ÇUKUROVA UNIVERSITY

THE INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL SCIENCES

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING

THE MATCH/MISMATCH BETWEEN LANGUAGE USED IN CHILD

BOOKS AND ACTUAL LANGUAGE USED AS MEASURED BY TURKISH

CDI

Emel UÇAR

MASTER OF ARTS

ADANA, 2008

ÇUKUROVA UNIVERSITY

THE INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL SCIENCES

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING

THE MATCH/MISMATCH BETWEEN LANGUAGE USED IN CHILD

BOOKS AND ACTUAL LANGUAGE USED AS MEASURED BY TURKISH

CDI

Emel UÇAR

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Hatice SOFU

MASTER OF ARTS

ADANA, 2008

To the Directorship of the Institute of Social Sciences, Çukurova University.

We certify that this thesis is satisfactory for the award of the degree of Master of Arts in

the Department of English Language Teaching.

Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Hatice SOFU Member of Examining Committee: Prof.Dr.Yaşare AKTAŞ ARNAS Member of Examining Committee: Asst. Prof. Dr. Aynur KESEN I certify that this thesis conforms to the formal standards of the Institute of Social Sciences. …/……/……

Prof. Dr. Nihat KÜÇÜKSAVAŞ Director of Institute

P.S: The uncited usage of the reports, charts, figures, and photographs in this thesis, whether original or quoted for mother sources, is subject to the Law of Works of Arts and Thought No: 5846 NOT: Bu tezde kullanılan özgün ve başka kaynaktan yapılan bildirişlerin, çizelge, şekil ve fotoğrafların kaynak gösterimeden kullanımı, 5846 sayılı Fikir ve Sanat Eserleri Kanunu’ndaki hükümlere tabidir.

I

ABSTRACT

THE MATCH/MISMATCH BETWEEN LANGUAGE USED IN CHILD BOOKS

AND ACTUAL LANGUAGE USED AS MEASURED BY TURKISH CDI

Emel UÇAR

Master of Arts, English Language Teaching Department

Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Hatice SOFU

August 2008, 111 pages

Choosing the right book for the appropriate age level has great importance and

effects on children’s development of vocabulary and grammar acquisition. In the child

books, the language used above the vocabulary and grammar level of the child will

surpass the benefits of reading books to children. For this reason, so as to choose a

child book, being aware of the language of the child has great importance. The first aim

of this study is to reveal if the vocabulary 8-30 month old children use as determined by

Turkish CDI match with the vocabulary present in thirteen child books written for 0-3

years of age and chosen from four different publishers. Another aim of this study is to

investigate if the grammatical forms that 16-30 month old toddlers use match with the

grammatical forms that are present in the child books. In addition, this study also aims

to explore if the grammatical forms that children are able to produce increase as their

lexicon grows.

After addressing the issues of terminology and definitions, related literature

focused on the studies and theories on the comprehension and production of children,

acquisition of lexicon and grammar and the contributions of reading books to children.

It also focused on the history of the data collection tool of the present study: CDI.

Turkish CDI is a parental report method therefore, Turkish adaptations of CDIs were

handed out to the parents and they were asked to fill in the checklists that provide to

follow the comprehensive and productive vocabulary and grammatical development of

their children.

The results show that vocabulary items such as sound effects, toys, body parts,

small household items, furniture and rooms, people, verbs and postpositions are present

both in the books chosen and child vocabulary as measured by Turkish CDI. However,

in the child books, words in animals, vehicles, clothes, outside items, words about time,

II

description words, pronouns, question words and quantifiers categories do not match

with the words that are produced by children.

In an overall evaluation, our results indicate that the grammatical items that are

present in the child books do not match with the grammatical items that are produced by

16-30 month old toddlers. There are also additional grammatical items that are

frequently produced by toddlers, but do not take place in the child books such as,

suffixes for negation, causative, passive, unergative, reported past in simple past.

Lastly, the relationship between the lexicon and grammar growth of 16-30 month

old toddlers was investigated. The results show that as children get older and expand

their vocabulary, the number of grammatical morphemes they use increases.

Keywords: Comprehensive vocabulary, productive vocabulary, grammatical forms,

child books, Turkish CDI.

III

ÖZET

ÇOCUK KİTAPLARINDA KULLANILAN DİLİN TÜRKÇE CDI İLE

ÖLÇÜLEN GERÇEK DİL İLE UYUMU / UYUMSUZLUGU

Emel UÇAR

Yüksek Lisans Tezi, İngiliz Dili Eğitimi Ana Bilim Dalı

Danışman: Doç. Dr. Hatice SOFU

Ağustos 2008, 111 sayfa

Uygun yaş seviyesi için yapılan kitap seçiminin, çocukların sözcük ve dilbilgisi

edinimine büyük etkisi ve önemi vardır. Çocuk kitaplarında, çocuğun sözcük ve

dilbilgisi seviyesinin üzerinde kullanılan dil, çocuklara kitap okumanın faydalarını

ortadan kaldıracaktır. Bu nedenle bir çocuk kitabı seçmek için, çocuğun kullandığı dilin

farkında olmanın büyük önemi vardır. Bu çalışmanın ilk amacı, 0-3 yaş çocukları için

yazılmış ve dört farklı yayın evinden seçilmiş on üç çocuk kitabında kullanılan

sözcüklerin 8-30 aylık çocukların Türkçe CDI ile belirlenen sözcük dağarcıklarıyla

eşleşip eşleşmediklerini ortaya koymaktır. Bu çalışmanın diğer amacı, çocuk

kitaplarında kullanılan dilbilgisi yapılarının 16–30 aylık çocukların kullandıkları

dilbilgisi yapılarıyla eşleşip eşleşmediğini araştırmaktır. Buna ek olarak, bu çalışma

ayrıca çocukların kelime dağarcığı genişledikçe, üretebildikleri dilbilgisi yapılarında bir

artış olup olmadığını araştırmayı amaçlamaktadır.

Terminoloji ve tanımlara değindikten sonra, çocukların sözcükleri anlama ve

üretmeleri, sözcük ve dilbilgisi edinimleri ve çocuklara kitap okumanın katkılarıyla

ilgili literatüre odaklanıldı. Çalışma ayrıca veri toplama aracı olan CDI’ın tarihçesine

de değindi. Türkçe CDI bir ebeveyn rapor etme yöntemidir, bu yüzden CDI’ın Türkçe

uyarlamaları ebeveynlere dağıtıldı ve onlardan çocuklarının sözcükleri anlamaları ve

üretmelerini göz önünde bulundurarak sözcük kontrol listelerini doldurmaları istendi.

Sonuçlar gösteriyor ki, ses efektleri, oyuncaklar, vücut bölümleri, küçük ev

aletleri, mobilyalar ve odalar, insanlar, eylemler ve yer bildiren sözcükler

kategorilerindeki sözcüklerin hem seçilen kitaptaki sözcüklerde hem de Türkçe CDI ile

belirlenen çocukların sözcük haznesinde bulunduğu tespit edilmiştir. Bununla birlikte,

çocuk kitaplarında bulunan hayvanlar, araçlar, kıyafetler, evin dışı ile ilgili sözcükler,

zamanla ilgili sözcükler, tanımlayıcı sözcükler, zamirler, soru sözcükleri ve miktar

IV

bildiren sözcükler kategorilerindeki sözcükler, çocukların ürettikleri sözcüklerle

eşleşmemektedir.

Genel bir değerlendirmede sonuçlar gösteriyor ki, çocuk kitaplarında kullanılan

dilbilgisi yapıları, 16–30 aylık çocukların ürettikleri dil bilgisi yapılarıyla

eşleşmemektedir. Çocuklar tarafından sıklıkla kullanılan ancak kitaplarda bulunmayan

olumsuzluk eki, ettirgen, etken yapı, öneri ve görülen geçmiş zamanın rivayeti gibi dil

bilgisi yapılarıyla da karşılaşılmıştır.

Son olarak, 16–30 aylık çocukların sözcük dağarcığı ve kullandıkları dilbilgisi

yapıları arasındaki ilişki araştırıldı. Sonuçlar gösteriyor ki çocuklar yaşça büyüdükçe ve

kelime haznelerini genişlettikçe, kullandıkları dilbilgisel eklerin sayısı artmaktadır.

Anahtar Kelimeler: Anlanan sözcük haznesi, söylenen sözcük haznesi, dilbilgisel

görevi olan sözcükler, Türkçe CDI.

V

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my deepest and most sincere gratidude to my thesis

advisor Assoc. Prof. Dr. Hatice Sofu for her expert comments, constructive feedback,

constant support, professional advice and giving her valuable time throughout the

preperation of this thesis.

I would also like to express my thanks to Prof. Dr. Yaşare Aktaş Arnas and

Assist. Prof. Dr. Aynur Kesen for excepting to be a part of my thesis commitee.

I owe special thanks to Feyza Türkay for her support and materials provided. It

is my pleasure to meet her.

I wish to express my special thanks to the people who looked after my son while

I was busy with this thesis.

My heartfelt thanks go to my son, Kerem, for being a good boy and leaving the

nights to me for the preperation of this thesis. I hope to read this thesis with him some

day.

