HUMOR AND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

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HUMOR AND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

• by Don L. F. Nilsen
• and Alleen Pace Nilsen

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Youtube Babies

• Charlie Bit My Finger Again
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?v_OBlgSz8sSM
• Evil-Eye Baby
• http//www.youtube.com/results?search_queryevile
  yebabysearch_typeaq0oqevil
• BABIES HAVING FUN
• https//www.facebook.com/cnnturk/videos/1015430461
  3880106/?frefnf

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(No Transcript)
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Early Expressions of Humor
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Early-Onset Childrens Humor
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Modeling
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2012-2013 Teddy Bear Toss for 12,947 Kids at
Penn State Hersheys Childrens Hospital

• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vP4ENgOxVZm0

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LANGUAGE STAGES

• Stage Age
• Crying Birth
• Cooing 6 Weeks
• Babbling 6 Months
• Intonation 8 Months
• Holophrastic 1 Year
• Pivot-Open 18 Months
• Word Inflections 2 Years
• Questions Negatives 2 ½ Years
• Rare Complex Lg 5 Years
• Mature Speech 10 Years

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Lets not forget body languagepinching and
peek-a-boo
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CARETAKER SPEECH

• Simplified Vocabulary
• Simplified Phonology
• Exaggerated Pitch Intonation
• Many Questions by Mothers
• Many Imperatives by Fathers
• Baby-Talk Words
• e.g. wawa, choo-choo, tummy, scambled eggs,
  pasghetti

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ACQUISITION OF SOUNDS

• Properties of easy sounds
• Front of the Mouth
• Total Articulation
• Muscles already Developed (in Nursing)
• Easy Sounds /m, p, b, t, d/
• Hard Sounds /?, T, ð, š, r, l/ clusters
• Easy sounds occur in more languages and are
  learned earlier by children.

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ACQUISITION OF WORDS

• vov-vov dog
• for dogs, kittens, hens, zoo animals
• mooi moon
• for moon, cake ltOgt anything round
• dany bell sound
• for bell, clock, telephone, doorbell
• quack duck sound
• ducks, birds, insects, coins (because a coin had
  an eagle on it)
• koko rooster crowing
• rooster, merry-go-round, musical sounds, all
  sounds

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J. P. at 16 Months
?aw not, no, dont b?/m? up da dog i?o/si?o Cheerios sa sock aj/j light baw/daw down s aerosol spray sju shoe haj hi sr shirt sweater sæ/esæ whats that? ma mommy dæ daddy (J.P. at 16 months)
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Michael from 18-21 Months
pun spoon peyn plane tIs kiss taw cow tin clean pol-r stroller majtl Michael dajt-r diaper pati Papi mani Momy b-rt Bert b-rt Big Bird (- is schwa) (Michael from 18-21 months)
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• Michael systematically substituted the alveolar
  stop t for the velar stop k as in his words
  for cow, clean, kiss, and his own name.
• He also replaced labial p with t when it
  occurred in the middle of a word, as in his words
  for Papi and diaper.
• He reduced consonant clusters in spoon,
  plane, and stroller, and he devoiced final
  stops as in Big Bird.
• In devoicing the final d in bird, he created
  an ambiguous form b-rt referring both to Bert
  and Big Bird.

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• Michaels substitutions are typical of the
  phonological rules that operate in the very early
  stages of acquisition.
• Other common rules are reduplicationbottle
  becomes baba, water becomes wawa and the
  dropping of a final consonantbed becomes be,
  cake becomes ke. These two rules show that
  the child prefers a simple CV syllable.

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Michael from 18-21 Months
dot dont kh Ip skip su shoe dæt that ph e play dp thump bæt bath th ap stop kIdi kitty wajt light dawi dolly go grow (ph th kh are aspirated p t and k respectively)
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ACQUISITION OF GRAMMAR

• Holophrastic (one part of speech)
• Pivot-Open (two parts of speech)
• Telegraphic (four parts of speech)
• Adult (eight parts of speech)
• Linguist (each part of speech has many
  sub-categories)

