CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background to the Study                

From infancy, language development of a normal child occurs spontaneously and “effortlessly” where no formal instruction of language input to guide this development is required. The ease with which the acquisition operates poses questions such as: “How is the child able to process this information (language input) to decode what is meant? How is he able not to randomly utter anything he knows to be a word but carefully selects the „right‟ word to communicate?” among many other questions. The curiosity over the processes of language acquisition in children motivated scholars to study the different aspects of language development in children as is the case in this research. This ability to acquire language is credited to brain laterization which “…is said to increase throughout childhood until it reaches adult level at puberty”. Reich (1986:293)

When a language is heard for the first time, what intrigues the listener the most are the obvious properties of sound such as tone, rhythm and stress (suprasegmental phonemes). This implies that sounds form an integral part of any verbal language or communication. These sounds can either be speech sounds or non-speech sounds such as whistling, humming etc. Some non-speech sounds and sign language may be rightly regarded as impaired use of language; even though communication still transpires in either of these contexts of language use. Due to the central role of sounds in human language, linguists and philosophers of language have found it difficult to exclude sounds from their definitions of language. This is sufficiently evidenced in such definitions as those of Sapir (1921), Hall (1968),  Wardaugh,

(1972), among others. Sapir (1921:7), for instance, has acceptably defined language as “…a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of a system of voluntarily produced symbols. These symbols are, in the first instance, auditory and they are produced by the so-called „organs of speech” (emphasis added). Going by this definition, communication is the aim of any language user and this is achieved in many situations by sounds produced by the organs of speech. Reinforcing this definition, Hall (1968:158) submitted as follows: “language is the institution where by humans communicate and interact with each other by means of habitually used oral-auditory symbols” (emphasis mine).These oral-auditory symbols are continually in use for effective communication to take place. And this habit is acquired from childhood until teenage age or the critical period of language acquisition when the habit is said to be fully formed. Central to these definitions of language is sound, which is an indispensable factor in the discussion of any language. 

 A language learner or acquirer in the earliest stage of development begins by first internalizing the sounds and the rules of such a language, an ability every normal child possesses. How fast this occurs depends on the child's intellectual speed, memory, motivation, personality, among other learning conditions or factors. (McNeil, 1966, Surakat 2001). The production of sounds begins from the moment the child is born and this continues to develop to the stage where the child acquires universal sounds which later transform to a sound system (Surakat 2001 and Lenneberg 1964).

Noise or sounds made by infants and children in general have always stirred certain emotions in the adult; the adults admire and occasionally imitate these infants or children as the case may be. The language of children and the acquisition or learning methods is an aspect of

(developmental) psycholinguistics which Crystal (2003:350) defines as “a branch of linguistics which studies the correlation between linguistic behaviour and the psychological processes thought to underline that behaviour…the best developed branch of the subject is the study of language acquisition in children”. Developmental psycholinguistics includes stages in the acquisition of language and their features, theories to explicate the processes of acquisition, language triggering factors, creativity and errors in the use of language.  These processes and the relationship between language and the mental state or the brain is the area of focus in psycholinguistics which Berry (1975:4) defines as “…the field of study which considers linguistic questions and psychological questions in relation to each other. One question which is both a linguistic and psychological question is: How do children acquire language?” 

In the words of Traxler and Gernsbacher (2006:1027), “The goal of developmental psycholinguistics is to map out the endogenous and exogenous forces that converge to shape and guide this set of developmental achievement”. These endogenous and exogenous forces can be equated to the environmental factors and the mental processing of these factors in language use especially as the child develops. In the early stages, children are being spoken to in simple and short constructions, which is believed to be the same model the child will produce a-year-and-a-half or two later. “All infants pass through the same stage in the acquisition of a first language….” (Field 2005:144). But the acquisition of one particular stage by children of the same age group can vary in degrees and times. The child, in the „real linguistic sense‟, commences with the production of one-word utterances linguistically regarded as Holophrase. This stage marks the emergence of real language (true speech). The moment a child begins the stringing of words together in one use, it is expedient to, at that point, assert that the child imitates the language of his role models - the adult. (This does not mean that the adult speaker has out grown single word utterances). This period in development is called the Two-Word Stage. In an article entitled “The Creation of Language”, McNeil (1966) affirms that “by one and a half or two years, the child will begin to form simple two and three word sentences… this stunning intellectual achievement is routinely performed by every preschool child.” This language behaviour was sufficiently exhibited by the main participant of this research Juju. 

