Web Activity 6.5 Probing children’s knowledge of syntax

A number of very different methods have been used to figure out what children know about the syntax of their own language. Several of them are briefly described below. Discuss the strengths and limitations of each method. Consider each of the following questions:

1. Does the method provide a realistic picture of the child’s knowledge of language? Does it provide extra supporting cues or additional task demands that might either under- or over-estimate the child’s knowledge?
2. Does the method allow the researcher to understand how children connect structure and meaning?
3. Does the method allow researchers to explore how the structure has been learned? For example, does it shed light on the relationship between language input and language knowledge?
4. Is the task age-dependent? Is it likely to be successful with children at some ages but not others (for reasons of ability, interest, or willingness to perform the task)? If so, it may be very hard to get a clear picture of how the knowledge develops over time.
5. What is the risk of introducing bias into the collection or interpretation of data? How can this risk be minimized?
6. Does the method allow for easy comparison of the performance of different children or groups of children?
7. Does it allow researchers to probe for knowledge of uncommon syntactic structures?
8. Is it practical in its use of research resources? Can the key questions be answered quickly and efficiently?

Diary/journal observations

Parenthood can offer researchers the opportunity for up-close study of an intriguing research subject. Day-to-day interactions allow researcher parents to notice new forms or structures as they emerge and to make rich observations about the contexts in which they arise. Such studies rely on the researchers making informal notes about the child’s language production (comprehension is less directly observable), usually by collecting relevant examples from the child’s speech.

Naturalistic observation and recording

Rather than relying on researchers to remember and accurately note children’s utterances after the fact, language scientists might choose to record natural interactions between child subjects and other people. Usually, this is done in the home environment, so that the child is uninhibited and comfortable with the people she is interacting with. Recording natural interactions in the home also allows researchers to collect data on the amount and nature of the language that the child is exposed to. A researcher might recruit families to participate in a study where live interactions will be video- or audio-taped for a certain number of hours each week, sometimes over a prolonged period of time.

Elicited production/imitation tasks

Elicited production tasks aim to test and compare children’s knowledge of very specific forms in order to test a particular hypothesis. The simplest kind of test involves outright imitation of sentences that are produced by an adult. Children are engaged in a game where they are asked to simply repeat exactly what the adult (or a puppet that is manipulated by an adult) has just said. Their responses are recorded for later analysis. The logic behind this is that children tend not to accurately imitate forms that they themselves do not yet control. By comparing the number of errors on different structures, the researchers can get a sense of how robust children’s knowledge of different structures is.

Variants of this task involve encouraging children to verbally describe an event but without direct repetition. For example, children might see pictures of events or watch events acted out in front of them with toys. The researchers can then ask questions such as “What happened to the dog?” or “What did the horse do?” To elicit very specific forms, the researchers might ask very targeted questions. For example, in order to elicit complex sentences with relative clauses, children could be shown a scene with two horses, one of which kicked a cow and then ate a carrot. The child would then hear the question “Which horse ate the carrot?” The correct response would be “The horse that kicked the cow.”

Picture selection task

In this task, children are shown several pictures (typically between two and four). The pictures involve similar characters and show subtle differences in the event that is depicted. The experimenter utters a sentence, and then asks the child to choose the picture that best matches the sentence. For example, the child might see a picture of Cookie Monster tickling Big Bird, and another of Cookie Monster tickling himself while Big Bird stands by. The target utterance might be “Big Bird says that Cookie Monster is tickling himself.”

Act out task

In this experimental task, children are given a target utterance and then asked to act it out with a set of toys. For example, they might hear sentences such as “The lion kissed the zebra that jumped over the fence.” Their actions are videotaped for later coding. Researchers can compare the number of errors across different kinds of structures.

Elicited grammaticality judgments

This task is used to test subtle judgments of grammaticality. Typically, the child watches as an event is acted out, and then hears a statement or a question spoken by an experimenter (or a puppet). The child has to decide whether that utterance was a “good” one or a “bad” or “silly” one. In some cases, the child might hear two different variants of a sentence, one grammatical and one ungrammatical, spoken by two different puppets. The child’s job is to award a prize to the one who uttered the best sentence. This task is especially useful with sentences whose meaning can be inferred even though they contain an ungrammaticality. For example: “What do you think what Cookie Monster eats?”

Truth-value judgment task

This method is similar to a grammaticality judgment, but instead of using ungrammatical sentences, it compares children’s responses to grammatical ones that describe an event either accurately or inaccurately. For example, after seeing or hearing a story, a child might be probed with a sentence such as “Every animal ate a cookie.” The subject would have to report whether the sentence was “good” or “silly.” In some cases, children hear two different sentences (e.g., Every animal ate a cookie/An animal ate every cookie) spoken by two different people or puppets and are asked to reward the one who used the best sentence.