VI

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE

ABSTRACT.....................................................................................................................I

ÖZET...............................................................................................................................III

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS............................................................................................V

LIST OF TABLES..........................................................................................................IX

LIST OF APPENDICES................................................................................................XI

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.0 Background to the Study.............................................................................................1

1.1 Statement of the Problem……………….....………………..…...……….…...........3

1.2 Purpose of the Study …..................................................…………...……........……3

1.3 Research Questions.....................................................................................................4

1.4 Limitations .................................................................................................................4

1.5 Operational Definitions……………………………….....…………..….........……..4

CHAPTER TWO

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

2.0 Introduction …………………………………………………............……...….…..6

2.1 Comprehension versus Production……………………………............…...…….....6

2.2 Acquisition of Lexicon ……………………………………………….…... ………8

2.3 Acquisition of Grammar……………………………………..…………..………..11

2.4 History of the Macarthur Communicative Development Inventory……..……..…13

2.5 Contributions of Reading Books to Language of Children…………………….…15

VII

CHAPTER THREE

METHODOLOGY

3.0 Introduction……………………………………………………………..….….…...17

3.1 Participants and Setting……………………………………………………….……17

3.2 Instruments……………………………………………………………….…….…..18

3.2.1 Macarthur Communicative Developmental Inventory………........................18

3.2.2 Proposed Form of Turkish CDI …………………….………..…...................19

3.2.3 The Child Books ……………………………………………...…..………….21

3.3 Data Collection……………………….………………………………...………..…23

3.3.1 Application of the CDI……………………………….....….…………...…..23

3.3.2 Analysis of the Child Books………………………………..….…………….23

CHAPTER FOUR

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

4.0 Introduction ………………………………………………..………...……….........25

4.1 Comparison of the Language used in the Child Books and Turkish CDI…….…....25

4.1.0 Introduction…………………………………………………..………………25

4.1.1 Comparison of the Words both in the Child Books and Turkish CDI….…....25

4.1.2 Grammatical Analysis of 13 Child Books........................................................49

4.1.3 Comparison of Grammatical Items both in the Child Books and Turkish

CDI…………………………………………..……………………………....53

4.1.4 Growth of Grammar Parallel to Lexical Development………...……..……..56

CHAPTER FIVE

CONCLUSION

5.0 Introduction ………………………………..………………………………..….…61

5.1 Conclusions …………………………………..………………..……………….….61

5.2 Implications for ELT……………………………..……………….….…………….64

VIII

5.3 Suggestions …………………………..……………………………………....……65

REFERENCES…………………………………..………………………..….……….66

APPENDICES……………………………………………..……………….………….72

CURRICULUM VITAE…………………………………………………………….111

IX

LIST OF TABLES

TABLES PAGE

Table 3.1. Lexical items in the Toddler Scale of Turkish CDI compared with

the MacArthur CDI……………………….………………………………19

Table 3. 2. Lexical Items in the Infant Scale of Turkish CDI Compared with

the Macarthur CDI…………………………………………………………20

Table 3.3. The Child Books…………………………………………………………….22

Table 4.1. Sound Effects and Animal Sounds…………………………………………27

Table 4.2. Animals……………………………………………………………………..28

Table 4.3. Vehicles……………………………………………………...……………...29

Table 4.4. Toys……………………………………………………….………………..30

Tablo 4.5a. Food and Drink……………………………………………………………31

Table 4.5b. Frequently Used Food and Drink Absent in the Child Books…………..…32

Table 4.6a. Clothes …………………………………………………………………….33

Table 4.6b. Clothes Absent in the Child Books…………………….………………….33

Table 4.7. Body Parts…………………………………………………..………………34

Table 4.8. Small Household Items……………………………………..………………35

Table 4.9. Furniture and Rooms………………………………………………………..36

Table 4.10. Outdoor Items..........…………………………………...…………………..37

Table 4.11. Places to Go………………………………………………………………..37

Table 4.12. People………………………………………………………..…….………38

Table 4.13a. Games and Routines…………………………………………….………..39

Table 4.13b. Games and Routines Absent in the Child Books………………..………..40

Table 4.14a. Verbs……………………………………………………………..……….41

Table 4.14b. Other Verbs Frequently Used by Children; Not Present in

the Child Books………………………………………………..…………43

Table 4.1. Description Words………………………………………………..…..……..44

Table 4.16. Words about Time…………………………………………….…………...45

Table 4.17. Pronouns…………………………………………….……………….…….45

Table 4.18. Question Words…………………………………….………….…………..46

Table 4.19. Prepositions………………………………………….………….…………48

X

Table 4.20. Quantifiers………………………………………….…………..………….48

Table 4.21. Examples and Numbers of Tense Morphemes Used in the

Child Books………………………………………………………………..50

Table 4.22. Examples and Number of the Case Markers Used in the

Child Books..................................................................................................51

Table 4.23. Inflectional Morphemes and Their Numbers Used in the

Child Books………………………………………………….…………….52

Table 4.24 Tense Suffixes …………………………...………….……….…….………54

Table 4.25 Case Markers………………………………...…….………….……………55

Table 4.26 Comparison of Other Grammatical Items both in the Child Books

and Turkish CDI………………………………..…………………..….…..55

Table 4.27 Grammatical Items that do not Exist in the Child Books ………...…...…...56

Table 4.28 Numbers of Production Vocabulary of 16-18 and 28-30 Month Old

Toddlers …………………………………………………….……..…..…..57

Table 4.29 Production Numbers of Grammatical Items Between16-18 and 28-30 Month

Old Toddlers …………………………….…………….…………………...58

Table 4.30 Production Numbers of Verbs and Tense Morphemes Produced by 16-18

and 28-30 Month old Toddlers…………….………..………………….….59

XI

LIST OF APPENDICES

APPENDIX PAGE

Appendix 1: Texts of the Child Books...........................................................................63

Appendix 2: Turkish CDI Infant Scale .........................................................................66

Appendix 3: Turkish CDI Toddler Scale ......................................................................82

1

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.0 Background to the Study

Language acquisition has been the concern of linguists for a long time. By the

age of three years, a normally developing child has completed the great majority of its

language scaffold, for this reason, it is the most ideal time to trace the development of

language.

Children have already begun their language careers by the age of 3-4 months

with babblings and single vowels. Then they combine the vowels with the consonants

with more meaningful responses in the communication with the others (between 6 to 12

months). By the age of 8 months, comprehension has already started but children are

not capable enough to join the conversation with systematic strings of words. After 12

month of age, they begin to start struggling for producing single word utterances. They

have a limited vocabulary repertoire until 16 months. It is possible to follow the

“vocabulary spurt” in every language acquisition somewhere between 16 and 24

months. Then comes the “grammar spurt” between 24 and 30 months of age. This

sequence endorses the proposal that language is constructed not triggered (Marchmann,

2004). Devescovi et al. (2005) studied on the relationship between grammatical and

lexical development comparing 233 English and 233 Italian children aged between 1;6

and 2;6 by using MacArthur Communicative Development Inventories (CDI). They

found out that there is a correlation in the vocabulary size and Mean Length of

Utterance of both English and Italian children. Marchman and Bates (1994, in Dixon

and Marchman, 2000), propose that “grammatical principles emerge in a system that

has built up a sufficient lexical base to support the further abstraction of grammatical

regularities, that is, a critical mass” (p. 204). In other words, the growing lexicon

provides the foundation for grammar learning, and contributes fundamentally to the

organization of increasingly complex grammatical forms.

Although the path beginning from the sounds leading to words and grammar has

universals in child language development, the developmental sequence above is not

exactly the same in every language. There are some differences in this process as a

result of the structure of languages. For example because of the inflection system of

2

Turkish, children are able to add grammatical components at the end of words (such as

time suffixes). Aksu-Koç and Slobin (in Slobin 1985) point out that by the age of 24

months or earlier, inflectional system appears and noun inflections and much of the

verbal paradigm is acquired by Turkish speaking children. That is, even at one word

stage, children are able to make “one word sentences” with tense and person suffixes.

From the initial stages of their language career, children tend to follow and join

the conversation by using single sounds with the reinforcement of their care-givers.

Getting familiar with the music of the language, they need no reason to make noise.

However much the child is exposed to the language, he becomes professional in using

the sounds, words and components of a speech. Children are exposed to adult to child

speech, motherese, which has some special features. Clearly articulated utterances with

pauses between words and phrases and exaggerated intonation contours to signal

questions, imperatives and statements is some of the phonetic features of motherese

speech. The very restricted vocabulary has concrete reference to “here and now” (Clark,

2003). There are also few incomplete sentences, more imperatives and questions and

shorter sentences.

Children are also exposed to adult to adult speech of any kind by people around

the setting. Having the features of motherese speech, reading books to children is one of

the best ways not only to learn a language but also to have an idea of the outer world.

Manczak (2003) sates that reading “sparks children's creativity and imagination;

introduces them to new people, places, and ideas; builds their vocabulary and

strengthens their use of language; and clarifies difficult situations and troublesome

feelings.” In those books, there are simple sentences and vocabulary that is similar to

the setting the child is exposed to language in his immediate environment.. Just as in

motherese speech, there are repetitions of words and sentences. The subject does not go

far from the immediate situational context. It is also a very special time span shared

between the child and the parent, and has huge contributions to the child’s

psychological growth.

On the road of being professional in using the language, the child uses many

strategies automatically, such as making up words and suffixes, errors and self

corrections. This process brings the child to the acquisition of linguistic forms and the

child gets a metalinguistic awareness that is “the ability to focus attention on language

and reflect upon its nature, structure and functions” (Garton and Pratt, 1998, in Sofu,

2003, p. 271). Sofu (2003) claims that literacy accelerates metalinguistic awareness.

3

She proves that “in homes where adults read books or talk to their children about books,

stories, and language in particular, metalinguistic awareness develops earlier” (p. 279).

1.1 Statement of the Problem

There has been respectable research on the comparison of the acquisition of

comprehensive and productive vocabulary of children in other world languages (i.e.

Fenson et al.,1994; Caselli, Casadio and Bates,1999; Hamilton, Plunkett and Schafer,

2000; Bletes et al., 2008) by using MacArthur Communicative Developmental

Inventory (CDI), a standardized parental report system .

CDI is on the process of being adapted to Turkish. This will be one of the initial

studies applied to Turkish child language acquisition by using the proposed form of

CDI. The results will be the normative data for the development of Turkish child

language.

The relationship between the lexical growth and grammatical development has

also been a matter of investigation. Surely, it is impossible to think of grammar apart

from words. Any rule based device has a certain amount of lexical material to work on

(Bates and Goodman, 1997). The matter is how tight the relationship between lexical

and grammatical growth is.

There are numerous child books on the shelves of the bookstores and

supermarkets. However, there is not enough investigation for the suitability of the

language used in these books for the proposed age groups. Determining the vocabulary

and grammar knowledge of the children by Turkish CDI, ten of these child books have

been investigated and the results are compared on the basis of the vocabulary and the

grammatical items in both Turkish CDI and the child books so as to determine the

appropriateness of the child books for the proposed 0-3 years of age group.

1.2 Purpose of the Study

The first aim is to compare the vocabulary used in the books with the actual

vocabulary of the children between 8-30 months of age determined by Turkish CDI.

The second aim of this study is to investigate the grammatical forms used in the

ten child books selected from three different publishers proposed for children between

0-3 years of age and compare the results with the grammatical items that children are

able to produce as determined by Turkish CDI.

4

The last purpose of this study is to investigate if the grammatical morphemes

that 16-30 month of age toddlers produce increase as their age and the lexicon increase?

1.3 Research Questions

Four research questions are generated:

1. Do the vocabulary children between 8-30 months of age use as indicated by

Turkish CDI match with the vocabulary present in thirteen child books written for 0-3

years of age?

2. Do the grammatical forms children between 16-30 months of age use as

indicated by Turkish CDI match with the grammatical forms present in thirteen child

books?

3. Do the grammatical morphemes that 16-30 month old toddlers use increase as

their age and lexicon increase?

1.4 Limitations

In this study, the language used only in 13child books is investigated. Three of

themare word books for infants and ten of them are for children up to three years of age.