1.2   Statement of the Research Problem

Early childhood is a critical period for language acquisition (Neuman, Copple and Bredekamp 1999, Shonkoff, and Philips, 2000). Child language development involves changes which occur in the speech form of the child from stage to stage. Researchers have been able to identify such language development stages and grouped them into (a) prelinguistic stage, which is the making of sounds such as cooing,  babbling, echolalia and (b) the linguistic stage which begins with holophrase, followed by pivot grammar or two-word stage and lastly, telegraphic stage. Emergent researches have also focused on the acquisition of English by a child in a second language environment especially the syntax, semantics/pragmatics or holophrase and telegraphic stages (Ndahi, 1982; Onyenobi, 1997; Phelps, 2003; Surakat, 2001; 2006; 2007; Wicham, 2013; Ngwu, 2015). The concern of such scholars however bothered on the child's psycholinguistic abilities, that is, how the child processes the words spoken to them. Where more than one language is involved, how/why code-mixing? Findings also abound that children of preschool age find it difficult to make complete pronunciation of phonological sounds (Zhu, 2000; Fox, 2000; Phelps, 2003; Schmitz, 2011; Wickham, 2013). Furthermore, McNeil (1966) terms the process of acquiring aspects of language relevant to the child from age one (1) as “inventive” on the basis that in the fundamental biological characters of the brain, only little understanding is available. These positions taken by these authors reveal conflicting opinions on why children speak the way they do.

A mild resolution to these varying ardent opinions as to the reason children speak in the manner they do at the developmental stage, is that; the preschool children who find it difficult to pronounce words adequately invent their own pronunciations. De Villier and De Villier (1978) are of the opinion that the child listens to all the sounds produced by adults but only produces the sounds he has mastered, even though some mispronunciations happen, because the child misunderstands the adult's pronunciation of multisyllabic words. The issues that are if interest to this study are; (i) whether the language of children or their pronunciation of words are based on their inventive nature or that their developing speech organs contribute to the manner in which they speak and pronounce words. (ii) Whether their pronunciations is a result of the merger of their inventiveness and the still-developing speech organs. The research therefore investigates these issues, consequently making it imperative for a research of this nature to be undertaken. 

1.3 Research Questions

This study therefore provide answers to the following questions:

1.     What are the most notable segments of phonology present in the child's sound inventory at Two-word stage of language acquisition and why?

2.     What influence do supra segmental phonemes have on the child's contextual use of language at two stage of language acquisition?

3.     To what extent would the child's language at two-word stage of language acquisition be regarded as truly connected?

1.4    Aim and Objectives

This is a longitudinal study aimed at documenting the utterances of the child from 20-24, 32 and 33 months and to also conduct a phonological investigation of phonemic sounds and the phonological processes of the (main participant, Juju) at Two-Word Stage of language acquisition. The specific objectives are to:

1.     Present a sound inventory, both segmental and supra segmental phonemes of the main participant;

2.     Investigate the influence of non-segmental phonemes on the child's contextual use of language; and 

3.     Ascertain whether or not the child's language at this stage can be regarded as truly connected.

1.5 Justification

This research aspires to particularly do a phonological study of the English language at two word stage of language development of a simultaneous bilingual child: that is, do an investigation in the area of the phonology of multiple words. Features of Nigerian English of the child is also of interest to this study for the reason that the use of English Language by adults in Nigeria and school age children has attracted a large body of research from different scholars at different level of linguistic analysis: Phonology, Morphology, Syntax, Semantics and Pragmatics. Some of these prominent scholars include: Ayo Banjo (1976), Munzali Jibril (1981), Ayo Bamgbose (1982), Odumuh (1984), Jowitt (1991) etc. Unfortunately, similar attention has not been paid to the English of the preschool Nigerian child, especially from the psycholinguistic perspective and within the framework of Nigerian English.

