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An analysis of the grammatical categories in the spoken English of Singapore children aged 5 to 9 years
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Type
Thesis
Author
Ow-Lim, Angela Geok Hua
Supervisor
Ho, Wah Kam
Thomas, Elwyn
Abstract
The principal purpose of this study was to analyse the spoken English of lower primary school children in a Singapore school. The investigator was interested in how these children used grammatical categories of English, the major language of instruction in school. This was a corpus-based study, with samples of spoken English obtained from 50 students drawn from four grade levels: pre-primary to primary three. As the data was collected cross-sectionally and compared across grades, it was necessary to ensure that the four groups were of average verbal ability.
The present study was not designed to test any language theory of acquisition nor to search for an acquisition order in the grammatical categories concerned, for Singapore children. Its objectives were quite specific and modest, limited to a practical investigation of the use of some grammatical categories as assessed by an instrument used in previous studies on syntactic development in a first language situation. The primary justification for this study was that so little was known about the use of grammatical categories by beginning school children in Singapore, in a situation in which English was not a mother tongue.
The method used was the elicitation of spoken English through a half-hour tape-recorded interview. Pictures and story books were used as stimulus materials. Fifty consecutive sentences were selected for analysis from the transcription of the speech of each child. The instrument used for analysis was the Developmental Sentence Scoring measure. The children's use of grammatical categories was investigated by taking into account frequencies of occurrence of the different types and levels of grammatical categories measured by the instrument used. Syntactic maturity was also considered by the measures of mean length of sentences, number of words, number of entries, weighted developmental score and developmental sentence score. Although it was not the intention of the investigator to focus on the children's performance errors, references were made to them in the discussion of the children's difficulties with grammatical categories and implicitly, syntax. As there was no intention to treat this latter discussion as an error analysis exercise, a general approach was adopted with emphasis on qualitative rather than quantitative data.
In its grammatical analysis, this study was based on the main assumptions that acquisition of language is ordered and that language is structured. Moreover with increasing evidence in recent years that children acquired groups of structures rather than a single structure at a time, it seemed reasonable to use an instrument that looked at acquisition of language across grammatical categories.
This study had for its statistical design a factorial one, involving four groups of children established according to the factors of sex and grade or age level, with almost equal numbers of students in each cell. Other antecedent or explanatory variables were socio-economic background, language used in the home, parental education, sibling size, language of interaction with peers and exposure to English through reading and television viewing. The criterion variables were the weighted developmental scores and the measures of syntactic maturity. For the qualitative analysis deviations from Standard British English, the language of education in Singapore schools, were examined. Apart from frequency counts, data were analysed by using correlations and one-way analysis of variance.
The frequency counts revealed a developmental pattern in the spoken English of the children with the mean DSS scores increasing from the 5-6 year old cohort to the 9 year old cohort. There was also a clear developmental pattern in performance in the main verb category with older children obtaining higher weighted scores than younger ones. That spoken English was related to age was further emphasised by the high and very significant correlation between the two. The one-way analysis of variance showed that there were significant differences in performance in some of the grammatical categories among the four age groups of children. They were the categories of main verb, secondary verb, personal pronoun, negative and conjunction. One-way analysis of variance also revealed significant differences among the four groups in the indicators of syntactic maturity.
As regard the relation of spoken English performance to the other variables, contrary to expectations, there was no statistically significant relationship between family factors and these children's spoken English ability. Nor was there any significant relationship between the children's spoken English and the factors of language of interaction and sex. It was found, however, that the amount of reading the children had was significantly related to their spoken English performance.
The qualitative analysis showed that the childcare in this study had most difficulty with the use of the main verb category. Further analysis of the transcriptions showed that there were difficulties in syntax which were linked to the children's mother tongue which was Chinese and others which were characteristic features of Singapore English.
The present study was not designed to test any language theory of acquisition nor to search for an acquisition order in the grammatical categories concerned, for Singapore children. Its objectives were quite specific and modest, limited to a practical investigation of the use of some grammatical categories as assessed by an instrument used in previous studies on syntactic development in a first language situation. The primary justification for this study was that so little was known about the use of grammatical categories by beginning school children in Singapore, in a situation in which English was not a mother tongue.
The method used was the elicitation of spoken English through a half-hour tape-recorded interview. Pictures and story books were used as stimulus materials. Fifty consecutive sentences were selected for analysis from the transcription of the speech of each child. The instrument used for analysis was the Developmental Sentence Scoring measure. The children's use of grammatical categories was investigated by taking into account frequencies of occurrence of the different types and levels of grammatical categories measured by the instrument used. Syntactic maturity was also considered by the measures of mean length of sentences, number of words, number of entries, weighted developmental score and developmental sentence score. Although it was not the intention of the investigator to focus on the children's performance errors, references were made to them in the discussion of the children's difficulties with grammatical categories and implicitly, syntax. As there was no intention to treat this latter discussion as an error analysis exercise, a general approach was adopted with emphasis on qualitative rather than quantitative data.
In its grammatical analysis, this study was based on the main assumptions that acquisition of language is ordered and that language is structured. Moreover with increasing evidence in recent years that children acquired groups of structures rather than a single structure at a time, it seemed reasonable to use an instrument that looked at acquisition of language across grammatical categories.
This study had for its statistical design a factorial one, involving four groups of children established according to the factors of sex and grade or age level, with almost equal numbers of students in each cell. Other antecedent or explanatory variables were socio-economic background, language used in the home, parental education, sibling size, language of interaction with peers and exposure to English through reading and television viewing. The criterion variables were the weighted developmental scores and the measures of syntactic maturity. For the qualitative analysis deviations from Standard British English, the language of education in Singapore schools, were examined. Apart from frequency counts, data were analysed by using correlations and one-way analysis of variance.
The frequency counts revealed a developmental pattern in the spoken English of the children with the mean DSS scores increasing from the 5-6 year old cohort to the 9 year old cohort. There was also a clear developmental pattern in performance in the main verb category with older children obtaining higher weighted scores than younger ones. That spoken English was related to age was further emphasised by the high and very significant correlation between the two. The one-way analysis of variance showed that there were significant differences in performance in some of the grammatical categories among the four age groups of children. They were the categories of main verb, secondary verb, personal pronoun, negative and conjunction. One-way analysis of variance also revealed significant differences among the four groups in the indicators of syntactic maturity.
As regard the relation of spoken English performance to the other variables, contrary to expectations, there was no statistically significant relationship between family factors and these children's spoken English ability. Nor was there any significant relationship between the children's spoken English and the factors of language of interaction and sex. It was found, however, that the amount of reading the children had was significantly related to their spoken English performance.
The qualitative analysis showed that the childcare in this study had most difficulty with the use of the main verb category. Further analysis of the transcriptions showed that there were difficulties in syntax which were linked to the children's mother tongue which was Chinese and others which were characteristic features of Singapore English.
Date Issued
1987
Call Number
PE1068.S5 Ow
Date Submitted
1987