Education level of the mothers and gender of the children are not taken into

account during the data analysis. However, mothers’ level of education may have given

cues on the acquisition of words and morphemes.

As CDI is a printed format to see only if the word is comprehended and

produced, it is not known if a word is acquired earlier than the other. More importantly,

we do not know the child’s intention of using a word. Because the child may use a

word for different objects and concepts that he may make overgeneralizations.

1.5 Operational Definitions

The MacArthur Communicative Developmental Inventory: The MacArthur

Communicative Developmental Inventory (CDI) is a standardized parent reporting

system used to assess monolingual children’s lexical growth and communication skills

between the ages from 8 to 30 months.

Comprehensive Vocabulary: It stands for the words that the child is able to

understand when uttered to him/her in a conversation. It is also known as “receptive

vocabulary”.

5

Productive Vocabulary: It is the words that a child is able to say. It is also

named as “expressive vocabulary”.

Child Books: In this study, “child books” refer to the books prepared for

children between 0 to 3 years of age.

6

CHAPTER TWO

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

2.0 Introduction

In this chapter a detailed inquiry on the comprehensive and productive

vocabulary of children is done. The acquisition of lexicon and grammar is also

explained. Furthermore, studies done by using CDI are exemplified. Contributions of

reading books to children are also stated in this chapter.

2.1 Comprehension vs. Production

By the time children start to understand what is said to them, they are only able

to reply them by gestures and strings of sounds. Firstly, it is physically impossible as

their vocal tracts are not improved enough to have control over them. They are not also

on that level of comprehension mentally. Clark (2003) summarizes the process as

follows;

For production, one needs to retrieve from memory not only the relevant

word for the notion to be expressed but also the relevant articulatory

specifications for producing an auditory sequence that will be recognized.

To produce recognizable words, children have to discover correspondences

between articulatory patterns that result. Getting sounds and sound

sequences right takes time. And producing multisyllabic words and longer

expressions requires that children attend, check their own current

productions against their representations for comprehension, and try again

whenever they detect a mismatch between them (p. 127).

As a result it is possible to talk about an asymmetry between comprehension and

production of vocabulary. Then can it be assumed that errors in production take us to

the errors in comprehension? Thomson and Chapman (in Kuczaj 1986) provided

children who had overextended words in production with a forced choice

comprehension in which they were asked to indicate which of a pair of objects was an

exemplar of an overextended term. Each pair of objects consisted of an appropriate

exemplar and an object to which the child had overextended the term in production. In

this situation, in 40% of the cases, children either overextended the term in both

7

comprehension and production, and in 60% of the cases they overextended the term

only in production. In their similar study, Fremgen and Fay (1980 in Kuczaj 1986)

presented that results were more straightforward and none of the children tested

overextended words in comprehension that they had overextended in production.

It can be suggested that the comprehension is not always more accurate than

production. Rice (1984) suggested that when the word is easier to recall than its

concept, there occurs production before comprehension. Kuczaj (1986) suggests that

both comprehension and production must be considered in accounts of lexical

development. He states that “in production, children have in mind the concept to which

they intend to refer, and must choose from the words they know in order to try to

succeed at their referential attempt. In comprehension, children attempt to recognize

the words that they hear and then determine the concept to which they refer” (p. 102).

Parallel to this, Clark (in Kuczaj 1986) suggests that production is not simply the

inverse of the comprehension. According to her,

Production requires an active search for available words and expressions combined

with evaluation of whether they are appropriate to label the concepts to be

conveyed and to call up these concepts in the addressee. Comprehension requires

recognition of a word as known, followed by a search for the conceptual category

usually picked out by that term to arrive at the speaker’s intended meaning (p.102).

Goldfield and Reznick (1992, in Plunket and Shafer) argue that prior to the

development in the productive vocabulary of children in the second half of their second

year, an accelerated rate of growth can be observed in children’s receptive vocabulary.

According to the results of their research, Bates and Goodman (1995) state that all three

domains (word production, word comprehension and grammar) follow a dramatic,

nonlinear pattern of growth across the age range of 8 to 30 months with initial growth of

comprehension at 8 months of age, then production growth starting at 12th month and

the growth of grammar from 18th month on.

Parallel to these, there are a number of studies on the prior development of

receptive vocabulary to the productive vocabulary. Hamilton, Plunkett and Schafer

(2000) studied on vocabulary development of British infants. The CDI is delivered to

the parents of 669 children aged between 1;0 and 2;1. According to the results of

parental reports, children are able to comprehend more CDI items compared to the

production level of the same age. They comprehend about 26% of the CDI items (an

average CDI wordlist of 402 items) at the age of 16 months, but they are only able to

8

produce about 2,6% of the items. It is proved that comprehension level of British

children at the age of 16 months is higher than their level of production vocabulary.

There are similar studies on other languages that result similarly. Caselli,

Casadio and Bates (1999) did same kind of a research by comparing the lexical

development of English and Italian infants. According to the results, word production

means are far behind the means for comprehension of words both for English and

Italian. There are only slight differences between the same age levels of both languages

and the levels of comprehension and production.

The same kind of research was done by Fenson et al (1994, in Bloom, 2000).

They asked parents how many words their children were able to understand and how

many they produced. According to the report, it is concluded that eight month olds have

a median receptive vocabulary of about 15 words with children in the top 15 percent of

understanding over 80 words. Ten month olds are reported to have a median receptive

vocabulary of 35 words with children in the top 10 percent understanding over 150

words. The results indicate the priority of comprehension vocabulary to the production

vocabulary ay early ages of acquisition.

In a recent study, Bletes et al. (2008) compared the productive to the

comprehensive vocabulary of Danish children aged between 0;8 to 1;8 months. In their

study they found out that there is an asymmetry between the comprehension and

production vocabulary of infants. According to the results, the Danish children have a

median comprehension score that increases from seven at age 0;8 to 232.5 words at age

1;8.

2.2 Acquisition of Lexicon

According to Chomsky (in Foley and Lust, 2004, p. 16), knowledge of language

is constructed along a course that is “determined by genetic instructions under the

triggering and shaping effects of environmental factors.” To know the meaning of a

word is to have a “certain mental representation or concept that is associated with a

certain form” (Bloom, 2000 p.17). That is having the concept and mapping the concept

on to the right form brings to the meaning of a word. Clark (2003) states that:

Children’s initial hypotheses about word meanings arise from the

conjunction of social and conceptual knowledge. The people around them

direct their attention and offer them utterances about what is at the locus of

that joint attention; and doing this, adults tend to focus on objects and events

9

in the here and now since these are highly accessible and allow them to

ensure that they and their children are both attending to the same things (p.

68).

In one way or another, despite the differences in the acquisition of order of some

components of language, children acquire their first language. Words can be learned

without a straight spatial and temporal cooccurance between the word and meaning. It

is inevitable to accept the benefit of mapping to learning the meaning of a word.

However, Bloom (2000) argued that taking the word learning of the blind children it can

be proposed that children do not need a full complement of sensory abilities. Landau

and Glietman (in Bloom, 2000) also proved that language of blind children was

indistinguishable from that of sighted children by the age of three.

Approving what a child says or giving feedbacks help the child to acquire the

language. However, Chomsky’s negative evidence such as explanations, correction of

wrong sequence, or ungrammatical sentences do not have much to add to the

knowledge. For example, in some cultures, children are not accepted as a counterpart of

speech until a certain age. This also proves that feedback is not inevitable to learn word

meanings.

Children’s first words have peculiar characteristics. They resemble the adult

language, but they have some differences both in usage and in production. The first

words have depraved but related phonology of the words of adult language. “Be” can

be interpreted as “ver” (give) in Turkish.

They also tend to make overextension that is appointing more than one meaning

to an entity when they do not know the right word. For example “mama” (food) can be

used for every kind of food they see or eat. As children lack the semantic distinction,

“mama” can be used both as a noun and the verb “to eat”. It can be suggested that

children have the concept of that being, know that is something else but “they apply

words from their limited lexicons that best fits the context” (Clark, in Kuczaj, 1986).

Children’s first words refer to immediate concrete environment that is the speech

does not go beyond the context in early stages of word production. Barrett (1986)

studied on early context bound productions and claimed that they are related to actions,

social routines or to perceptually salient events which occur frequently in the everyday

experience of the young child. Parallel to this Bloom (2000) suggests that many early

words refer to middle sized objects, things that can move or be moved. He lists the first

words of English speaking children as names for specific people (mama,dada), animals

10

(dog, cat), toys (ball, block), articles of clothing (sock, shirt), other artifacts (fork,

chair). There are names for substances (juice, milk), names for parts, typically body

parts(nose, foot), modifiers (hot, more) words that refer to actions or changes (up,

allgone) and routines that are linked to social interactions (bye bye, peek-a-boo). Soon

after verbs appear (go, make), prepositions (in, on) and more abstract terms

(kitchen,nap).

Acquisition of words does not depend on the frequency of usage all the time.

Although closed class morphemes like “a” and “the” are frequently used than any other

particular object name, they are harder for children to process and do not appear early in

production.

According to Aksu Koç and Slobin (in Slobin, 1985) as a highly inflected

language, acquisition of Turkish has some basic differences from English. They state

that in Turkish, “nouns are case marked for genitive, accusative, dative-directional,

locative, ablative, comitative-instrumental and depretive (without)”. These suffixes are

also added to pronouns, demonstratives, question words and derived nouns. In the same

way they point out that verbal affixes mark voice, negation, modality, aspect, tense,

person and number. This enables children use composed words and convey more

meanings by using less words separately. Parallelly, Sofu (1995) states that; even the

total number of verbs are fewer than 50 at the age of two, as “various types of particles

denoting tense, person, causation, reflexiveness, reciprocity, negation… etc. are affixed

to verbs and attributing them a lot of meaning, children may easily express themselves

with fewer verbs but with the application of multiple suffixes for different meanings.”

Until 24th month of age normally developing children acquire the derivational and

inflectional morphemes that come after verbs and nouns.

In Turkish, although the neutral word order is SOV, subject can be deleted and

suffixed to verb. In a sentence, a noun and a verb carries many of the separate

components of a sentence compared to English. This composed structure let speakers

convey more than one component in a word. A word can even be a sentence at least

with a tense and person suffix. “The regularity of the inflectional morphemes that they

generally have one function and case markers are suffixed to the question words

simplifies language acquisition and leads fewer mistakes” (Sofu, 2004).