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THREE STAGES OF ACQUISITION OF MORPHOLOGY

• 1. Holophrastic men, went, broke, brought
• Right Answer, but Wrong Reason
• 2. Rule-Governed mans, goed, breaked, bringed
• Wrong Answer, but Right Reason
• 3. Knowledge of both Rules and Exceptions to the
  Rules men, went, broke, brought
• Right Answer, and Right Reason
• NOTE These stages also operate for adults
  learning a new profession

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WHAT WOULD A CHILD SAY?
children went better best brought sang geese worst knives worse
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GRAMMAR TWO-WORD STAGE

• The two-word stage is also called the Pivot-Open
  stage because one of the words is usually a
  Lexical Word (an open set that refers to
  something), and the other word is a Functional
  Word (a closed set with grammatical rather than
  reference meaning).
• In the following sentences, indicate which is the
  Pivot word and which is the Open word

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Adam, Eve, and Sarah
Allgone sock. Byebye boat. More wet. Katherine Sock. Hi Mommy. Allgone sticky. It ball. Dirty sock.
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Adam, Eve, and Sarah
See boy See soci. Pretty boat. Pretty fan. More taxi. More melon. Push it. Move it. Mommy sleep. Bye-bye melon. Bye-bye hot. (Adam, Eve, and Sarah)
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M. L. U.

• As children progress from the holophrastic to the
  pivot-open to the telegraphic to the mature
  stages of language development, a simple but
  effective gauge of their level of development is
  MLU.
• MLU means Mean Length of Utterance. MLU is
  the average length of the utterances the child is
  producing at a particular point.

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TELEGRAPHIC SPEECH

• During this stage of development, the functional
  categories like Determiners, Auxiliaries,
  Prepositions, Conjunctions and Expletives are
  missing.
• And the Lexical categories like Nouns, Verbs,
  Adjectives, and Adverbs (usually without any
  suffixes) are present.

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Neil Smith talking to 2-year-old Amahl

• Cat stand up table.
• What that?
• He play little tune.
• Andrew want that.
• Cathy build house.
• No sit there.

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ACQUISITION OF MORPHOLOGYNeil Smith talking to
2-year-old Amahl

• AGE 2
• Progressive ing I singing.
• Plural s blue shoes.
• Copula am, is, are He is asleep.
• Articles a, the He is a doctor.

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• CHILD Nobody dont like me.
• MOTHER No, say Nobody likes me.
• CHILD Nobody dont like me.
• (dialogue repeated eight times)
• MOTHER Now, listen carefully, say Nobody likes
  me.
• CHILD Oh, nobody dont likes me.

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• ADULT What does maws mean?
• CHILD Like a cat.
• ADULT Yes, What else?
• CHILD Nothing else.
• ADULT Its part of your head.
• CHILD fascinated
• ADULT touching childs mouth Whats this?
• CHILD maws
• (Neil Smith talking to 2-year-old Amahl)

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ACQUISITION OF MORPHOLOGY AGE 3

• AGE 3
• Third Person Singular s He wants an apple
• Past tense d I helped Mummy
• Full Progressive be -ing I am singing
• Shortened Copula Hes a doctor
• Shortened Progressive Im singing

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Three-Year Old Jonathan

• 3-Year Old Jonathan Conducting Beethovens 5th
  Symphony
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?v0REJ-lCGiKU

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CHILDRENS METAPHORS

• Dont giggle me.
• I danced the clown.
• Yawny Babyyou can push her mouth open to drink
  her.
• Who deaded my kitty cat?
• Are you gonna nice yourself?
• CF Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.

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WUG AS A NOUN

• Make it plural.
• Make it possessive.
• Make it plural and possessive.

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WUG AS A VERB

• Put it after he in a sentence.
• Make it past tense.
• Make it a past participle.
• Make it a present participle.

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WUG AS AN ADJECTIVE OR ADVERB

• Make it comparative.
• Make it superlative.

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ACQUISITION OF NEGATIVES

• Stage One No you catch me.
• Stage Two You didnt caught me.
• Stage Three You didnt catch me.

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ACQUISITION OF WH-QUESTIONS

• STAGE ONE
• What Mummy doing? Why you singing? Where daddy
  go?
• STAGE TWO
• Where you will go? Why kitty cant see? Why
  you dont know?
• STAGE THREE
• Where will you go? Why cant kitty see? Why dont
  you know?

