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A Comp arative S t udy of the Language Used by

New Z e a l and Chil dren of European and of

S amoan Descent Aged 6 Ye ars 1 0 Mon ths to

8 Ye ars in Conversation with an Adu l t .

A disse rtation presented in p artial fulfilment

of the requirements for the degree

of Doctor o f Philosophy in Language

Ful l n ame

Year

at Massey University

ISOBEL MARY MOYNI HAN

19 7 9

ABS TRACT

The research represents an attempt to estab l ish some

normative data for the oral language performance of native-

Engli s h speaking children aged 6 years 10 months to 8 y e ars

in conversation with an adul t , and by examining the

performance of S amoan children in the same age-group to

determine those areas which discriminate most strongly

between the performances of both groups .

Children were interviewed individually and the

conversations re corded over a thirty-minute period . T apes

were transcribed on the s ame day as the re cording , and the

data quantif ied according to the procedures of Deve lopmental

Sentence Analys i s�

, which estab lished a rank-order for e a ch

group . A mo re de tailed analysis o f the data was then made

in order to identify those are as of development and/or o f

uncertainty whi ch were common t o both groups , and those

which appeared only , or mainly , among the Samoan chi ldren .

The statistic al analysis , b ased on the deve lopmental

weighting of syn tactic items , (DSS scores ) indicated that

whe re errors were spec i fic to the S amoan children they

occurred in structures described as e arly-developing among

iii

native-English speaking chi ldren . At the higher deve lopmental

leve ls , the performance of Samoan ch ildren above the 5 0 th

percentile (for that group ) was simi lar to that o f their

Eng lish speaking age-mates . The c l assifi cation of e rror-

patterns also distinguished between ' growth errors '

(where performance was characterized by over-general i z ing .

or by substitution , for examp le ) , and ' de ficiency errors '

� Lee , L . L . and Koenigsknecht 19 7 4 , · Deve lopmental Sen·tence

Analysis .

(where morphemes and syntactic items were omit ted} ,

the latter occurring more consistently among the Samoan

chi ldr en .

In addition , a general indication of l anguage deve lopment

in rel ation to chronological age was derived by comparing

the D S S scores of the S amoan chi ldren falling be low the

2 5 th percentile for that group with those ob tained by

younger chil dren at the 5 0 th percenti le point for each

one-ye ar interval from age 4 to age 6 . In the absence

of New Zealand DSS norms for these age- leve ls , it was

necessary to use those derived from a study of Ameri c an

chi ldren (Lee 1 9 7 4 } , but the resul ts are in accord with

other New Zeal and-b ased studies (See 0 . 1 , Introduction )

which have noted the " two-ye ar gap " appearing around age 7

among Po lynesian children when thei r achievement on a

variety of measures and tests is comp ared with that o f

their P akeha age-mates . In the present study , the " gap "

ranged from about 2 0 months at the 2 5 th percentile ( for the

Samoan group } to over 4 1 months at the l O th percenti le .

The general intention has been to sharpen the focus

for teachers wishing to develop compensatory l anguage

programmes so that effort may be directed to those speci f ic

areas where non- native speaking chi ldren appear to h ave

missed a devel opmental stage in the i r acquisition of Eng lish .

The f indings also suggest that difficulty with certain

syn tactic structures , semantic con cepts , and p honologic al

reali z ations is a function of age-l evel and the l anguage-.

situation for b oth groups o f sub j ects rather than o f the

ethnic background of the S amoan g roup .

iv

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I should l ike to express my thanks to the fol lowing individua ls and institutions :

to my Chief S upervisor , Dr . N . R . Watts , for his advice , encouragemen t , and un fa il ing patience ; also to Dr . D . H . Bray , Assoc iate Supervisor , for his guidance , and to Mr. B . Natusch for helpful suggestions on phonologi cal no tation ;

V.

