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The differences between male and female brains: time to reconsider the value of stereotypes?

I’m both a feminist and a female stereotype – so I know that we’re wired differently

Analysis

TRANSCRIPT ANALYSIS – Judah and Mahri

The conversation starts with an adaption of his dad’s speech into a question, for example: ‘heres Mahri’ .. ‘Is it Mahri’. The ability for the 3 year old to understand and reform his dad’s speech shows that he has not only the mental ability but also the spoken ability to do this. Both children also show tendencies to stutter words in groups of 2 or 3, maybe used to create time to think and produce what they mean to say without the other child interrupting. ‘that that’, ‘far far’ and ‘we we we’ are all used in the same sentence by Mahri when she tries to say that the park is far away. This repetition is consistent through the transcript from both genders which suggests it’s an overall trait of the age. Another analytical feature that shows that these children are in the Post-Telegraphic stage of learning is the abundance of coordinating conjunctions ‘and’ to combine two small sentences that in previous stages would remain separate and make their language look simpler. Judah in particular in this transcript shows he struggles with the consonant cluster ‘th’ in ‘there. On several occasions he uses the consonant ‘d’ instead which is brought back from his first words where a consonant vowel cluster is easier to produce. ‘dere’ is used instead which is still understood by Mahri who replies with a simple ‘ok’. Here, Mahri shows signs of not biding by Grice’s Maxims as in the adjacency pairs she responds twice with ‘Ok’. The one word response does not provide enough information for Judah to reply to, however, may be due to gender differences, Judah carries the conversation on speaking more. 

CBeebies Notes

CBeebies – Something Special Episode 'Lifeboat'

NOTES:

-         Added use of sign language

-         Recognisable and easy to learn song

-         Mainly high frequency lexis

-         Basic use of nouns, adjectives and verbs

-         Repition of key words ‘magic’

-         Signature phrases/motos/rhymes

-         Use of 1^st person pronouns ‘we’

-         Exclamative and interrogative sentences

-         Rhyming

-         Learning activities (learning new signs)

-         Intensifiers

-         Tag questions

-         Conformation

-         Enthusiasm

-         Basic structure sentences

-         Subject of learning new nouns

-         Frequent use of Names

-         Asks questions to involve the viewers and provoke answers and thinking

-         Use of syllabic noises

-         Use of ‘wh’ questions: what, why..

-         Child humour

-         Opportunities for children to interact

-         Association of actions and words to help learning

-         Choose one subject e.g. ‘Lifeboat’ – semantic field lexis

3 Year Old Phone Conversation Transcript

TRANSCRIPT 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sL3vqlHabck

Cute Phone Conversation Between 3-year Olds

Dad: Ok hold on heres Mahri

Judah: Hello (4) Is it Mahri

Mahri: Yeah (.) I I was wondering if if me and da if me and da could come pick you up and take us to the p-park

Judah: Where (2) wheres dad [dad laughs in background]

Mahri: Uh (2) To the park (4)

Judah: I’m gonna get I’m gonna come to your house

Mahri: Ok and a an an and then we’ll start that the park ok Judah

Judah: Park OK (6) I’m gonna I’ll see you dere

Mahri: Oh well

Judah: See you dere

Mahri: Ok

Judah: See you at your house and we’l go to to to the big park

Mahri: Ok

Judah: Which park shall we go

Mahri: Uh yes does Charlie one

Judah: Which ones that

Mahir: Its it’s the one that that is far far away we we we have to wa we have to and and and and get to to that one

Judah: sha shall we bring the car

Mahir: Yeah

Judah: Or shall we walk

Mahir: Yeah

Judah: Shall we walk

Mahri: Yeah walk Judah

Judah: Ok I’ll see you dere

Mahri: Ok (6) Wheres Charlie park  Its its its over da parth the entrance of of of the other house

Judah: Its er its right there (6) we have to walk (.) we have to walk we have to cross the road

Mahri: Yeah [nods head]

Judah: Ok

Mahri: Yeah

Judah: (3) Bye

Mahri: Bye

Judah: When you talk to your daddy (2) I’ll talk to daddy (.) talk to daddy

Mahri: (6) Judah

Judah: Yeah

Mahri: Bye

Judah: Bye

Child Language Theorists Research

Child Language Theorists

Noam Chomsky

Chomsky believes that children are born with the inherited ability to learn any human language. He claims that certain linguistic structures which children use so accurately must be already imprinted on the child’s mind. Chomsky believes that every child has a ‘language acquisition device’ or LAD which encodes the major principles of a language and its grammatical structures into the child’s brain. Children have then only to learn new vocabulary and apply the syntactic structures from the LAD to form sentences. Chomsky points out that a child could not possibly learn a language through imitation alone because the language spoken around them is highly irregular – adult’s speech is often broken up and even sometimes ungrammatical.

