Language Games for Children

Sonja Eisenbeiss

seisen@essex.ac.uk

http://essex.academia.edu/SonjaEisenbeiss/ http://languagegamesforall.wordpress.com/

22 October 2014

Copyright: Sonja Eisenbeiss

Overview

We will• discuss why linguists develop language games• look at different types of games that encourage

children to talk• see how these games have been used to obtain

language production data for studies on children’s language development

• discuss which properties of child-directed speech have been shown to support language learning and how they can be incorporated into language games

• explore how you can develop your own games and where you can find the materials you need for that

Why do linguists develop language games?

We want to study how children acquire language.

We need rich data that are as naturalistic as possible.

We do not want to underestimate what children can do by looking at the same situation over and over again – for instance by always recording children during meal or play time with the same food or toys.

We do not want to overestimate what children can do – for instance by recording them in situations where they can use fixed phrases and sentences that they have heard many times before.

We want to make our projects fun for children.

How do Linguists Study Children’s Language? Naturalistic data / spontaneous speech samples:

recordings in everyday situationsnaturalistic input or child data, but often lacking relevant utterances

Experiments: controlled variables, fixed stimuli and procedures

good control of variables, but often “unnatural” or not appropriate for younger children

Elicitation gamesgames that encourage language usesome control over the words and structures children use, but still quite natural and fun

An Example: Possessives Children over- or under-use possessive s:

* This is John (=John’s) house. * This is mine’s.

We want to determine the reasons for such problems.

We want to support acquisition, especially in populations with language impairments.

Even long naturalistic recordings may not contain any examples of possessives – in particular if the child is not fighting about possessions with other children.

Typically developing children are too young for production experiments when they produce these errors (around 2 years).

Some Elicitation Games for Possessives

Children have to find matching cards with possessors and their possession (e.g. queen – crown) in a Memory-style game.

Children are given toy characters and their possessions and are asked to find out what belongs to whom. A silly puppet will challenge them and encourage discussion.

Children have to tell another person whose balloon is red in a picture with lots of people and their balloons. The listener then has to colour in the balloons in their own black-and-white copy (see e.g. Koch 2010, Bevan 2010).

Possessives: Naturalistic Data vs. Games

Eisenbeiss (2003): a comparison of 44 naturalistic recordings and 20 possessive game recordings with German children (age: 1;11-3;6). 70% of the naturalistic recordings did not

contain a single possessive. 10.969 naturalistic utterances only contained

29 possessives. In contrast, the game recordings provided

sufficient examples for quantitative analyses. We also found more variety of possessors

(not just mommy’s, daddy’s).

Game-Type I: Director/Matcher Games

A “director” describes a scene/object etc. and a “matcher” who is not able to see this scene/object, has to recreate it.

E.g.: The matcher has to build a toy house identical to the one created by the director who is hidden behind a screen.

Bevan (2010): Whose Ballon is red? Two sets of pictures, both with animals that have balloons, one with coloured and one with blank balloons.

Whose Balloon is red? (Bevan 2010)

Whose Balloon is red? (Bevan 2010)

Game-Type II: Speaker/Listener Games

A speaker provides information for someone who does not have access to the information.

Variant 1: speakers retell a story they have heard while the listeners were out of the room.

Variant 2: speaker tells a puppet that cannot see what is going on.

Game-Type III: Co-Player Games

All Participants are involved in a game and provide each other with information to co-ordinate their actions.

For instance, players can be involved in a construction or puzzle game.

The Puzzle Task (Eisenbeiss 2009, 2011)

a task with co-players: child describes contrasting pictures on a puzzle board, adult finds the matching pieces, child puts them into the correct cut-out

exchangable pictures and puzzle pieces

can be used to elictit particular forms or to elicit the linguistic encoding of particular meanings

Contrasting Puzzle Pictures (Eisenbeiss 2011)

Broad-Spectrum Tasks

general encouragement to speak Frog Story: a picture book w/o words used to

elicit narratives (Berman/Slobin 1994) Bag Task: a bag with bag for blocks and

animals of different sizes and colours. The bag has pockets that match the animals in colour an have coloured buttons, ties, etc.; and children frequently refer to colours, sizes and locations when they ask other players to help them hide or find animals in the pockets (Eisenbeiss 2009, 2010)

contrasts between colours, sizes, locations, etc.