11

2.3 Acquisition of Grammar

Starting from the earlier stages, at each stage of development “the child has an

internally consistent, rule governed cognitive system –a grammar, with specific

properties that can be studied” (Fromkin, 2000). After the spurts in both comprehension

(between 12-16 months) and production (between 16-24 months) it is possible to trace

the spurt of grammatical forms from 18th month on. As it is impossible to look for

grammar without some lexical components, it is inevitable to assume that lexical growth

precedes the growth of grammatical function words. The same kind of difference in the

order takes place in the acquisition of grammar as well.

Grammatical system is defined as a highly differentiated entity comprising

vocabulary, morphology (inflectional and derivational), syntax and the communicative

functions that are expressed by these aspects of language structure (Fletcher and

Garman 1986). Barrett (1999) states that the grammatical rules decide how the words

and morphemes in a language can be combined organized and sequenced to produce

well formed and comprehensible sentences in order to encode particular meanings.

Morphology can be defined as “word-structure analysis” (Baker and Derwing, in

Fletcher and Garman, 1986). They state that a word involves “meaning modifying

elements such as prefix, suffix, infix, or even a separate root, and a root or stem element

that carries the meaning”. In this word structure analysis, the meaning modifying

elements are divided into two areas: inflectional and derivational. Inflectional

morphemes do not make any change in the meaning of the stem, such as plural –s in

English. But derivational morphemes make an entirely different and new word such as

adding “-er” to the verb “read” both changes the lexical category of the word from verb

to noun, and changes the meaning.

In 1962, Brown and his colloquies started a longitudinal study on the

development of English as first language. There are three preschool children whom

they named Adam, Eve and Saarah. Data is gathered from the transcriptions of the

spontaneous speech of the child with their mothers (rarely with fathers) at home.

Trying to classify all the grammatical rules and analyzing the speech accordingly

is time and effort consuming, it is also not as possible as it can be thought. Brown

ordered 14 grammatical morphemes according to their developmental sequence.

According to the results, Brown (1973) concluded firstly that “the developmental order

of the fourteen morphemes is quite amazingly constant across three children

12

(Adam,Eve, Sarah)” (p. 135). It is also concluded that while order of development

approaches invariance, rate of development varies widely. At the age of 2;3 Eve had

attained criterion on six morphemes and is close to it on three others. On the contrary,

Adam and Sarah attained criterion on no morphemes at all and most were completely

absent from their speech.

Nevertheless, “children learning languages that have rich morphology, learn

morphology earlier in the course of language development than the children acquiring

morphologically impoverished languages (Berman,1986, in Hoff, 2005). Morphology is

learned relatively late by English speaking children because it is not as salient or

important part of the grammar.

In studies of children acquiring morphologically richer languages including

Finnish, German, Luo (spoken in parts of Kenya), and Kahuli (spoken in Papua New

Guinea) the telegraphic quality of children’s early word combinations are higher

(Brown,1973; Mills, 1985; Shieffelin, 1985 in Hoff 2005).

Morphology is salient part of grammar in Turkish. As Turkish is very

systematic, morphologic mistakes are rare. Inflectional morphemes are added to the

verbs even in the one-word stage. Early utterances are short and simple but

grammatically they resemble adult language. It can be proposed that because of the

earlier acquisition of suffixes, development in the grammar of Turkish child language

starts earlier with the development of lexicon. Children acquiring Turkish produce

inflected forms (words with grammatical morphemes) before they combine words

(Aksu-Koç& Slobin, 1985). A system that is regular and predictable as Turkish let

children make fewer mistakes and learn easier.

During the early stages, children have figured out many of the properties of their

particular target grammar such as word order (SOV in English). It is universally true

that sentences must have subjects, but languages differ with respect to whether the

subject must be lexically realized or not. In English the subject of a sentence must be

pronounced because of the relative poverty of subject agreement morphology which

only marks agreement for third person singular subjects and only in the present tense.

Some languages such as German have the subject agreement affixes but do not allow

null subject pronouns.

However, languages such as Italian and Turkish let null subjects, which are the

subjects that can be hidden and need not be pronounced as the hearer understands it

through the agreement inflection on the verb and from the context. The verb usually

13

has a subject agreement suffix on it indicating person and the number of the subject.

Such a one word utterance “gelmedik” includes subject, the number of subject, tense,

and negation that stand as separate components in its English equivalent “we did not

come”.

Gel - me - di - k

Come- neg. - past – 1st pers.plr.

This composed structure of Turkish lets early speakers convey more than one

thing at a time.

2.4 History of the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory

The MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory (CDI) is a standardized

parental report tool that is used to assess monolingual children’s lexical growth. It is a

tool for creating recognition. “It is designed to sample a child’s language, providing an

index of words the child uses.” (Anderson and Reilly, 2002, p. 84) Parents check the

words that their child uses from the checklists they are handed out for periods lasting

between 15 and 45 minutes. The CDI contains two scales: Infant Scale which is used for

infants from 8 to 16 months of age and designed to measure word comprehension, word

production and gesture. Toddler Scale is used for toddlers aged from 16 to 30 months.

It is used to assess the word production and various aspects of early grammar.

Time is between 8 to 30 months scale because this is a crucial period in which

children make the passage from first words to grammar. Berman (2004) states that by

the age of three children have acquired the basic regularities (phonological, morpho-

syntactic and semantic) of the target language irrespective of the language or languages

to be learned.

In their recent study, Bletes et al. (2008a) studied on the early language

acquisition of 6112 Danish children by using the Danish adaptation of CDI. They

presented the language development of children on the age range of 0; 8 to 3;0. They

also discussed the acquisitional implications of the role of the sound structure for

Danish children.

Matial, Dromi, Sagi and Bornstein (2000) also adapted CDI into Hebrew. They

detected the early lexical development of Hebrew speaking children. They found out

that “prior to the emergence of productive morphological and syntactic abilities, young

Hebrew-speaking children do not demonstrate language specific patterns of vocabulary

14

growth” (p. 44). They investigated the correlation of Hebrew CDI vocabulary size and

age. The results indicate that the number of children’s vocabulary increases as their age

increase.

This is the first time that CDI will be used for an investigation in Turkish

acquisition. The adaptation of CDI has been done by a group of researcher including

linguists, a psychologist and special educationist. Pilot study is in progress by the same

group with a limited number of children.

There are criticisms for the limitations of this tool. Caselli, Casadio and Bates

(1999, in Tomasello and Bates, 2001, p. 80) state limitations of this parental report

technique on the ability to investigate the details of grammar. They claim that it can

never replace traditional free speech or experimental measures for expanding their

knowledge of lexical and grammatical development. Still, they accept that it is possible

to learn something about the relative onset and growth of adult word classes providing

working hypotheses for more focused observational and experimental studies.

Tomasello and Mervis (1994) argue that MacArthur CDI lacks face validity and

may encourage over-inclusive responses. There is also another common criticism that

parents lack specialized training in assessing language.

In spite of these criticisms, the CDI format has proven to be extremely reliable

(internal consistency, r = .96; test-retest, r = .95). It also has a high validity (concurrent

validity range from .40 to .83; predicative validity range from .60 to .80). Anderson

and Reilly (2002) suggest “because the CDI uses a recognition format, with the words

that already printed on the page, the person completing the CDI does not have to rely

solely on recall to identify the words child produces.”

Because of its cost effectiveness, ease of administration and high validity and

reliability the English CDI has been adapted to numerous languages ranging from

Spanish to Chinese and lastly, Turkish. Yet it is also argued that comparisons based on

the CDI provide an unfair test of cross-linguistic differences as the CDI is originally

developed for English and adaptations to other languages may be strongly biased

toward English. Nevertheless, Caselli, Casadio and Bates (1999), defend that all

adaptations are true adaptations of the CDI, not the translations of the English scales.

They add that items are drawn from the existing literature on early development of that

language and they are also pre-tested with parents who are native speakers of that

language and their advice is asked about which items to be added or dropped.

15

2.5 Contributions of Reading Books to Language Of Children

According to Hepler, Hickman and Huck (1989), reading to children has

countless benefits such as developing their imagination, giving them new perspectives

on the world and developing insight to human behavior. Taylor and Strickland (in Apel,

Ehren, Silliman, Stone , 2004) state that reading to children has benefits both for parents

and children including:

1. bringing together members of the family;

2. providing opportunities for parents and children to learn about themselves

and gain a deep understanding of one another;

3. giving parents and children an opportunity to explore commonplace events

and exceptional happenings;

4. providing children with the opportunity to develop language and literacy

skills and values in ways that are meaningful to them (p. 162).

In his study, Irvin (1960, in Hepler, Heckman, Huck, 1989 ) indicates that

systematic reading of stories to infants will increase the spontaneous vocalization of 30

month old children. In this study, after the 15 to 20 minutes of daily reading and talking

about the story and the pictures with the child, the experimental group began to vocalize

significantly more than the control group.

In another study, High et al. (2004) enrolled 153 families with infants between

the ages of 6 to 25 months. There were 77 intervention and 76 control families. The

intervention group was instructed to involve in the shared reading activities for their

children. According to the results, the children who were read books by their care

givers had higher receptive and productive vocabulary results than the ones who were

not. In a similar study with 41 two year olds, DeBarshe (1993, in Let’s Read literature

review) found that mothers who began reading to their children earlier had children with

greater receptive language abilities than the ones who did not read to their children.

In one of the most significant studies on home reading environment’s impact on

child language development, Hart and Risley (1995, in Henrickson and Wasik, eds.

Apel, Ehren Silliman, Stone 2004) observed children from infancy to age three in three

income levels (low, middle, high income). They found that children of middle and high

status families have higher oral language skills. It is clearly stated that children who are

read more have significantly larger vocabulary. In the same study, it is also stated that

children from low income families enter kindergarten with a listening vocabulary

16

(receptive or comprehensive vocabulary) of 3000 words, whereas children of middle

income families had 20,000 listening vocabulary when they entered kindergarten. It can

be concluded that the quality of parent child verbal interaction is a predictor of

children’s language skills.

Reading to children from the earlier stages of their lives also help them learn to

read earlier. In her study Durkin (1966, in Hepler, Heckman, Huck, 1989 ) it is found

that children who learned to read before entering school had been read to from the age

of three or before.

17

CHAPTER THREE

METHODOLOGY

3.0 Introduction

In this chapter, an overall design of the study will be presented, giving detailed

information about participants and setting of the study, the instruments, CDI and the

adaptation of the CDI into Turkish and the application of it. There will also be

information about the child books used in this study.

3.1 Participants and Setting

In this study, there are 149 children aged between 8 and 30 months. They speak

Turkish as their native and only language, except one in the Infant Group. The Infant

Scale has been applied to the children aged between 8 and 16 months; and the Toddler

Scale has been applied to the children aged between 16 and 30 months.

