Academic/General Training Module by Adam Smith First Published in 2015

 IELTS
 JOURNAL 
 
124 
is monitored using special recording equipment. The result has been a growing body of 
reliable data on the stages of language acquisition from birth until puberty. 
D There is no single way of studying children’s language. Linguistics and psychology 
have each brought their own approach to the subject, and many variations have been 
introduced to cope with the variety of activities in which children engage, and the 
great age range that they present. Two main research paradigms are found. 
E One of these is known as ‘naturalistic sampling’. A sample of a child’s spontaneous 
use of language is recorded in familiar and comfortable surroundings. One of the best 
places to make the recording is in the child’s own home, but it is not always easy to 
maintain good acoustic quality, and the presence of the researcher or the recording 
equipment can be a distraction (especially if the proceedings are being filmed). 
Alternatively, the recording can be made in a research centre, where the child is 
allowed to play freely with toys while talking to parents or other children, and the 
observers and their equipment are unobtrusive. 
F A good quality, representative, naturalistic sample is generally considered an ideal 
datum for child language study. However, the method has several limitations. These 
samples are informative about speech production, but they give little guidance about 
children’s comprehension of what they hear around them. Moreover, samples cannot 
contain everything, and they can easily miss some important features of a child’s 
linguistic ability. They may also not provide enough instances of a developing feature 
to enable the analyst to make a decision about the way the child is learning. For such 
reasons, the description of samples of child speech has to be supplemented by other 
methods.
G The other main approach is through experimentation, and the methods of 
experimental psychology have been widely applied to child language research. The 
investigator formulates a specific hypothesis about children’s ability to use or 
understand an aspect of language, and devises a relevant task for a group of subjects 
to undertake. A statistical analysis is made of the subjects’ behaviour, and the results 
provide evidence that supports or falsifies the original hypothesis. 
H Using this approach, as well as other methods of controlled observation, researchers 
have come up with many detailed findings about the production and comprehension 
of groups of children. However, it is not easy to generalize the findings of these 
studies. What may obtain in a carefully controlled setting may not apply in the rush of 
daily interaction. Different kinds of subjects, experimental situations, and statistical 
procedures may produce different results or interpretations. Experimental research is 
therefore a slow, painstaking business; it may take years before researchers are 
convinced that all variables have been considered and a finding is genuine. 

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