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Patterns of language learning-related behaviours: evidence for self-help in acquiring grammar*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Marilyn Shatz  and
Karen Ebeling
Marilyn Shatz*
Affiliation:
University of Michigan
Karen Ebeling
Affiliation:
Wayne State University
*
the University of Michigan, 330 Packard Road, Ann Arbor, M1 48104, USA.
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Abstract

Four kinds of language learning-related behaviours (LLRBs) were examined in the home conversations of six English children studied for six months from age 2;0 to 2;6. The speech of the children was coded for the number of times they participated in language lessons, language practice, metalanguage and revisions of prior language. All the children were active and frequent producers of LLRBs, with revisions being observed most commonly. Further analysis revealed that the majority of the revisions that the children initiated involved grammatical changes, with the revised utterances tending to be more grammatical than their predecessors. An auditory monitor is proposed as a partial explanation for revision behaviour, and is evaluated relative to other possible accounts of the findings.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 18 , Issue 2 , June 1991 , pp. 295 - 313
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

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Footnotes

*

Acknowledgements: the data on which this paper is based were collected by Penny Munn and Judy Dunn under the aegis of the Medical Research Council Unit on the Development and Integration of Behaviour, Cambridge, England. We are grateful to them for making the data available for our use. We thank Sharon Wilcox for assistance with statistical analyses and J. E. K. Smith for statistical advice. Portions of our work were presented at the Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Baltimore, MD, in April 1987, and at the 4th International Congress of the International Association for the Study of Child Language, Lund, Sweden, in August 1987. The work was supported by a grant from the Office of the Vice-President for Research, University of Michigan.

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