to Professor J . Dunmore , Head o f the Department o f Modern Languages , Massey University , for his assistance with administra tive procedures ;

t o Christchurch Teachers ' Co l l ege Council for granting l eave to enable me to ful f i l the requirements for ful l - time study and research ;

to the Canterbury and New Plymouth Educat ion Boards and District Senior Inspectors of P r imary Schools for a l l owing me access to schoo ls to carry out the research ;

to the Principa ls, S enior Teachers of Junior Cl asses , and classroom teachers who co-operated so wi l l ingly in the selection of chi ldren and in providing fac i l i t ies for the interviews ;

to my co l l eagues at Chr istchurch Teachers ' Co l lege : in the Engl ish Department , for shar ing my previous l ectur ing and other responsib i l ities ; and in the Audio­Visua l Department for assistan ce with recording and reprographi c procedures ; in the Mathematics Department for assistance with the processing o f stat istical data ; in the Library for obtaining books on Inter- loan , and fo r the ir assistance in tracing publ ication deta i l s ;

to Pro fessor Laura Lee , Northwestern Universi ty , I l l ino i s , for her int erest i n the research , and for her permission ( and that of the publ ishers , Nor thwestern Un iversity

Press) to duplicate the DST and DSS Charts from Developmental Sentence Ana lysis ( 1 974 ) , pp . 86- 87 and 1 3 4 - 1 3 5 ;

to Dr . Margaret Maclagan , Speech Therapy Department , Christchurch Teachers ' Co l l ege , for introduc ing me to Pro fessor Lee ' s work in the field of developmental sentence ana lysis ;

to Mrs . G . Lamb who typed , and re-typed , the dra f ts o f the final d issfirtation and Tab l es ; to Mrs . A . Hughey who typed the bibl iography , the l ist of Appendices , and completed the lay-out of F igure 1 ; to Mrs . Wi l l i amson , Engl ish Department , University of Canterbury who typed the phonet i c symbo ls ( the co-operation of Pro fessor D . Davy , Head of the Engl ish Depar tment in providing the faci l i ty is also grateful ly acknowl edged ) .

Above al l , I am indebted to the chi ldren , both S amoan and Pakeha , who talked so freely and spontaneously in the presenc e o f an unfamiliar adult with a tape­reco rder . They came from the fol lowing schools : ( in alphabetical order )

Addington

Aranui

Bamford

Bishopdale

Christchurch East

E l mwood Norma l

F reevil le

Isl eworth

Linwood Avenue

Mary Imma culate Convent

Phi l l ipstown

S t . Anne Convent

S t . Bernadette Convent

S t . James

S t . Joseph

Sockburn

Spo tswood

S preydon

Sydenham

Vogeltown

Wa inon i

Wa irakei

Wa ltham

West Spreydon

Wools ton

..

..

Chr istchurch 11

11

11

11

11

11

11

11

11

11

11

11

11

11

11

New P lymouth

Chr istchurch 11

New P lymouth

Chr istchurch 11

11

11

11

vi

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abs tr act Acknowledgements

o. 0 . 1

INTRODUCTION

A review o f recent re s e ardQ

PART ONE: THE DES I GN

Chapter 1 . Purpos e and P ro ce dures

1 . 1 1 . 2 1 . 3 1 . 4 1 . 5 1 . 6 1 . 7

P rimary Aims Method and Instrument S ub j e cts Definition o f Terms P ro ce dures Trans cription and S coring Modi ficat ions of DSS P rocedures

PART TWO : THE ANALYSIS

Chap ter

2 . 1 2 . 2

2 . 3 2 . 4

Chapter

3 . 1 3 . 2

3 . 3 3 . 4

3 . 5 3 . 6 3 . 7 3 . 9

3 . 1 0

2 .

3 .

S tatis tical Analyses

Developmental S entence S cores (DSS ) Weighted Deve lopmental S cores in the DSS Cate gori es Number of Entries in the DSS Categories C on clus ions from St atistical Analyses

Detailed Analys is of P erformance in Each of the DSS C ategories

P rocedure Inde finite P ronoun and Noun Modi fier C ategory P e rs onal P ronoun Category Main Verb Category 3 . 4 . 1 Verb Inflections at Levels 1 and 3 . 4 . 2 V-ed1 and V- ed2 Forms of Lexi c a l

Verbs at Lev�ls 2 , 7 and 8 3 . 4 . 3 Verb Forms at Leve ls 7 and 8 3 . 4 . 4 Verb Forms at Levels 4 and 6 3 . 4 . 5 Errors in Tens e S equence 3 . 4 . 6 Conclus ions S econdary Verb Category Negative Category Conj unction Category In terrogative Revers a l and Wh-Questions C ategory Conclus ions from DS S Category Ana lyses

2

p age iii

V

1 6

1 7

2 5

2 6 2 7 3 2 3 4 3 6 3 7 3 9

4 5

4 6

4 8 5'B 6 9

7 8

7 9

8 0 8 5 9 2 9 3

9 7 1 0 6 1 1 1 1 1 4 1 1 6 1 1 9 1 2 4 1 3 0

1 3 8 1 4 1

(,;:hapter 4 .