In the Infant Group there are 57 children ranging in age from 8 to 16 months. 29

of the infants are male; 28 of them are female. Education level of the mothers is

ranging from primary school to university level. Three of the mothers are graduates of

primary school. Eight of them are graduates of secondary school which has been a must

in Turkey for about ten years. The number of mothers, who were graduated from high

school is 21. Lastly 25 of the mothers are university graduates. Most of the families,

whose parents are graduates of primary school, are from low socio economic level.

Both or one of the parents work and they earn the minimum wage. Families, whose

parents are graduates of university, are commonly from middle socio economic level.

Children from low income families are often looked after by their mothers at

home. Working parents leave the child with a caregiver, someone either from or out of

the family.

There are 92 children in the Toddler Group, their age ranging from 16 to 30

months. There are 53 male and 39 female participants in this group. Two of the

mothers have never had education. 16 of them are graduates of primary school. Five of

the mothers completed secondary school degree. Mothers who graduated from high

school are 29. Lastly, 40 of the mothers are graduates of university in this group.

Families come from three income levels: low, middle, high income levels. Different

18

from the Infant Group, in this group, some of the working parents leave their child to a

kindergarten.

Participants are from Adana, Osmaniye, Eskişehir, Ankara and Istanbul. The

data is collected for the pilot study of Turkish CDI. Participants are especially the

children of the colleagues, neighbors and relatives of the surveyors. People have also

helped the researcher to find children for the study and directed to the families who

have children aged between 8 to 30 months.

The mothers who had computers in their homes and higher education degree

have filled in the report in their homes. Even so, they have been given a briefing about

the report individually beforehand.

For the mothers who had low education degree or the ones who did not have

computer in their homes, the report has been filled in a suitable time and place, mostly

in their homes. The items have been asked one by one and the answers have been

checked by the researcher.

3.2 Instruments

3.2.1 MacArthur Communicative Developmental Inventory

CDI is a parental report system, thus it is filled in by the mothers of the children

as mothers are the closest person to the child. According to Bates et al. (1994) there are

680 words in English CDI. 280 of them are nouns (animal names, vehicles, toys, food

and drink, clothing, body parts, small household items, and furniture and rooms); 166

predicates (verbs and adjectives); and 102 closed class words (pronouns, question

words, prepositions and locations). The report is divided into two scales according to

the age of the children: Infant Scale and Toddler Scale.

In the Infant Scale, there are two parts: early words and, actions and gestures. At

the beginning of the list there is a short questionnaire asking the first signs of

understanding, utterances that the child comprehended and the beginning of speaking.

Then, there is a long list of words and mothers are asked to decide if their child is able

to comprehend or both comprehend and produce the given word. Then in the third part,

mothers are asked if their children are able to do the gestures in the list. For example it

is asked if their child is able to point at something for requesting that object. There are

three choices; “not yet”, “sometimes” and “often”. For other parts they are asked to

answer the questions by using yes or no.

19

In the Toddler Scale, there are two parts as well: the words that the children

produce and sentences and grammar. In the first part, parents are asked to decide if

their child is only able to produce the given word. At the end of the first part, parents

are asked five questions on how the child uses the words. For example if s/he is talking

about something that has already happened in the past or about something or someone

that does not exist in the present setting. Then the sentences and grammar part is

applied. There are three ways of gathering information in these parts. First, there are

questions and mothers are asked to choose one of the three options: “not yet”,

“sometimes” and “often”. There are also two possible sentences that the child might use

in certain situations and mothers are asked to choose one. If neither is suitable for the

child’s level, they do not need to fill in that item. Another way is to tick the suitable

item on the given table.

3.2.2 Proposed Form of Turkish CDI

The MacArthur CDI has been adapted to Turkish by a group of researchers

who are professionals at linguistics, psychology and special education. In the

adaptation process, according to the cultural, linguistic, and developmental evidences,

some of the items have been omitted and some have been added.

There are 809 words in the proposed form of toddler scale of Turkish CDI. 128

items are added in Turkish CDI. According to the cultural and linguistic differences

some words are added such as “tarhana” (a kind of soup) to the food and drink category.

Also, the “helping verb” and “connecting verbs” categories in English CDI are omitted

as there is not such a lexical category in Turkish.

The number of items in the “Food and Drink” category is significantly more than

the English CDI. This is because the Turks give importance to the cuisine and meal

times, and have very rich menu of recipes. The most significant difference is in the

action verbs category. There are 66 more verbs in the toddler scale of Turkish CDI.

Table 3.1. Lexical Items in the Toddler Scale of Turkish CDI Compared with the

MacArthur CDI Semantic Categories English CDI Turkish CDI

1. Sound effects and animal

sounds

12 16

2.Animals 43 40

3. Vehicles 15 15

20

Table 3.1 Continued 4. Toys 18 25

5.Food and drink 68 76

6. Clothing 28 41

7. Body Parts 27 30

8. Small household items 50 44

9. Furniture and rooms 33 32

10. Outside things 31 43

11. Places to go 22 27

12. People 29 39

13. Games and routines 25 44

14. Action words 103 169

15. Descriptive words 63 62

16. Words about time 12 13

17. Pronouns 25 24

18. Question words 7 13

19. Prepositions 26 22

20. Quantifiers and articles 17 26

21. Helping verbs 21 Omitted in Turkish CDI

22. Connecting words 6 8

Total:681 Total:809

In the Infant Scale, Turkish CDI has 80 more items than English CDI. “Food

and drink” and “Action words” categories have more items as in the Toddler Scale.

Table 3. 2. Lexical Items in the Infant Scale of Turkish CDI Compared with the

Macarthur CDI Semantic Categories English CDI Turkish CDI

1. Sound effects and animal

sounds

12 16

2.Animals 36 24

3. Vehicles 9 8

4. Toys 8 9

5.Food and drink 30 50

6. Clothing 19 21

7. Body Parts 20 19

8. Small household items 36 31

21

Table 3.2. Continued

9. Furniture and rooms 24 36

10. Outside things and Places to

go

27 28

11. Places to go (In ‘Outside

things)

16

12. People 20 27

13. Games and routines 19 35

14. Action words 55 71

15. Descriptive words 37 30

16. Words about time 8 9

17. Pronouns 11 14

18. Question words 6 9

19. Prepositions 11 13

20. Quantifiers and articles 8 10

Total:396 Total:476

3.2.3 The Child Books

It is inevitable to accept that reading to children adds a lot to their language

growth. It is possible to find child books for parents from all kind of socio economic or

education level. They can even be found on the shelves of supermarkets. However,

mostly educated or people who have high income buy these books to children (Sofu,

2003).

There are different kinds of books for children aged between 0 to 3 year olds.

Toy books, alphabet books, counting books, wordless books, and concept books are

some that can be classified. Concept books describe various dimensions of an object, a

class of objects or an abstract idea.

In this study, 13 child books have been examined. The books are from four

different publishers so as to exemplify the language used in the child books

homogeneously. The books are for children ages between 0 to 3 years old. One of the

books is for 2 to 3 year old children. It is an interactive book that tells the child join the

activities by showing the electronic devices in the house or pointing family members.

Repetition of words, phrases and sentences is the most significant characteristics

of the language used in these books. There are adjectives frequently used to define

nouns. In Turkish, verbs can have the suffixes of two tenses, they are called

22

“morphologically complex tenses” (Kornfilt, 1997). There are only two examples of

these verbs. In the majority of the sentences in the books verbs have simple tenses and

mostly present tenses are used related with the given picture and setting.

There are three different simple tense morphemes: simple present tense “yıka-r-

ım” (I wash), present continuous tense “oku-yor” (He is reading), past perfect tense

“git-miş” (It had gone). In two different books of the same publishers for 2-3 year old

children, there are two examples of morphologically complex tenses: English past

continuous tense “duru-yor-du” (It was standing), past possibility “boğul-acak-tı” (It

would drawn)

Table 3.3 The Child Books Publishers Books Aim Theme

Marsık

Yayınları

Tırtıl Dizisi 1 To teach names of objects and

actions

Animals dealing with small

objects

Tırtıl Dizisi 2 To teach names of objects and

actions

Animals spending time by the

seaside

Tırtıl Dizisi 3 To teach names of objects and

actions

Animals in action, doing daily

routines

YA-PA

Yayınları

Sağlığım To teach vocabulary about health A child telling the routines of a

healthy life

Hayvanlar To teach animal names and their

sounds

Animal sounds and characteristic

features

Bu Kayık To teach vocabulary A craw spending time on the

shore

Konuşmamı

Geliştiriyorum

To teach vocabulary and test

children’s knowledge of objects

Ask for the places of objects and

names of people

Bu Civciv To teach vocabulary A little hen’s adventures by the

river

ABC Kitapları-

Oyuncaklarım

To teach vocabulary Listing the names of toys under

the pictures

TUDEM

Yayınları

Oyuncaklar To teach vocabulary Listing the names of toys under

the pictures

Yemek Zamanı To teach vocabulary Listing the names of toys under

the pictures

Net Çocuk

Yayınları

Ce-eee Haydi

Beni Bul

To teach vocabulary and

postpositions

Preparation for sleep by playing

little games

23

3.3 Data Collection

3.3.1 Application of the CDI

149 of the parents have filled in the report. The ones who have computers at

home and/or the ones who have high education degree filled in the report on their own.

They have been given a briefing individually for instructions. A face to face interview

is held with most of the mothers. Items have been asked by the researcher and checked

according to the answers. These are the mothers who have low education degree and/or

the ones who do not have access to computer in their homes.

Parents have been instructed to accept a word as existing in the child’s

vocabulary if it occurs in identical or derived morphological form. Action words have

been presented in the imperative form and parents have been instructed to mark a

lexical entry as existing in the child’s vocabulary when the child uses either root or

tensed forms of the same verb.

3.3.2 Analysis of the Child Books

Books for children naturally differ from the ones for the adult in the sense of

style, plot, setting, theme, characterization and point of view. They also differ among

them for literate or illiterate children. Books for children up to three or four ages are

peculiar in the sense of the language used, topics, illustrations even the material of the

books.

In the child books for children up to three years of age, illustrations should be

clear and have round shapes (Turla and Tür, 1999). They also point out that pictures

should be strong enough to summarize the event and the characters should be among the

familiar setting of the child, such as cats, dogs, babies, friends, food or toys.

Theme is another important issue in the child books. Şimşek (2004) states that

theme should be clear in the child books. It is also beneficial to have only one theme

that leads the child to the beauties of life, such as joy of life, love of humans and being

hard working. Nevertheless, there may not be a theme in the ABC books for infants as

there are only words under the pictures.