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• CHILD Want other one spoon, Daddy.
• FATHER You mean, you want the other spoon.
• CHILD Yes, I want the other one spoon, please
  Daddy.
• FATHER Can you say, the other spoon?
• CHILD Other one spoon.
• FATHER Say other.
• CHILD Other.
• FATHER Spoon
• CHILD Spoon
• FATHER Other spoon.
• CHILD Other spoon. Now give me other
  one spoon?

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• CHILD My teacher holded the baby rabbits and we
  patted them.
• ADULT Did you say your teacher held the baby
  rabbits?
• CHILD Yes
• ADULT What did you say she did?
• CHILD She holded the baby rabbits and we patted
  them.
• ADULT Did you say she held them tightly?
• CHILD No, she holded them loosely

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EXPLAIN THE FOLLOWING

• Self-Directed Louding Babys getting a rash
• Rhetorical Questions Dont you know I just
  wiped that off?
• Self-Answered Questions What does the lamb say?
  Baaa.
• Limiting Questions Do you want chocolate or
  vanilla?
• What is the function of egocentric speech? Do
  adults use this device?

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RESTRICTED AND ELABORATED CODES

• In 1971, Basil Bernstein distinguished between
  local language (restricted codes) and public
  language (elaborated codes).
• Restricted codes use he and she instead of
  Mom and Dad.
• They use back channels like You know.
• They use tags like isnt it.
• They use fewer verbs and adjectives.
• They use more slang, fixed expressions, and
  cliches.

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ACQUISITION OF HUMOR

• Even babies have a sense of humor. Adults laugh
  with children who are playing peek-a-boo or
  watching Sesame Street with its Big Bird and
  Oscar the Grouch. Young children are also fond
  of knock-knock jokes and riddles.

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TOILET HUMOR

• Alvin Schwartz says that children who are six or
  seven enjoy toilet humor because they no longer
  have accidents, but they still remember when they
  did. They like the following poem

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• I see London I see France.
• I see Betsys underpants.
• They arent green they arent blue.
• Theyre just filled with number two.
• They also like to talk about the secret parts of
  the body
• Mary had a little bear,
• The best that she could find.
• And everywhere that Mary went,
• There was her bare behind.

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CONSERVATION HUMOR

• Paul McGhee told a joke to children of different
  ages A man goes into a pizza parlor and tells
  the server to cut his pizza into four pieces
  because he isnt hungry enough to eat six
  pieces.
• 1st Graders didnt laugh because they didnt get
  the joke. They hadnt yet mastered conservation.

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• 8th Graders didnt laugh because they had
  mastered conservation so long ago that there was
  no tension.
• The students in the middle grades laughed the
  hardest. They experienced pleasure because they
  could take pride in the fact that they were able
  to figure out that the amount of pizza was the
  same regardless of how many pieces it was cut
  into.

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6 LEVELS OF HUMOR DEVELOPMENT

• In Antony Chapmans Its a Funny Thing, Humor,
  Alice Sheppard has outlined six levels of humor
  development for children
• LEVEL 1 (IDIOSYNCRATIC) Involves amusement
  related to a young childs individual experience
  as with a surprise, a physical sensation, or a
  response to someone elses smile or laughter.

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• LEVEL 2 (NORMATIVE) Involves a generalization
  that implies a rule, or a convention. Later, the
  child will violate the rule or convention.
• LEVEL 3 (EXPECTATION) Involves a reference to
  the unusualness or the improbability of an event.
• LEVEL 4 (RELATIONAL) Involves concern for inner
  motives related to a situation, relations among
  events, and multiple aspects of the situation.

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• LEVEL 5 (EXTRA-CONTEXTUAL) Involves context
  beyond the situation implied in the notion of
  parody, take-off, irony, or satire. It also
  involves the distinction between appearance and
  reality the humor is revealed as contingent upon
  subtle aspects of events.
• LEVEL 6 (PHILOSOPHICAL) Involves the ability to
  see what is ridiculous in the nature of things
  and to generalize an outlook from humor examples.

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A Child Prodigy

• 7-YEAR-OLD PLAYING BEETHOVENS RAGE OVER A LOST
  PENNY
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?v0CED7cijODg