, ana, havi? …


Amir seems to be moving naturally on communicative development track.

Summary of the Findings

This study was an attempt to search for possible answers to the following four questions (regarding the existing data and the subject’s age):

What is the subject’s phonetic repertoire? Which performatives or phonetically consistent forms does the subject use

consistently and frequently to express affect? What are the most common phonological processes the subject undergoes? Is the subject’s socio-emotional and communicative development as predicted

and expected? (applying Owens’s model) As for the first question, data analysis revealed that Amir’s vowel sounds

repertoire is richer and more sophisticated than that of consonant. He seems to have acquired about six vowels out of nine. Is it due to the rich AzTurkish vowel repertoire? Is it the case with other children with the same L1? Or is it a universal characteristic of vowel-consonant acquisition? Only further in-depth studies can provide reliable and valid answers.

Amir used vowels /æ/ and /e/ frequently and consistently to express states of ‘discomfort’ and ‘pleasure and comfort’ respectively. This finding provides further support to earlier studies on children’s use of performatives. (Dore et al’s; 1976)

The most common phonological process observed was the ‘consonant deletion’ process that was more final than initial. Other processes such as labial assimilation were also noticed.

Owens’s (2001) model of developing child was followed to trace Amir’s socio-emotional and communicative development. Amir’s parents were interviewed and the data was investigated. Amir seems to be a socio-emotionally and communicatively developing child.

Concluding Remarks

Children’s language development journey is full of wonders. All normally developing children all over the globe acquire their first languages in an unbelievably short time and begin to use it competently for different functions. Earlier to the full access to the language, children go through different stages of development, from a newborn baby with crying and vegetative sounds to a 5 year-old child who uses language not only competently but also in a socially appropriate way.


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The question of how learning is accomplished in the presence of incomplete and contradictory input can be studied purely from a formal theoretical point of view, without looking at actual data. This is often referred to as the logical problem of acquisition. An important characteristic of any theory of grammar should be that it is learnable. Therefore, any theory should also provide an account of the acquisition process (cf. Dresher & Kaye 1990, Gillis et al. 1992, Pulleyblank & Turkel 1996, Tesar & Smolensky 1998). Research into the acquisition of phonology is ideally not only based on formal theories of phonology, but also on analyses of longitudinal data from child language, in which the complete set of data at different stages of development is taken into account.

Different phonological theories, of course, make different predictions concerning the specific details of acquisition. Acquisition studies should help decide on which theory is better suited to account for the attested variation and uniformity in children’s grammars.

Children’s performatives, phonological processes, their physical, cognitive, socio-emotional, and communicative developments are among the intriguing, yet rarely tapped, research topics that need further researches with the existing languages in Iran; Azerbaijani Turkish included. The limitations of the present study were the unsystematiciy of data collection during some weeks by the subject’s mother and the relatively low quality of some audio-taped data that made decision making difficult and problematic in few cases. Future studies need to avoid such shortcomings in one way or another and collect data over a longer period of time.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: The author would like to express his thanks to Professor Keshavarz who helped a lot during the study. Thanks also go to Mr. Behruzi and his wife (Amir’s parents) for their cooperation.

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Farhad Mazlum Zavarag

PhD student of TEFL in University for Teachers Education, Tehran, Iran Adres: Farhad Mazlum Zavarag, English Department, Tarbiat Moallem University, Moffateh St., Tehran, Iran. E-mail: [email protected] or [email protected]

mailto:[email protected]




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Performatives, Phonetic Repertoire, Phonological Processes