Hor and Raina and Raina's mummy

 Raina, a five year old girl, is in the post-telegraphic stage of linguistic development. The transcript provided is of a conversation between her and her mother, where they are walking through the countryside and Raina is observing her surroundings. Her post-telegraphic stage features are seen through her ability to hold a conversation with her mother, and the ability to exhibit turn-taking techniques that are used in conversations. Additionally, signs of further social development can be seen in Raina’s young age. One instance where this can be seen is when Raina tells her mother; “LOOK (1) theres one,” after her mother tells her that she missed the butterfly. This shows her cognitive development and ability to observe her surroundings.

It should be noted that these observations that Raina is making of her surroundings show that she has likely never experienced an environment like this one. This would be the likely explanation as to why she is asking her mother many questions about her surroundings. For example, Raina asks her mother to go into a new area; “can we go in this field [down arrow].” When she is told that they can’t she questions ‘why’ twice. Because her mother tells her that the grass is too long, Raina begins to understand why she cannot go in the field, and in turn gains a better understanding of the environment around her.

As previously mentioned, Raina is able to exhibit turn-taking techniques within the conversation between her and her mother. For being just five years old, Raina does a seemingly great job at this, which further shows that she is in the post-telegraphic stage of linguistic development. For the greater majority of the conversation, Raina was able to remain patient and respectful when her mother was talking. However, there were some instances in which both Raina and her mother overlapped each other. With that being said, they were not instances of overlapping resulting from conflict, rather they resulted from excitement. An example of this can be seen when Raina and her mother are discussing the bird in the tree;

“do you think theres a lot of little birdies in there

//

oh YES”

This shows that although Raina is likely developing at a faster rate for her young age, she still has some development left in terms of overlapping other’s sentences.

It can also be said that for her young age, Raina has a decent understanding that some words come with many meanings, which is not common among children her age. An example of this can be seen when Raina tells her mother that the bird is “only a little one.” In this particular instance, ‘one’ is being used to describe the little bird in a more charismatic way. As we know, ‘one’ can also refer to a singular object. Furthermore, Raina has shown that she can distinguish the meaning of similar-sounding words, such as ‘see’ and ‘sea.’ This can be seen when she tells her mother that she “can see the sea.” For being only five years old, Raina is showing that she is a bit more advanced than others in the same age group, as she has the ability to distinguish different features of different words.

It can be concluded that Raina’s linguistic development can be accredited to Noam Chomsky’s Language Acquisition Device (LAD) that was curated in 1965. Chomsky stated that the human brain is born with knowledge of what makes a human language, and that universal grammar is also known. Though it cannot be ‘tapped into’ until a child begins to gain a deeper understanding of the world around them, it is something that Chomsky argues is known globally. This relates to Raina because of her actions that are seen as she travels through the new environment that is analyzed in the transcript. Here, Raina learns more about nature, more specifically of the long grass or birds in the area. This shows that Raina is still an active learner, and will likely continue to be one for a while.

Additionally, it can be said that Raina’s linguistic development can be accredited to Jerome Bruner’s Language Acquisition Support System (LASS), which was curated in 1983. Bruner argues that children have the innate ability to learn and acquire language, but that it also requires interaction with other users of the same language to excel their learnings. Essentially, children will learn, but will learn even more through interaction with others. Raina’s deeper understanding of the new environment around her is due in part to her mother’s assistance. Through her interactions with her mother, and questions about certain aspects of her surroundings, Raina is able to further understand why, how, and what.