Characterization is another important point to be considered in the books for

children. As for the other components of a child book, characterization differs from the

ones in the books for adults. Children take the character of the book as a model for

themselves; therefore, the character should have a good personality. However, the good

24

sides of the character should not be exaggerated and lead the child to try to reach a

utopistic hero (Turla and Tür, 1999).

In this study, 13 child books are examined on the basis of the number of

grammatical function morphemes, semantic categories of the words and the length of

the sentences in the books. There are 17 different grammatical morphemes in the total

13 books such as past tense or plural morphemes. The words are chosen from 20

different semantic categories. And the longest sentence has six words: “Sabah uyanınca

bir bardak da süt içerim” (I drink a glass of milk when I wake up in the morning”.

25

CHAPTER FOUR

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

4.0 Introduction

In this chapter, the results of parental reports applied to the mothers of 149

children aged between 8 to 30 months will be presented on the basis of grammatical

items and vocabulary of the children determined by Turkish CDI. Lastly comparison of

the findings and discussions on the language to be used in the child books will be

presented.

4.1 Comparison of the Language Used in the Child Books and Turkish CDI

4.1.0 Introduction

In this section, language used in the child books and the Turkish CDI is

compared. The comparison has been done in two aspects. First, the comparison of the

words that exist both in the child books and Turkish CDI is presented. Second,

comparison of the grammatical items that exist both in the child books and Turkish CDI

is stated.

4.1.1 Comparison of the Words Both in the Child Books and Turkish CDI

The tables below show the words that are present both in the child books

selected and in the Turkish CDI (TİGE). Words are categorized according to 20

semantic categories following the CDI. Ten of these categories comprise nouns (animal

names, vehicles, toys, food and drink, clothing, body parts, furniture, and rooms, small

household items, outside things and places to go, and people). There are additional

categories for sound effects and animal sounds, games and routines, verbs, adjectives,

pronouns, question words, prepositions, and locations, quantifiers, and words about

time. However, since we have not come across any word that goes into the “vehicles”

category in the child books, total vocabulary in the child books is categorized into 19

tables.

In all of the tables the words are listed according to their frequencies of

production both in Toddler and Infant Scale from the most frequently used to the least.

The scores are approached in two ways in the Infant Scale: Comprehension and

26

production. Mothers are only asked if their child produce that word in the Toddler

Scale. If none of the mothers checked an item as comprehended or produced, they are

scored as zero. Additionally, the number of words used in the books is shown at the end

of the tables.

Due to the characteristic of CDI, mothers are asked if their child comprehend or

produce a word. Therefore we do not have an idea on which word is comprehended or

produced before the other or the child’s intention of meaning while using that word.

Therefore we cannot know if the child uses the right word for the right object or

situation. These kinds of semantic analysis are out of scope of this study, so the referent

of the words are not investigated and evaluated.

The first group of words investigated in this study belongs to sound effects and

onomatopoeic animal sounds both present in the child books and TCDI. As can be seen

in the table (Table 4.1), “a” is the most commonly produced sound by infants. More

than half of the children in the Infant Group are checked to comprehend this sound. It is

the most basic sound that comes out without touching anywhere in the vocal tract.

Except from laughing or crying sounds, babies start to produce vocals from early

months on. Bauer (1985, in Kent and Miolo, 1996) analyzed the vocalizations of five

13-month- olds with respect to the syllable types used in phonetic transcriptions of the

infants’ utterances. In his study, he revealed that 60% of the syllable patterns are

constructed by a single vowel. Therefore “a” is the most frequently produced word and

sound in the Infant Scale. It is in the second line on Toddler Group with a production

rate of 87.1%, which is quite high and it can be accepted that toddlers are able to

produce this sound.

“Hav” is the most frequently produced word in the Toddler Scale and it is the

second common in the production in Infant Group. “Hav” is an onomatopoeic word

used by children when referring to “dog”. When we look at the use of dog in Table 4.2,

we see that it is comprehended by 52.6% of the infants. The results show that “hav”

and “dog” are used by more than half of the children in Infant Group and the majority of

children in Toddler Group.

For both groups, “mö” is the least frequently comprehended and produced

animal sound. It is the least produced animal sound in Toddler Group but 76% of the

children are reported to produce this sound which is not a low number.

27

Table 4.1 Sound Effects and Animal Sounds Words Infant Scale Toddler Scale-

Production

Words

Number in Child Books

Comprehension Production N %

N

% N %

A 30 52.6 33 57.9 85 91.4 Hav Hav 1

Miyav 27 47.4 10 17.5 81 87.1 A 4

Hav hav 24 42 17 29.8 75 80.6 Me 4

Me 18 31.6 12 21 75 80.6 Miyav 4

Mö 14 24.6 7 12.3 71 76.3 Mö 1

In addition to using onomatopoeic sounds to refer to animals, children

comprehend and produce nouns referring to animals at early ages. In Table 4.2, 15 of

the animal names in the child books are present in TCDI. “Cat” and “dog” are the most

frequently comprehended animal names by the infants. More than half of the infants are

able to comprehend these two words. However “cat” and “dog” are only produced by

three infants. Clark (2003) states that children might extend the word “dog” to refer to

cats, sheep, horses and a variety of other four legged mammals. She also stated that

children make these overgeneralizations not because they do not know the right word,

but they are not able to access to the right word.

“Bird” is the most frequently produced animal name Toddler Group (75.3%). In

the same way, children may use “bird” for any flying object or creature like flies or

butterflies. In addition, “cat” is produced by 72% of the toddlers. This may have

various reasons such as being afraid of them, loving them or because of their interesting

sounds. They are all pets and available in babies’ environment.

In both groups, “tiger” is the least commonly used animal name. “Tiger” is

relatively a stranger to Turkish climax and natural life, and needs narrower

classification in the children’s minds (such as four legged, furry, and roaring), it is

acquired by few number of children in both groups. Although it is present in the books,

“tiger” is used only once.

“Bear” is the most frequently used animal name in the child books. Even

though toddlers are able to produce this word, only 6 of the infants are able to

comprehend and one of them is able to produce this word. “Duck” is the second most

28

frequently produced animal name however, it is not produced by any infants and 46 of

the toddlers are able to comprehend this word. On the contrary of these results, the

sound of duck, “vak” is comprehended by 13, produced by 8 of the infants. The

production number of toddlers for this sound is also high. 58 of the toddlers are able to

produce this sound. This is because parents use “vak” sound as it is fun and easier to

produce “vak” than “ördek” for “duck” . As “vak” is not present in the child books,

acquisition rate of this word is not stated in the tables. Although “cat, bird, dog and

fish” are among the most frequently used animal names by children, each of them occur

only once in the total ten books. Parallel to the low acquisition rate of “tiger”, it is used

only once.

Table 4.2 Animals Words Infant Scale Toddler Scale- Production Number

in Child

Books

Comprehens

ion

Production N % Words

N

% N %

Kedi (Cat) 31 54.4 3 5.3 70 75.3 Kuş (Bird) 1

Köpek (Dog) 30 52.6 3 5.3 67 72 Kedi (Cat) 1

Kuş (Bird) 27 47.4 4 7 64 68.8 Balık (Fish) 1

Balık (Fish) 16 28 4 7 60 64 Ayı (Bear) 5

Kuzu (Lamb) 13 22.8 2 3.5 57 61.3 Köpek (Dog) 1

İnek (Cow) 13 22.8 1 1.8 55 59 İnek (Cow) 1

Tavuk (Hen) 12 21 1 1.8 50 53.8 Eşek (Donkey) 1

Ördek (Duck) 11 19.3 0 0 46 49.5 Tavuk (Hen) 2

Eşek (Donkey) 7 12.3 0 0 43 46.2 Ördek (Duck) 4

Ayı (Bear) 6 10.5 1 1.8 43 46.2 Tavşan (Rabbit) 2

Hayvan(Animal 6 10.5 0 0 42 45.2 Kelebek(Butterfly) 3

Tavşan(Rabbit) 5 8.8 1 1.8 46 39.8 Fare (Mouse) 3

Kurbağa (Frog) 5 8.8 0 0 36 38.7 Kurbağa (Frog) 3

Fare (Mouse) 3 5.3 0 0 - - Kuzu (Lamb) 3

Kelebek (Butterfly) 3 5.3 0 0 35 37.6 Hayvan(Animal) 1

Kaplan (Tiger) 2 3.5 0 0 19 20.4 Kaplan (Tiger) 1

There are 9 words for vehicles in the Infant Scale and 25 words for vehicles in

the Toddler Scale of Turkish CDI. On the other hand, there are two words for vehicles

in the child books. As it is presented in Table 4.3, “car” is the most frequently

29

comprehended and produced name for vehicles in both groups (68.4% in Infant Group,

75.3% in the Toddler Group). “Car” is boys’ favorite toy and frequently used vehicle

for transportation. For this reason, it is easier for children to comprehend and produce

this word.

Table 4.3. Vehicles

Words Infant Scale Toddler Scale-

Production

Number in Child

Books

Comprehension Production N %

N

% N %

Araba (Car) 39 68.4 3 5.3 70 75.3 2

Tren (Train) 9 15.8 0 0 43 46.2 1

“Train” is another toy and vehicle in the children’s’ environment, even so,

comprehension rate is 15.8% for infants. In addition, none of the infants produce this

word. 46.2% of the toddlers are able to produce this word . Instead of the word “train”,

as in the case of “dog and duck”, people use “çuf çuf” and children are able to

comprehend and produce this sound slightly more than the word “train”. In the infant

group, comprehension rate of “çuf çuf” is 17.5% and none of the children are able to

produce it. In the toddler group, the production rate of this sound is 51.6%.

Another category of words in TCDI is “toys” represented in Table 4.4. In the

child books, there are 12 words for toys that are present in TCDI. Children comprehend

and produce the word “ball” more commonly than the other names for toys in the Infant

Group (77%). The number of children who produce this word is relatively higher than

the other word productions of infants. 10 of the infants produce “ball”. Apart from its

being in their environment, children use “ball” to refer round shaped fruits or vegetables

(oranges, pumpkins), spherical earrings or beads (Anglin, 1983, in M. Barrett, eds.

Fletcher and MacWhinney, 1995). The second frequently used word for toys in the

Infant Group is “balloon” which is comprehended by 61% of the infants. However, it is

only produced by three infants.

In the Toddler Group, “doll” is the most frequently used word for toys. It is

produced by 83.9% of the toddlers. The number of production for “doll” is the same

with “baby” in both Infant and Toddler Groups (see Table 12). Since both of them are

30

named as “bebek” in Turkish. “Ball” (80.6%) and “balloon” (71%) sequentially come

after “doll” in this group.