Focused Tasks

form-focused: the elicitation of particular forms or constructions, for instance, picture-matching game for the elicitation of noun-adjective constructions (little cow -- big cow)

meaning-focused: the linguistic encoding of a particular meaning that can be encoded in different ways, e.g. my car / Sonja’s car / ? the car of Sonja? In a game about people and their possessions

Stimuli

static (pictures, photos) for object/person properties

dynamic (video, cartoon) for events

realistic displays (photos) for easy recognition, independent of children’s knowledge of artistic conventions (3D, shadows, etc.)

drawings, cartoons for easy systematic variation

Trying Things out

Contrasted elements are more likely to be encoded: Contrasting possessors (e.g. the panda) in Bevan’s

whose-balloon-is-red-task are mentioned. However, the balloons do not contrast with other

toys and are often not mentioned.

You can avoid pointing instead of talking: Use a puppet that cannot see so that the child has

to speak to the puppet (e.g. a fish above water, a mole with broken glasses, a turtle in its shell, etc.).

Make sure that the child’s hands are occupied (e.g. by holding a puppet, fishing rod, etc.).

Input Properties that Support Learning

short, but mostly correct and complete utterances

slow, with longer pauses than adult-directed speech

high, varied pitch, exaggerated intonation and stress

identification of word and phrase boundariesrestricted vocabularyreference mostly restricted to here and nowword learninghigh proportion of imperative and questionsmore repetitions than in adult-adult speechsentence structure and grammar

Supporting Language Learning in Games

Feedback: positive re-inforcement explicit corrections, but this can be

demotivating and does not involve presentation of correct forms

expansions, rephrasing:daddy car -> Yes, that is daddy‘s car

Modeling: frequent repetion of words/phrases in

isolation repetition and variation: variation sets

Feedback: Reformulations instead of Corrections

In their analysis of English and French child-directed

speech, Chouinard & Clark (2003) showed that:

Adults often reformulate children's non-target-like utterances; e.g. Child: I want more car! Parent: Do you really need more cars?.

Adults produce this type of feedback significantly more often than they repeat target-like utterances such as I want more cars! .

Feedback: Effects of Reformulations

Reformulations contrast children’s non-target-like forms with the target form for the intended meaning and thus suggest that the child’s form is inappropriate.

Experimental studies have demonstrated that learners can benefit from such input (Saxton 1997, Saxton et al. 1998, 2005, Valian and Casey 2003).

However, it is unclear how universal reformulations are across cultures and languages.

Models: Variation Sets

Variation sets are series of adult utterances with

a common theme and a constant intention,

but variation in form:

adding or deleting a word or phrase,

replacing one word with another,

changing the word order, etc.

(Eisenbeiss 2003, Küntay/Slobin 1996, Slobin et al. 2011)

English Variation Set (Slobin et al. 2011)

VERB OBJECT GOAL1 let’s put J’s bottles in the refrigerator2 want to put them in the refrigerator with me3 let’s put J’s bottles in the refrigerator4 we’ll put it in the refrigerator5 let’s put it in the refrigerator6 we’ll put it in the refrigerator7 you can put it in8 I’ll let you put it in yourself9 you put it right in10 you put it in there11 put it right in the refrigerator

How could Variation Sets support Learning?

Variation sets provide clues about the target language:

adding or deleting a word or phrase => which elements can be omitted?

replacing one word with another => which types of elements fulfill similar

functions?

changing the word order, etc.=> which word order variations are possible?

The Frequency of Variation Sets

In the Turkish data analysed by Küntay & Slobin (1996), about 25-30% of child-directed utterances occurred in variation sets. On average, variation sets were 3 sentences long (range 2-25).

Slobin et al. (2011) documented variation sets for 8 further languages from around the world (Latin America, Europe, Asia), suggesting that they might be a universal feature of children’s input:

Effects of Variation Sets

Children produce words that they have heard in variation sets more often than words they have heard in other utterances – even when frequency is controlled for (ongoing research by H. Waterfall).

Adult learners learn artificial languages more easily when their training involves variation sets (Onnis et al. 2008).

A Pilot Study with Variation Set Training (Horgan 2012)

Pre-Test with the Koch (2010) version of the Balloon task: comprehension and production of complex possessive constructions The boy’s mother’s father’s balloon.

Puzzle task training with variation sets: Group I: complex possessives

the lady’s son’s girl’s balloon Group II: complex coordination

the woman and the daughter and the son and the girl

Re-Test with variant of the Koch (2010) tasks

Whose Balloon is red? (Koch 2010)

Puzzle Task Pictures for Training (Horgan 2012)

Training with Variation Sets

Complex Possessive Group: This is the lady’s son; and this is the son’s girl; and this is the girl’s balloon. So, this is the lady’s son’s girl and her balloon. So, this is the lady’s son’s girl’s balloon.

