First Language

It is clear that child language research (CLR) is a field of considerable disunity, in terms of theory as well as practice, but especially as regards practice. This paper argues that a major source of inconsistency in CLR at the level of data and method is the diverse disciplinary back grounds of its practitioners. The disciplinary orientation of the senior authors of over 150 published research reports in ten different journals between 1970 and 1985 was used as an independent variable in the examination of various methodological practices. Specifically, one can observe a division between linguists and those trained in the humanities on the one hand, and psychologists and those trained in the social sciences on the other hand. Both groups contribute to CLR, but their contributions differ, sometimes radically, in the domain of in quiry, in the methods employed to collect, preserve, and analyse data, and even in the presentation of results.

This paper is an attempt to use the language development strategy of one child from 15 to 25 months to illustrate the importance of the nonword aspects of communicative development on the develop ment of later language. The child studied here did not show an increase in MLU from 15 to 22 months but within a three-month period after 22 months jumped from 1.2 to 3.0 MLU. This spurt is explain in terms of the other aspects of communication the child was acquiring over the time frame, including social games, intonation, and syntax markers. The strategy of this child was described as a social interactive one which focused on the structural features of the dialogue, rather than on words.

Sociolinguistic studies of language development have tended to con centrate on the home and the classroom and to emphasize the im portance of social class as a major determinant of differences in lan guage style. However, analyses of spatial patterns of reading attain ment in inner London indicate that although class is important its influence is moulded by features of the neighbourhood in which the children live. These neighbourhood influences may help explain areal variations in the performance of members of the same social class living in different parts of the city. It is suggested, as a result of these findings, that a focus on the local area by students of linguistic develop ment may provide additional information about processes of language acquisition.

This presentation begins with a brief discussion of some of the political, theoretical and methodological problems involved in the study of language development in pre-lingually deaf children. After an overview of the pre-verbal stages of development, it moves on to consider aspects of the structure of English grammar that create specific problems for deaf children and considers these in the light of research into the language development of hearing children. Studies of literacy in deaf children are discussed and explanations sought for the characteristic 'errors' that many children make in reading and writing and for the strategies they adopt in reading. Finally, some of the complex explanations given for the nature and origins of deaf children's language-learning problems are explored. The discussion ends with a brief critical description of the 'typical' structure and content found in linguistic interactions between teachers of the deaf and their pupils in school.