It is clear from the table (Table 4.4) that “block” is a word that does not take

place in the majority of the children’s vocabulary. It is not included in the Infant

Group. It is also the least frequently used word in the Toddler Group. This may have

various reasons; children may name them “lego” or “yap-boz”. They may not be

introduced to this toy as children are not old enough to entertain themselves and join

pieces. The pieces do not mean anything separately at early ages. In time, they learn to

turn pieces into something new with the help of their imagination.

The last six words on the Toddler Group column do not take place in the Infant

Group. For this reason, it is not known if those words are comprehended or produced

by the infants.

Parallel to its high rate of production in Toddler Scale, “doll” is used seven times

in the child books. This is the highest number of usage in this category.

Table 4.4 Toys Words Infant Scale Toddler Scale-

Production

Words Number in

Child

Books Comprehens

ion

Production N %

N

% N %

Top (Ball) 44 77 10 17.5 78 83.9 Bebek (Doll) 7

Balon (Baloon) 35 61 3 5.3 75 80.6 Top (Ball) 4

Oyuncak (Toy) 32 56 1 1.8 66 71 Balon (Baloon) 2

Bebek (Doll) 28 49 9 15.8 53 57.8 Oyuncak (Toy) 6

Kitap (Book) 23 40 1 1.8 51 54.8 Kitap (Book) 3

Kova 9 15.8 2 3.5 42 45.2 Kova(Bucket) 1

27 29 Küp(Cube) 2

26 28 Robot(Robot) 1

25 26.9 Uçurtma(Kite) 1

24 25.8 Lego 1

16 17.2 Kukla(Puppet) 1

8 8.6 Blok(Block) 1

In the following table (Table 4.5a), words that are present in the child books to

refer food and drinks and their percentages of comprehension and production in Infant

31

and Toddler Groups are indicated. Being dependent on their mothers to survive, food

and drink is vital for children. They always find a way to convey their need for them.

“Water” is naturally the most frequently used word in both group. In the Infant Group,

59% of the children comprehend and 15.8% of the infants produce this word. After

this, “banana” (49.1%), “bread” (45.6%) and “yoghurt” (45.6%) are the words that are

comprehended the most commonly by the infants. The word “Fruit” is comprehended

by 21% of the infants however; it is not produced by any of the infants. It is a broader

term and it is easier for children to learn and remember the lower level words of wider

categories (Clark, 2003). That is “banana” or “apple” are easier to learn for children

than the term “fruit”.

In the Toddler Group, the production number of “water” rises up to 78 children

(83.9%). “Milk” is another drink that is essential for children from infancy to

adolescence. The word is not so familiar with the infants (comprehension rate of 33%);

however 76.3% of the toddlers are able to produce this word. “Apple” and “bread”

(68.8%) are other commonly produced words in the Toddler Group. “Fruit” is also the

least frequently produced word by toddlers (37.4%).

By looking at the characteristics of the frequently comprehended and produced

words for food and drink, it is possible to comment that children use the words that they

can touch and eat or drink on their own.

Parallel to its being commonly acquired by children, “water” is observed to be

used six times in the child books. This is the highest rate of usage in “Food and Drink”

category.

Table 4.5a Food and Drink Present both in the Books and Turkish CDI Words Infant Scale Toddler

Scale-

Production

Words Number

in Child

Books

Comprehens

ion

Production N %

N

% N %

Su (Water) 34 59 9 15.8 78 83.9 Su (Water) 7

Muz(Banana) 28 49.1 1 1.8 71 76.3 Süt(Milk) 1

Ekmek(Bread) 26 45.6 2 3.5 64 68.8 Ekmek(Bread) 1

Yoğurt(Yoghurt) 26 45.6 1 1.8 64 68.8 Elma(Apple) 1

Elma (Apple) 20 35.1 2 3.5 60 64.5 Muz(Banana) 1

32

Table 4.5a Continued Süt(Milk) 19 33 2 3.5 49 52.7 Makarna(Macaroni 1

Meyve(Fruit) 12 21 0 0 49 52.7 Yoğurt(Yoghurt) 1

Makarna(Macaroni) 11 19.3 0 0 32 37.4 Meyve(Fruit) 3

There are other food names that are not used in the child books but frequently

comprehended and produced by infants and toddlers (See Table 4.5b). Therefore, these

words can also to be used in the child books more frequently.

In the Infant Group, words are listed until %35.1of the usage. Less than this

number of usage does not let to make a suggestion that children are able to comprehend

or produce the words. On the other hand, %50.5 usage of the production rate is listed in

the Toddler Group.

Table 4.5b Frequently Used Food and Drink not Present in the Child Books Words Infant Scale Toddler

Scale-

Production

Words

Comprehens

ion

Production N %

N

% N %

Bisküvi(Biscuits) 25 43.9 0 0 69 74.2 Çay (Tea)

Çorba (Soup) 25 43.9 2 3.5 61 65.6 Çikolata(Chocolate)

59 63.4 Şeker (Candy)

56 60.2 Yumurta(Egg)

54 58.1 Pilav (Pilaf)

52 55.9 Et (Meat)

51 54.8 Kek(Cake)

50 53.8 Patates(Potatoes)

47 50.5 Yemek (Food)

In Table 4.6a and b, the number of infants and toddlers comprehend and produce

names for clothing is presented. The only item for clothing found in the child books is

“hat”. It is comprehended by 33% of the infants but produced by only one infant.

However, more than half of the toddlers are able to produce this word. The

33

phonological difficulty of the Turkish pronunciation of “hat” does not let infants

produce this word less frequently.

Table 4.6a Clothes Words Infant Scale Toddler Scale-

Production

Number in Child

Books

Comprehension Production N %

N

% N %

Şapka (Hat) 19 33 1 1.8 53 57 2

Additionally, as it can be seen in Table 4.6b, children are able to comprehend

and produce other clothing items to be used in the child books apart from “hat”, such as

“shoes, socks, slippers, nappy”. These are clothes that are frequently used in the child’s

physical environment.

Table 4.6b Clothes not Present in the Child Books Words Infant Scale Toddler Scale-

Production

Number of Usage in

the Child Books

Comprehensio

n

Production N %

N

% N %

Ayakkabı(Shoes) 30 52.6 3 5.3 66 71 Ayakkabı(Shoes)

Bez(Nappy) 30 52.6 1 1.8 55 59.1 Çorap(Socks)

Çorap(Socks) 28 49.1 1 1.8 52 55.9 Toka (Buckle)

Terlik(Slipper) 15 26.3 0 0 50 53.8 Bez(Nappy)

50 53.8 Terlik(Slipper)

Another semantic category of words is “body parts” (See Table 4.7). In the

child books, names of body parts are mostly used to introduce new vocabulary. There

are six words for names of body that are both in the child books and in TCDI. “Hand”

is the most frequently comprehended word in Infant Group. Hands are babies’ first

toys. In front of their eyes, they struggle to make their nerves control hands’

movements for months. As soon as they use their hands to reach the objects, they hear

34

“take your hands off, give me your hand, hold it in your hand, or don’t touch your

hand”. Tomasello and Farrar (1986, in Barrett) found that “the use of object names by

mothers to refer to objects which are already at the child’s focus of attention is

positively correlated with later vocabulary size” (p. 390). “Tooth” is the least

frequently comprehended word for body part in the Infant group (22.8%). In addition

“tongue” is comprehended by 24% of the infants but none of the infants are able to

produce it. More detailed body parts such as “neck” and “face” are not included in the

Infant Group.

“Hand” is also produced by the majority of the children in the toddler scale

(69.9%). “Tooth” and “ear” are other commonly produced words by toddlers. “Neck”

is the least frequently used body part. It may be because it does not have a significant

characteristic that takes attention of the children.

Parallel to the most frequently usage of “hand” in body parts category it takes

twice in the total child books investigated. Other body parts are used once in the child

books.

Table 4.7 Body Parts Words Infant Scale Toddler Scale-

Production

Words Number

in Child

Books Comprehension Production N %

N

% N %

El(Hand) 29 50.9 2 3.5 65 69.9 El(Hand) 2

Kulak (Ear) 19 33 1 1.8 63 67.7 Diş(Tooth) 1

Dil(Tongue) 14 24 0 0 58 62.4 Kulak (Ear) 1

Diş(Tooth) 13 22.8 1 1.8 49 52.7 Dil(Tongue) 1

37 39.8 Yüz (Face) 1

29 31.2 Boyun(Neck) 1

The next group of words investigated is words for small household items. As it

is seen in Table 4.8, “telephone” is the most frequently comprehended word in the

Infant Group (61.4%). With its music, colors and availability in the environment make

children grasp the word. “Glass” is the second most frequently comprehended word for

infants. It is another must for babies’ essential needs for drinking water or milk. After

their first year of age, they are very eager to hold the glass and drink themselves. It is

35

inevitable for children to grasp the meaning of these words in the environment. It is

also possible that children use the word “glass” for a request of milk or water. However

it is produced by only one infant. “Blanket” and “towel” are the least commonly

comprehended words in Infant Group. They are also produced by none of the infants.

“Bag” is the most commonly used word by the toddlers (64.5%). “Glass” is

produced by almost equal number of children (63.4%). In this group, “blanket” is the

least frequently produced word (32.3%). “Telephone is produced by quite many of the

toddlers (63.4%) Related to this, “alo” is the most commonly produced word by

toddlers (90.3%). Children tend to use this word both for a start of a conversation on

the phone and the telephone object as it is short and easy to articulate.

“Spoon, key” are other small household items that children are able to

comprehend and produce commonly. Generally, the small household items that are

commonly comprehended and produced by children are the ones that babies can touch,

use and hold in their environment.

Although “bag, glass, light/lamp” are among the most frequently used words by

children, they are used once in the child books. Surprisingly, “picture” is the most

commonly used word in the child books. It is used four times.

Tablo 4.8 Small Household Items Words Infant Scale Toddler

Scale-

Production

Words Number

in Child

Books

Comprehens

ion

Producti

on

N %

N

% N %

Telefon(Telephone) 37 64.9 2 3.5 60 64.5 Çanta(Bag) 1

Bardak (Glass) 29 50.9 1 1.8 59 63.4 Bardak (Glass) 1

Işık(Light) 24 42 2 3.5 59 63.4 Telefon(Telephone) 1

Çanta(Bag) 15 26 1 1.8 54 58 Saat (Watch/Clock) 1

Resim(Picture) 14 24.6 1 1.8 49 52.7 Işık(Light) 1

Saat (Watch/Clock) 13 22.8 1 1.8 43 46.2 Havlu (Towel) 1

Battaniye(Blanket) 13 22.8 0 0 39 41.9 Resim(Picture) 4

Havlu(Towel) 5 8.8 0 0 30 32.3 Battaniye (Blanket) 1

36

In Table 4.9, frequency of words referring to furniture and rooms in the child

books are presented. “Television” is the most frequently comprehended word by infants

(63.2%). It is comprehended by more than half of the infants but it is not easy for them

to produce such a multisyllabic word in their one-word stage. Interestingly, “computer”

is a word that is acquired at early ages, however it is the least frequently comprehended

word for infants and none of the infants are able to produce this word.