4 . 1

4 . 2 4 . 3

4 . 4 4 . 5 4 . 6 4 . 7 4 . 8 4 . 9

Chapter 5 .

Conc lus ion

APPENDIX I

I . l I . 2 I . 3 I . 4

I . 5

Deta iled Analys i s o f Performance in Areas not covered by DS S Categor ies

S entence Point Scores and the OTHER Categories Vocabulary Prepos itions and Adverbs : Def initions and C l a s s i f ication Procedures 4 . 3 . l S imple Prepo s i tions 4 . 3 . 2 Complex Prepo s itions 4 . 3 . 3 Prepos itiona l Adverbs 4 . 3 . 4 Verb + Particl e ( s ) 4 . 3 . 5 Adverbs 4 . 3 . 6 C l a s s i fication according to

Linguistic Level s 4 . 3 . 7 Error-Patterns at the Syntactic

Level 4 . 3 . 8 Error-Patterns at the Syntac tic/

S emantic Leve l s Pronunc ia tion I ndef inite and Def inite Articles Redundant Subj ect Noun Inflection Word-Order , Ambiguity , etc . Conc lus ions from Detai led Ana lyses

Ri ta: A Record of Progres s in Ora l Language Performance (April 1977 to August 1978 )

Stimulus material s DSS Chart Additions and alterations to DSS Chart Differences in DSS scores and in mean weighted developmental score in the Ma in Verb category resul ting from the scoring o f e l l ipted verbs for NG and SG subj ects A hypothetical corpus of twenty-five s entences i l lustrat ing Deve lopmenta l Sentence Scoring

APPENDIX IT I I . l

I I . 2

A compar i son table showing percentile po ints on DSS measure for US subj ects at 6 years 6 month s and for NG and SG subj ects of mean age 7 year s 5 months

Differences in increment ·between NG and SG subj ects , us ing the US scores at age 6- 6 as bases

1 4 3

1 4 4

1 5 0

1 6 3 1 6 4 1 6 5 1 6 6 1 67 1 6 8

1 7 0

171

• 1 7 6 1 9 1 2 07 2 10 2 1 1 2 1 5 2 1 5

2 1 8

2 4 5

2 5 3 2 6 0 2 6 1

2 6 4

2 6 5

2 6 6

2 67

2 6 7

I I . 3

I I . 4

I I . 5

Group means for weighted deve lopmenta l s cores in six DSS ca tegories with rank­order for US subj ects aged 6- 0 to 6 - 1 1 and for NG and SG subj e c ts aged 6 - 1 0 to 8 - 0

S G subj ects in DSS r ank-order , with DSS and P . A . T . Li stening Comprehens ion percentiles (where ava i labl e ) and teacher s ' comments (where suppl ied )

DSS scores and mea sures for 2 0 New Plymouth NG subj ects of mean age 7 - 4

APPENDIX I I I

I I I . l DS T Chart

B ib l iography

2 6 8

2 6 9

2 7 1

2 7 4

2 7 5

2 7 6

Chapter 2

T able 1

Tab l e 2

T ab le 3

Tab l e 4

T ab le 5

T ab l e 6

Tab le 7

Tab le 8

Chapter 3

Tab le 9

LIS T OF TABLES

Rank- order of DSS s cores , and percentiles for NG and SG sub j ects , with group means' and s tandard deviations s hown for male and female sub j ects combined and s eparate ly .

Group means for weighted developmen tal s cores in the DS S categories , with c ategory r ank- order , for NG and SG s ub j ects .

Dis criminant funct ion of DS S categories , with rank-order , b ased on intergroup dif ferences between weighted deve lopmental s cores , omi tting Interrogative Revers a l and Wh-Ques tion categories .

Dis criminant function of DSS categories , with rank-order , b ased on in tragroup dif ferences between weighted deve lopmental s cores for the top and bottom five s ub j e cts , omitting Interrogative Reversal and Wh-Ques tion categories .

