Introdungcing English language part 42: 'In this exciting new textbook, Louise Mullany and Peter Stockwell have provided a fresh and imaginative set of alternatives for teaching and learning a huge amount about the English language. The book allows tor creative and lateral approaches to developing an understanding of important linguistic concepts and, together with the thought-provoking activities, and accessible readings, guarantees there is something to stimulate every learner. | D7 232 EXTENSION LINGUISTIC READINGS Elinor Ochs and Bambi Schieffelin The many practices that are alternatives to expansions of personalized messages - either ignoring the utterance indicating unclarity providing a cultural gloss prompting or ventriloquating - socialize the child to accommodate to the social situation at hand. In contrast attempts to expand the child s intended meaning evidence an accommodation by others to the child. That is expansions of the sort discussed by psycholinguists reflect a child centred style of socialization characteristic of the communities of the psycholinguists whereas the alternative practices reflect a situation centred style of socialization. . Steps to a cultural ecology of grammatical development A consistent message throughout this chapter is that grammatical development cannot be adequately accounted for without serious analysis of the social and cultural milieu of the language acquiring child. We have seen that grammatical development is an outcome of two primary sociocultural contexts 1 where children participate regularly in socially and culturally organized activities and 2 where the language s being acquired is are highly valued and children are encouraged to learn it them. . Issues to consider How do you talk to babies and infants You could try to record examples of adult-child interaction obviously with their consent in order to examine the form of the interaction. Can you speculate on the perspective and assumptions that are held by the adult on the basis of what you discover Do you agree with the account of socialisation and grammatical development offered by Ochs and Schieffelin or do you think they have overstated their case For example do you think the evidence they cite supports their argument that socialisation plays a large part in grammatical development given that they also say that all speakers in all societies eventually come to a fully functional version of the grammar The cultural groupings mentioned .