Bruner

According to Bruner, the child’s cognitive structures mature with age as a result of which the child can think and organize material in increasingly complex ways. Children are also seen as naturally inquisitive, thirsty for knowledge and understanding.  The child naturally adapts to its environment and abstract thinking develops through action. Bruner believes the child has to learn for itself by making sense of its own environment.  In fact Bruner could be seen as an ‘extreme constructivist’ since he believes the World we experience is a product of our mind.  What we perceive and think of as our World is constructed through our mind as a product of symbolic processes. 

Skinner

The main principle of operant conditioning, as defined by Skinner is positive and negative reinforcement. Reinforcement is the process in which a behaviour is strengthened, and thus, more likely to happen again. Positive Reinforcement is making behaviour stronger by following the behaviour with a pleasant stimulus. Skinner would say that a child learns language through positive reinforcement! His basic explanation for the development of speech was that parents tend to reward infant vocalisations (such as babbling) by giving the infant attention. This increases the frequency of vocalisation. He would suggest that the child will not progress from babbling to language unless the parent’s shape the child’s language behaviour.

Piaget

From his research into children's language and thinking, Jean Piaget based his theory on the idea that children do not think like adults. Piaget's theory describes the mental structures or "schemas" of children as they develop from infants to adults. He concluded that through their interactions with their environment, children actively construct their own understanding of the world. Piaget's theory purports that children's language reflects the development of their logical thinking and reasoning skills in "periods" or stages, with each period having a specific name and age reference.

Example Transcript

English Transcript – Conversation with an almost 2 year old

Caroline:      Eese

Mum:             Hi

Caroline:      Uh eese

Mum:             Do you want this

Caroline:      [nods head]

Mum:             What is it

Caroline:      Mummy

Mum:             No that’s not mummy what is this

Caroline:      Heese

Mum:             Here you go [hands over cheese]

Caroline:      Thank you

Mum:             You’re welcome (.)

Caroline:      A picta

Mum:             A picture (2) can mommy move your milk (3) did you::: um learn any new words today

Caroline:      um daddy

Mum:             Daddy you already knew that one (2) can you are you hiding your cheese [laughs] (.) can you say your name

Caroline:      Name

Mum:             That’s not your name

Caroline:      Daddy

Mum:             Say Caroline

Caroline:      Daddy

Mum:             (2) Caroline

Caroline:      No:

Mum:             No: You don’t want that to be your name (3) you’re being silly

Caroline:      [laughs whilst nibbling cheese] (7) [drinks bottle] mh::::

Mum:             mh:::: milk

Caroline:      [puts cheese under table] uh oh

Mum:             Are you going to have a new cousin

Caroline:      [whilst cheese in mouth] a ba:by::

Mum:             A baby (.) do you know what the baby’s name is going to be

Caroline:      (.) Um (2)

Mum:             Austin

Caroline:      [points out of camera view] A dere::

Mum:             out there (.) the baby’s not here yet (2) can you say Austin

Caroline:      (3) babies

Mum:             babies (.) can you say Austin

Caroline:      [starts eating cheese again] mmh um:::

Mum:             You’re not going to are you

Caroline:      Mumma babies

Mum:             Your babies (.) can you say your name

Caroline:      [looking down under table] baby

Mum:             No (.) look at mommy

Caroline:      A puppies

Mum:             Don’t give the puppy any cheese (.) it’s Caroline’s cheese (3) can you say Caroline

Caroline:      [whilst eating cheese] mummy:::

Mum:             Mummy doesn’t like cheese (2) You:::

Caroline:      (3) Mummy

Mum:             Mummy what

Caroline:      Puppies

Mum:             Puppies (.) Caroline

Caroline:      Daddy

Mum:             (2) Is that the way you say Caroline

Caroline:      A peaches (approx.)

Mum:             Yeah

Caroline:                  peaches (approx.)

Mum:             (3) um where do you live

Caroline:      um (2) a piches

Mum:             You live in Texas

Caroline:      Asdadis

Mum:             Say Go:: cowboys

Caroline:      faries

Mum:             Go:: packers

Caroline:      Poches

Mum:             (3) Go:: Irish

Caroline:      Idish

Mum:             Do you like football

Caroline:      (2) Apodish

Mum:             Football Alright can you say bye bye now

Caroline:      [eating cheese] bye: [waves other hand]

Mum:             Blow kisses

Caroline:      [shoves all cheese in her mouth with both hands]

Mum:             Blow kisses with your cheese mouth

Caroline:      [mouth full of cheese]

Mum:             Oh: (2) That’s nice (3) Ok say I love you

Caroline:      do: you [puts all cheese on table in a crumbled pile]