Intragroup di fferences between male and female s ub j ects in weighted deve lopment a l s cores , excluding Interrogative Revers a l and Wh-Question categorie s .

Dis crimin ant funct ion of DSS categorie s , with rank order , b ased on intragroup diffe rences between mean frequency for the top and bottom five sub j ects , inc luding Interrogat ive Revers al and Wh-Ques tion c ategories .

Group totals for number of entries in each DSS category expressed as a percentage of total entries in the eight categories together with rank-order o f frequen cy· .

Group means and s t andard devi ations for Deve lopmental S entence S cores (DSS ) , Weighted Deve lopmental S core (WDS ) , and number of entries (F ) for NG and S G sub j ects .

.

Error- types and f requency in the Indefinite P ronoun and Noun Modifier category· for NG and SG s ub j ects .

page

4 7

5 0

5 2

5 3

5 7

6 0

6 2

6 8

8l

T ab l e 10

Tab l e lOA

T ab le 1 1

T ab le 1 2

T ab le 1 3

T ab le 1 4

Tab l e 1 5

Tab le 1 6

T ab le 1 7

Tab l e 1 8

Tab l e 19

T ab le 2 0

T ab l e 2 1

Tab l e 2 2

Tab le 2 3

Error- types and frequency in the Pers onal P ronoun category for NG s ub j e cts .

Error- types and frequency in the Personal P ronoun c ategory for S G s ub j ects , with e rror-pe rcentages for NG and SG .

Details of error-types in the Main Verb c ategory at Levels 1 and 2 for NG and S G sub j e cts .

Vari ations in �e p rin cipal p arts o f irregul ar verb s .

The seven irregul ar verb - c l as ses .

Error-patterns in regul ar and irregular lexical verbs at Leve l 2 ( s imple p as t tens e ) for N G and S G sub j ects .

·

Error - frequency in the simp le pas t tens e o f regular and i rregular verbs clas s i fied under OMISS ION and OVER-GENERALI Z ING .

In ciden ce of over-generali z ing the ·e d morpheme on the s imp le pas t tense o� irregular verbs among NG and SG sub j e cts with DSS s cores f al ling above the 5 0 th percentile poin t .

Error-p atterns in V-ed2 forms at Leve ls 7 and 8 in the Main Verb category for NG and SG sub j ects .

Analy s i s of error-p atterns in the components of Level 7 verb s among NG and SG s ub j e cts .

Mean f requency of entries at Leve ls 4 and 6 in the Main Verb category for NG and S G sub j ects in groups o f ten according to DSS rank-order . ·

Errors in the verb -forms at Levels 4 and 6 by NG and SG s ub j ects .

Frequency of tens·e-s equen ce errors in co-ordinate and s ubordinate cl aus es for NG an d S G sub j e cts .

Number of entries and percen tage of error at all Levels in the Main Verb category for �G and S G s ub j e cts .

Type and frequen cy of error in the S econdary Verb c ategory at all deve lopmental Levels fo r NG and SG s ub j e cts .

8 6

8 7

9 4

9 7

9 8

1 0 0

1 0 5

1 0 5

1 0 7

1 0 8

1 12

1 1 3

1 14

1 1 8

1 2 2

T able 2 4

T able 2 5

Tab le 2 6

Tab l e 2 7

Table 2 8

Tab le 2 9

Tab le 3 0

Tab le 3 1

Chap ter 4 .

Tab l e 3 2

Tab l e 3 3

Tab le 3 4

Number o f entries and o f e rrors at e ach deve lopmental Level in the S e condary Verb c ategory for NG and SG s ub j e cts .

Frequency of entries in the Negative category shown for NG and SG sub j e cts at Leve ls 1 , 4 , 5 , with Level 7 entries shown for groups of ten sub j e cts according to DSS rank-order and as a percentage of tota l entrie s .

Type and frequency of e rror in the Con j unction category at each deve lopmental Leve l for NG s ub j ects .

Type and frequency of e rror in the Con j unction category at e ach devel opmental Level for SG s ub j ects .

Frequency of entries at Leve ls 5 , 8 and at 3 and 6 combined and their e xpre s s i on as percentages of total entries in the Conj un ction category for NG and SG s ubj ects .

