Study On Development Of Languange In 0-to-5-year-old Chinese Children From A Cognitive Perspective

The study of children language has attracted the attention of many researchers. Current studies focus on the development of phonological system, vocabulary and syntax in a lateral manner. This way of study can successfully describe the micro-processes of development in children language but fails to explain the development from a macro-perspective.This study intends to describe the development of language in Chinese children in a macro-vertical manner and analyze it from a cognitive point of view. It is based on a self-built corpus which comprised of data collected from 31 published books or articles,3 self-collected Chinese-children language (CCL) material and the Chinese part of CHILDS. From this corpus, the language materials of children of ages between 1 to 5 were sampled through stratified random sampling with 0.5 year as the age span.8 analysis-oriented mini-corpus were set up. The materials were then analyzed with chunk analysis, which was proposed by the author. Based on the results of chunk analysis, the whole process of CCL development was then analyzed quantatively and/or qualitatively depending on the characteristics of the development stage. The study found that the development of language in Chinese children of age from 1 to 5 years old can be divided into 3 macro-stages:0-1 year is the language awareness establishing stage; 1-3 year is the category relation establishing stage; 3-5 year is the event relation extension stage. The dissertation consists of 7 chapters.Chapter One is the preface. It summarizes the current status of study on Chinese children language development. The necessity and significance of this study, the main study objectives and method, the theoretical basis that the study bases on are also elaborated.Chapter Two explains how the corpus was build and how the materials were analyzed. The sources and formation of the corpus are introduced. The theoretical background, method and principle of chunck analysis is thoroughly discussed. The results of chunk analysis is presented in a table at the end of this chapter. Chapter Three studies the qantitative characteristics of the stages of CCL development. Based on the results of chunk analysis, the development of Chinese children language was analysed from different angles. The quantative ananlysis found that CCL development has obious phases. During the age range from 1 to 3 years, CCL development is very fast whereas during the age range from 3 to 5 years CCL development is very steady in terms of total numberof chunk, CB, complex sentences and mistakes.In the next 3 chapters, the 3 stages of CCL development are analysed qualatively.Chapter Four analyzes the characteristics of the language-awareness establishing stage. It is proposed that infants of age between 0-12 months are at this stage according to the paralinguistic characteristics they display. This stage is further divided into 3 sub-stages:non-language-awareness stage (1-3 months); language-awareness emergence stage (3-9 months; language-awareness establishment stage (9-12 months).Chapter Five discusses the characteristics of the category relation establishing stage. During the 1:0-3:0 period, children's cognitive span is still limited within the category level. By the end of the stage, children's cognitive span enlarges to the event level. During the early part of the stage, between 1:0 to 1:9, children acquire isolated categories. Roughly form 1:9, children start to build a network among the categories they have acquired. Therefore, the categories begin to get related with one another. During this stage, the role of actions such as gestures in conveying meaning gradually decreases.Chapter Six explores the characteristics of the event relation extension stage. From 3:0 on, children's language becomes the maijor meaning conveying means whereas the role of the action in conveying meaning deteriates. As the internalization of the action deepens, children's metalinguistic Chinese learning capacity emerges and this enbables children's Chinese learning efficiency increase instantially. As children's cognitive ability grows, their cognitive span increases from the category field to the event field. During this stage, CCL development is manifestated in the follwing aspects:vocabulary develops in width, depth and flexity; syntactic structures become more complex and standardized; their pragmatic' comptences and textual ability emerge; the content that is expressed shifts from the naive world to the scientific world.Chapter Seven is the discussion. The major conclusion of the the study is summarized; the merits and shortcomings of chunk analysis are expounded; the limitations of the study and areas for further study are pointed out.