The subjectivity in the language: the plural in children's speech

• Grant number: 11/08203-2
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate (Direct)
• Start date: September 01, 2011
• End date: September 30, 2013
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Linguistics - Psycholinguistics
• Principal Investigator: Alessandra Del Ré
• Grantee: Rosângela Nogarini Hilário
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências e Letras (FCL). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Araraquara. Araraquara , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The goal of this study is to analyse the use of the plural in the noun phrase (NP) in the young child language. In order to achieve this objective, the study is based on a dialogical and discursive perspective, using as a theoretical base the reflections proposed by the Bakhtin Circle and Vygotsky's and Bruner's contributions. The longitudinal corpus is composed by two monolingual children acquiring Brazilian Portuguese (BP), one bilingual child acquiring BP and French, and one monolingual child acquiring French. All the children are 22 to 36 months old. The first analyses (A., monolingual child acquiring BP, 23 to 32 months old), reveal the occurrence of less predictable constructions, for example the use of the plural morpheme in verbs (e.g. brincandos, correros) and adverbs (e.g. tambéns, pertinhos). Nevertheless, the occurrences of this use were found in a relatively low number. In the more predictable constructions (i.e. the use of the plural morpheme {-s} in elements from a noun phrase) it was verified that in the child language there were other possibilities of the use of the plural than the typical ones from the adult language (i.e. the standard use - {-s} in all elements of the NP - and the non-standard use - {-s} only in the element on the far left of the NP). The atypical occurrence in the child language is the one in which the plural morpheme is used in the element on the far right of the NP. This phenomenon could be observed with a lot of regularity in A's corpus (the monolingual child acquiring BP). From these findings, the objective now is to investigate if these specific uses of the plural morpheme {-s} can also be observed in Me.'s language (monolingual child acquiring BP, 26 to 35 months old), M.'s (bilingual acquiring BP and French, 24 to 36 months old), and Ma.'s (monolingual acquiring French, 22 to 36 months old). The unusual use of the plural is, in this study, a mark of singularity, being a typical construction of the child language. Therefore, the aim of this study is to identify the marks of singularity in the use of the plural of monolingual and bilingual children. (AU)

Academic Publications

(References retrieved automatically from State of São Paulo Research Institutions)

HILÁRIO, Rosângela Nogarini. Um olhar sobre a aquisição do plural nominal em crianças. 2013. Doctoral Thesis - Universidade Estadual Paulista (Unesp). Faculdade de Ciências e Letras. Araraquara Araraquara.