Paper 3 Section B

       Communication from a very young age is very important when it comes to a relationship between parents and their children. 5-year-old Raina has a conversation with her mother. The 5-year-old seems to be comfortable with her mom, as she is able to carry on a conversation with her. Her mother seemed to be understanding what her five-year-old Raina was saying. Raina seemed to be struggling when they were walking in the countryside. Raina told her mom, “look (.) this way (.) I´m going to (.) going to (.) go over here” Her mother seemed to not like the idea of Raina going that way because she was going to get dirty, her mother tried to distract Raina by stating, ¨look at that birdie (.) up in that tree..¨ Raina clearly understood what her mom was saying. 

    

     Raina is in the post-telegraphic stage. During this stage, young children acquire the skills to use language more in complex sentences, but not entirely. In this stage, children start using coordinating conjunctions, such as ´and´ and ´but’ as we as the subordinating conjunction ´because´. In the case of Raina, she had acquired this level, as she said, ¨.. Can I go in the long grass and chase it¨ Raina used a complex sentence when speaking to her mother. The mother seemed to be talking to Raina the same way Raina was talking to her. This accelerates the learning process because the mother is not pressuring her to accelerate her learning ability. 

 

     Language acquisition support device theory is included in their conversation because the mother is helping her daughter understand complex sentences. The mother is helping her daughter by using micropauses in her sentences. For example, ¨look (.) you´ll get dirty down there¨ The micropauses help Raina´s ability to understand because her mother is giving her a pause in between complex sentences, so Raina is able to fully comprehend the meaning. The child-directed or caretaker speech is included in their conversation because the mother is acting like a caretaker toward her daughter. For example, ¨no (.) don't chase it (.) we´ll stick to the path¨ Adults usually use this theory when talking to infants or young children. This theory is used to reduce the complexity of sentences. In this case, the mother was talking to her daughter in a complex way but she was reducing the complexity by using pauses in second and micropauses. 

     After that being said, Raina´s main stage would be preoperational. This theory focuses mainly on children between the ages of three years old and five years old. This theory helps children understand the world around them through images. During this stage, parents play a very important role in the development of their children. Children in this stage are more likely to copy the behaviors of people around them, but mostly their parents. In this case, Raina is copying the way her mother talks to her, as she uses the same micropauses and pauses in seconds that her mother does. 

    The conversation between the mother and her 5-year-old daughter had many micropauses, pauses in seconds, speech overlap, underlying, and many upper letters. Raina´s overall lexis seemed advanced compared to other children her age. People could argue that this is due to the fact that her mother acted as a caretaker when speaking to her. Most 5 years–old children do not use as many complex sentences as Raina did when talking to her mother. The conversation between both of them would be totally different than two adults talking to each other because the adults would not have as many micropauses and other features used as a five-year-old.