Coordination Group:This is the lady and the son; and this is the son and the girl; and this is the girl and the balloon. So, this is the lady and the son’s girl and her balloon.

Training Effects

Both Groups improved equally in their use of nouns.

The complex possession group improved more in their production of s-markers.

The tests and training sessions were challenging but motivating for the children.

Future Plans

Testing of Games in different cultural and social environments.

Games for different group sizes (1 – 4 children)

Training studies with different strategies:

Feedback: explicit corrections vs. reformulations

Modelling: repetition in isolation vs. variation sets

References

Bevan, W. (2010). Semi-structured elicitation of possessive constructions in children of pre-school age. Undergraduate dissertation, University of Essex.

Chouinard, M. M., & Clark, E. V. (2003). Adult reformulation of child errors as negative evidence. Journal of Child Language, 30:637–69.

Eisenbeiss, S. (2003). Merkmalsgesteuerter Grammatikerwerb. Doctoral dissertation, University of Düsseldorf, Germany. http://docserv.uni-duesseldorf.de/servlets/DerivateServlet/Derivate-3185/1185.pdf )

Eisenbeiss, S. (2009). Contrast is the Name of the Game: Contrast-Based Semi-Structured Elicitation Techniques for Studies on Children’s Language Acquisition. Essex Research Reports in Linguistics, 57.7. http://www.essex.ac.uk/linguistics/publications/errl/errl57-7.pdf

References

Eisenbeiss, S. (2010). Production Methods. In E. Blom, & S. Unsworth (Eds.), Experimental Methods in Language Acquisition Research (pp. 11-34). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. (pre-print downloadable: http://essex.academia.edu/SonjaEisenbeiss/Papers/109274/Production-Methods )

Eisenbeiss, S. (2011) CEGS: An elicitation took kit for studies on case marking and its acquisition. Essex Research Reports in Linguistics, 60,1. http://www.essex.ac.uk/linguistics/publications/errl/errl60-1.pdf

Koch, N. (2010). Possessive Constructions in English Child Language: S-Genitive and Of-Genitive. MA dissertation, University of Stuttgart, Germany.

References

Küntay, A., & Slobin, D. I. (1996). Listening to a Turkish mother: Some puzzles for acquisition. In D. I. Slobin, J. Gerhardt, A. Kyratzis, & J. Guo (Eds.), Social interaction, social context, and language: Essays in honor of Susan Ervin-Tripp (pp. 265-286). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Onnis, L., Waterfall, H.R., & Edelman, S. (2008). Learn locally, act globally: Learning language from variation set cues. Cognition 109, 423-430.

Saxton, M., Kulscar, B. Marshall, & Rupra, M. (1998). Longer-term effects of corrective input: An experimental approach. Journal of Child Language 5: 701-21.

Saxton, M., Backley, P., & Gallaway, C, (2005). Negative input for grammatical errors: effects after a lag of 12 weeks. Journal of Child Language 32, 643–672.

References

Saxton, M. (1997). The contrast theory of negative input. Journal of Child Language 24, 139-161.

Slobin, Dan I., Bowerman, Melissa, Brown, Penelope, Eisenbeiss, Sonja & Narasimhan, Bhuvana (2011) Putting Things in Places: Developmental Consequences of Linguistic Typology. In J. Bohnemeyer, & E. Pederson (Eds.), Event Representation in Language and Cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. downloadable:http://essex.academia.edu/SonjaEisenbeiss/Papers/110813/Putting_things_in_places_Developmental_consequences_of_linguistic_typology (section about child-directed speech: 6.2)

Valian, V. and Casey, L. (2003). Young children's acquisition of wh-questions: the role of structured input. Journal of Child Language, 30, 117-143

Our New “Language Games For All” Website http://languagegamesforall.wordpress.com/ for researchers, teachers, therapists and families

links, readings, examples of games,

downloadable materials (pictures, descriptions, etc.)

blog about language games

dissemination of staff and student language games

associated with a Twitter account: @LanguageGames4a

under construction: INPUT GREATLY APPRECIATED!!!

Our Language Games Clubhttp://languagegamesforall.wordpress.com/

Thursdays 12-1pm in the Autumn Term in the Social Space of the Department of Language and Linguistics (4.305A, next to the Dept. Office), join us to:

DISCUSS: discussion of ongoing and planned staff andstudent projects or research articles

MAKE: creation of games (e.g. felt toys, card games)

SHARE: working on the website

GIVE: charity events (e.g. for Colchester Toy Library)

PLAY: playing old and new language games