Frequency of entries at Levels 5 and 8 in the Conj unction category s hown for NG and S G sub j ects in groups of ten according to

1 2 3

1 2 9

1 3 4

1 3 5

1 3 7

DSS r ank-order . 1 37

Numb e r of errors e xpressed as a p ercen tage o f entries at Levels 5 and 8 , and at 3 and 6 comb ined for NG and S G sub j ects . 1 3 7

Me an weighted deve lopmental score per s ub j ect and per entry in the Interrogative Revers al and Wh-Question c ate gories for NG and SG s ub j e c ts .

·

1 3 9

Total number o f S entence P oints received fo r 5 0 s cored utterances by every f ive s ubj ects , mean s cores for every ten s ub j ects and g roup me ans . 1 4 5

Intra-group dis criminant function o f Sentence Point s cores . Number of correct s en tences e xpre s sed as a p e rcentage of total s en tences s c ored for NG and SG sub j ects . 1 4 6

Numbe r o f errors by NG and S G s ub j ects in categories not c overed by DSS , together with rank-order o f categories in des cending frequency . 1 4 8

T ab le 3 5

T ab le 3 6

Chapter 5

T ab le 37

Table 3 8

T able 3 9

Tab l e 4 0

Group means for e rrors in DS S and OTHER categories ove r 50 s cored utterances .

P ronun ci ation e r ror-types and frequency in the complete l anguage s amples f rom NG and S G sub j ects .

Record o f progres s ive reduction in l anguage-delay by s ub j ect S G40 from 10 March to 10 Augus t 1 9 7 8 as meas ured by comparing succes sive DSS with the 5 0 th percentile poin t s cores for e ar lier age - l eve ls as shown in Lee 1974 ( 16 7 } .

Mean s cores ob tained from all scorab le utter an ces ; from fifty s cored utte r an ces (DSS } ; and from the fifty highest s coring utter an ces by s ub j ect S G 4 0 over the period from 2 2 Apri l 1 9 77 to 10 Augus t 1 9 7 8 .

Record o f deve lopment in the eight DS S grammatical categories f rom lO March 1 9 7 8 to 1 0 Augus t 197 8 and S en tence Point s core s over that period for sub j ect S G4 0 ( Ri t a } .

Number o f entrie s and of attempts at each of the deve lopmental Levels of the eight DSS c ategories from lO March 1978 to 10 August 1978 for sub j e ct S G40 ( Rita} .

1 4 8

1 9 3

2 3 6

2 37

2 39

2 4 2

F igure 1

Figure 2

Figure 3

Figure 4

LIST OF F I GURES

Percentile po ints for SG subj ects at age 7- 5 and for American chi ldren from age 4 - 0 to 6 - 6 , with approximate language delay in months for SG subj ects below the

page

5 0th percen t i le po int . 71

Po s ition in fami ly o f the top and bottom ten SG subj ects 7 3

A model for the c l a s s i fication and des cription of errors in the use of prepos i tions, adverbs, and partic les in mult i-word verbs at syntactic, semantic, and phono logical l evel s . 17�

Error-types and distribution in the sub-category of c lausal adverbs ( Time ) for NG and SG subj ects . 1 8 7

DSA*

DSS*

ESL

GCE

LARSP

LAS S

NG

P . A . T .

SG

us

LI S T OF ABBREVIATIONS

Developmenta l Sentence Analys i s .

Developmental Sentence Scoring ( the method ) , or Developmental Sentence Score ( the resul t in numer ical form) .

Engl i sh as a Second Language

A G rammar of Contemporary Engl ish ( Quirk et a l . 197 3 )

Language As s e s sment , Remediation and S c reening Procedures ( Crysta l et a l . l 976 )

Lingui stic Analysis o f Speech Samples ( Engler et a l . l97 3 )

Normative Group ( chil dren of native-Eng l i sh­speaking parents )

Progre ss ive Achievement Tests ( New Zealand Council for Educa tional Research )

Samoan Group ( children with at least one S amoan parent )

Un ited States ( chi ldren in Lee and Koenigsknecht 1 974 )

* Abbrevi at ion s used in Lee , L . L . and Koen igsknecht,R. ( 1 974 ) Deve lopmental Sentence Ana lys i s .