Research in Child Language Development (CLD) in African countries and, particularly in Nigeria, though being attended to from the pioneering work of Ndahi (1982), is yet to obtain adequate scholarly attention when compared  to the number of studies already carried out over the years in the continents of America, Asia and Europe. The implication of this scarcity of researches to the field of Psycholinguistics and to our knowledge of language acquisition in children is, “…a restricted idea (knowledge) about patterns of normal and abnormal language development” Surakat (2001:8). Some of the available researches conducted include: Ndahi, 1982; (Yusuf, 1984; Oyebade, 1990) in Surakat (2001), Onyenobi, 1997; Surakat, 2001; 2006; 2007/2009; Ambrose, 2011; Ajayi, 2013; and Ngwu, 2015. These works are all based on the acquisition of aspects of first or second language in children. In the above mentioned works, Yusuf, 1984; and Oyebade, 1990; focused on the Phonological acquisition of Hausa and Yoruba respectively. The recent works of Surakat, 2006; 2007/2009 which this study is slightly related to, researched on the acquisition of English sounds and Nigerian English by the Nigerian child, therefore; adding to the number of works done in the area of Phonology of child language. The already covered areas of Phonology of child Language are either of the indigenous Nigerian Languages or of Holophrastic Speech. This affords this research the prospect of investigating/exploring different aspects of the Phonology of Two Word stage from the utterances of the main participant, Juju, as contained in the data collected.

Surakat (2006), is a general linguistic investigation of the process of acquisition of the English of a preschooler who has already acquired a first language. His later work (Surakat 2007/2009) “The Acquisition of English Sounds by a bilingual Nigerian child” has certain similarities with this research's segmentals but this study proceeds further to analyse suprasegmental phonemes and connected speech with particular reference to two-word stage. It is as a result of this that the researcher embarked on a research on English phonology of the Nigerian preschool child, at two-word stage. This research is one of the few longitudinal studies focused on the phonological acquisition of English at two-word stage of a developing child, that is yet to attract the attention of linguists, governmental and non-governmental organizations, national and international groups dealing with the affairs of children. Parents and intending parents will benefit from this work because they are or would be part of the formative period in the development of these children. This work will also give parents, teachers and speech therapists insights into language of children (the manner the different Phonemes are produced) and its development, therefore rendering it indispensable.

The data collected from the natural environment of the main participant, will contribute immensely to psycholinguistics, phonology and sociolinguistics because developmental psycholinguistics studies language for what it can reveal about the stages in language acquisition and series of changes in the acquisition process. Lastly, this study seeks to contribute to and/or complement other works already conducted in phonology and psycholinguistics or any other related fields.

1.6 Scope of the Study

This is a naturalistic case study (not a cross-sectional or experimental study) of a single participant, Juju; who is a Nigerian and whose major language of communication is the English language and, in very few instances, Hausa. This is because the parents are from different linguistic backgrounds but share two languages in common - English and Hausa. The child is spoken to in English most of her waking hours and due to the multi-linguistic nature of the parents‟ area of residence, English and Nigerian pidgin serve as the major languages of communication.

This research, is therefore, focused on the phonology of two-word utterances. Aspects of phonology to be considered are the segmental and non-segmental phonemes of words as produced by the participant; the concept of word by extension is therefore within the scope of study because these sounds are not produced in isolation but within words. Segmental and suprasegmental phonemes are discussed as complimenting each other, but emphasis is on segmental phonemes and their manner of articulation.

 Utterances said in a language other than English are disregarded unless found relevant for discussion. Holophrastic and telegraphic utterances are discussed for comparison or reference purposes since they constitute part of the formative processes of language development of children. Acoustic and auditory phonology are discussed briefly and where necessary to complement the main thrust which is articulatory phonology - articulatory phonology studies how speech sounds area made by the users of the language. Aspects of semantics and vocabulary inventory are mentioned only in instances where they are found relevant to the discussions on phonology. And lastly, a brief account of the anatomy of infant and the changes that occur as they develop is included.

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