“Door” is the most commonly produced word in Toddler Group with 65.5 %. It

is comprehended by 36.8% of the infants. Compared to the other words in the table

such as /televizyon/ and /bilgisayar/, it is easier to produce /kapı/. In the age of

technology, it is clear to see that television and computers are in the lives of most

children. 46 out of 92 children produce the word television in Toddler Group.

“Computer” is the least frequently produced word for toddlers.

There have also been other words used in the child books such as “bed, pillow,

door, bathroom”. These words are also among the most frequently used words for

furniture and rooms’ category in the whole TCDI lists.

Table 4.9 Furniture and Rooms Words Infant Scale Toddler Scale-

Production

Words Number

in Child

Books Comprehension Production N %

N

% N %

Televizyon(Television) 36 63.2 1 1.8 61 65.5 Kapı(Door) 2

Yatak(Bed) 23 40 1 1.8 46 49.5 Televizyon(Television) 1

Yastık(Pillow) 22 38.6 2 3.5 46 49.5 Yatak(Bed) 1

Kapı(Door) 21 36.8 2 3.5 46 49.5 Banyo(Bathroom) 1

Banyo(Bathroom) 21 36.8 1 1.8 43 46.2 Yastık(Pillow) 1

Bilgisayar(Computer) 21 36.8 0 0 32 34.5 Bilgisayar(Computer) 1

The next group is words for outside things (Table 4.10). There are various

outdoor items to be used in the child books. However, in the chosen books, only “sand”

and “smoke” are included. “Smoke” is not introduced as an object, it is the name of a

dog in one of the child books therefore it is not included in this table. Then there is only

“sand” in child books that also exists in TDCI. It is comprehended by only 10.5% of

the infants and produced by one child.

37

“Sand” is produced by 38.7% of the toddlers. It is not a high percentage of

usage. It is clear that “sand” is not the best choice for the child books compared to

“flower” with a comprehension score of 40.4% in Infant Group and “tree” with a

production score of 57 in the Toddler Group.

Table 4.10 Outdoor Items Words Infant Scale Toddler Scale- Production Number in Child

Books Comprehension Production N %

N

% N %

Kum (Sand) 6 10.5 1 1.8 36 38.7 2

As it is clear from the table (Table 4.11), only “sea” is used in the child books in

“places to go” category. The number of production rate for this word is very low in the

Infant Scale. It is comprehended by 21% of the infants. Furthermore, only two of the

infants produce this word.

The number of production rate rises in Toddler Group. 35.5% of the toddlers are

able to produce the word “sea”. In the books, “sea” is used as a name for place. Data is

collected from four cities in 3 geographical areas. Two of the cities are by the sea. It is

natural for children living far from sea, not to know the word “sea”.

Although they are not included in the child books, “atta” and “park” are among

the most frequently used words for places to go. “Atta” is comprehended by 70.2% of

the infants. It is not expected to be used in the child books, because it is only used in

child language at early months of speech production to refer to any outside place. Not

surprisingly, “park” is produced by 48.4% of the toddlers, as parks are places that

children love to spend time outside of the house.

Table 4.11 Places to Go Words Infant Scale Toddler Scale- Production Number in Child Books

Comprehensio

n

Production N %

N

% N %

Deniz (Sea) 12 21 2 3.2 33 35.5 3

38

Another category is names used for people (Table 4.12). It is not a surprise to

see the word “mother” as the most frequently used name in this table. It is both

comprehended and produced earlier than the other words in this group. It is

comprehended by 64.9%, produced by 57.9% of the infants. Besides, 95.7% of the

toddlers are able to produce this word. “Baby” is another name for people and it stands

in the second line for both groups. This word is also used for “doll” in Turkish.

“Friend” is comprehended by seven children in the Infant Scale and it is

produced by none of the children. Children become socialized as they grow up. They

start to learn to live and share in a social environment. As the infants are not socialized

as the older ones and depend mostly on their mothers, most of them do not comprehend

and produce this word.

Table 4.12 People Words Infant Scale Toddler Scale-

Production

Number in

Child Books

Comprehension Production N %

N

% N %

Anne (Mother) 37 64.9 33 57.9 89 95.7 3

Bebek (Baby) 27 47 9 15.8 78 83.9 5

Kardeş (Sister/Brother 14 24.6 1 1.8 44 47.3 2

Arkadaş (Friend) 7 12.3 0 0 32 34.4 1

In the child books, “baby” is used more often than the other names for people. It

is used 5 times and it is followed by “mother” (three times) and “sister/brother” (twice).

Another category is “games and routines” in Table 4.13a,b. It is impossible to

isolate child language acquisition from its social-interactional environment. Bruner

(1983, in Barrett) investigated some of the social interactional routines of prelinguistic

children (such as picture book reading, peek-a-boo, routine care giving activities such as

feeding, bathing and dressing). They reveal that during these activities, adults use

particular linguistic forms at predictable points that make up interactional formats.

They claim that such lexical forms, regularly occurring during ritualized events provide

39

children acquire not only event representations but also context bound and social

pragmatic words. “Having a bath” is one of the routines that regularly occurs in a

sequence. For this reason, “bath” is the most commonly comprehended and produced

word in both groups (See Table 4.13a). It is comprehended by 50.9% of the infants.

“Breakfast” is the least frequently comprehended word in this table. In addition it is not

produced by any of the infants.

“Bath” is the most frequently produced word in this table. It is produced by

48.4% of the toddlers. Although “music” is comprehended by 36.8% of the infants, this

word is produced by 28% of the toddlers. In addition to these, “song” is another routine

that has been observed to be used by children.

“Music” is used twice in the child books even though it has a low percentage of

comprehension and production. Other routines are observed to be used only once.

Table 4.13a Games and Routines Words Infant Scale Toddler Scale-

Production

Words Number in

Child Books

Comprehension Production N %

N

% N %

Banyo (Have a bath) 29 50.9 9 15.8 45 48.4 Banyo 1

Müzik (Music) 21 36.8 1 1.8 31 33.3 Şarkı (Song) 1

Şarkı (Song) 18 31.6 1 1.8 28 30 Kahvaltı

(Breakfast)

1

Kahvaltı (Breakfast) 13 22.8 0 0 26 28 Müzik (Music) 2

In the total list of “games and routines”, “no” is the most frequently

comprehended word by the infants (See Table 4.13b). After that, routines like “clap

your hands, bye bye, well done” are the most commonly comprehended ones. For

infants, “mama” is the most frequently produced word (49.1%). It is used for any kind

of food in early months of infants as they are in the oral period and care about their

needs to be satisfied. Their initial need is to be fed well besides being loved.

Parallel to the Infant Group, in the Toddler Group, “mama” (86%) is among the

most frequently produced words after “alo” (90.3%). As they grow up, children

become socialized. They like being approved and join daily activities and routines.

40

They feel comfortable when they have daily routines in their lives. For these reasons,

toddlers are able to produce many words for routines.

Using these words in the books, will make recognition of these routines. It will

be enjoyable for them to see and imitate these games and routines in interactive books.

Table 4.13b Games and Routines not Present in the Child Books Words Infant Scale Toddler Scale-

Production

Words

Comprehension Production N %

N

% N %

Hayır(No) 41 71.9 6 10.5 84 90.3 Alo

Alkış(Clapping

hands)

40 70.2 6 10.5 80 86 Mama(Demand for food)

Bay Bay(Bye) 37 64.9 13 22.8 80 86 Hadi (Come on)

Aferin(Well done) 37 64.9 2 3.5 77 82.8 Bay Bay(Bye)

Alo 35 61.4 18 31.6 76 81.7 Cıs(Sound for being hurt)

Mama 33 57.9 28 49.1 68 73.1 Kaka(Dirt)

Güle Güle(Bye) 28 49.1 1 1.8 62 66.7 Yok(No, not available)

Kucak(Hold in arms) 25 43.9 1 1.8 61 65.6 Gol(Goal)

57 61.3 Evet(Yes)

57 61.3 Alkış (Clapping hands)

54 58.8 Hayır(No)

54 58.8 Tamam(Ok)

50 53.8 Var(Available)

49 52.7 Güle Güle(Bye)

47 50.5 Öcü(Scary things)

40 43 Aferin(Well done)

Verbs are another group investigated in this study (Table 4.14a,b). There are 32

verbs that are present both in the child books and TCDI. Gleitman and Gillette (1995)

state that learning of verbs starts by the “explosion in the spoken vocabulary, including

sudden increase in the range of lexical types (…) at approximately 24th month of life”

(p. 416). Among the verbs used in the books, the most frequently used ones are

monosyllabic. “Look” is the most commonly comprehended verb by the infants (70%).

The next three verbs “eat, sleep (go to bed), drink” clearly indicate that children

41

comprehend the words that are the most frequently addressed to them so as to feed their

daily needs. “Swim” is the least frequently comprehended verb in the Infant Group. In

addition, three of the verbs that exist in the Toddler group are not included in the Infant

Group (wait, listen, be).

“Go, stop, look” are acquired earlier by children as they are monosyllabic and

easy to pronounce. They are sequentially the most frequently produced verbs in

Toddler Group. “Go” is produced by 75.3% of the toddlers. Apart from asking

someone to leave, this verb is also used to be taken away by the toddlers. However,

“have a bath/ be washed” is the least frequently produced verb in this group (14%).

In the child books, “go” and “make/do” are the verbs used the most commonly.

“Go” and “do” are used six times; “play” is used five times. “Play” is one of the

essential needs for children. They learn to share, respect to others, build their

personality and enlarge vocabulary. Playtimes are also a rehearsal for the new

vocabulary to be used. Children tend to use new vocabulary in the flow of the speech

during the playtimes. Those times are sources of joy and excitement. Therefore, “play”,

sometimes, becomes a magical word for children.

Table 4.14a Verbs Words Infant Scale Toddler Scale-

Production

Words Number

in the

Child

Books

Comprehension Production N %

N

% N %

Bak (Look) 40 70 2 3.5 70 75.3 Git (Go) 6

Ye (Eat) 31 54.4 2 3.5 65 69.9 Dur (Stop) 3

Yat (Go to bed) 30 52.6 1 1.8 61 65.6 Bak (Look) 2

İç (Drink) 27 47.4 3 5.3 59 63.4 İç (Drink) 2

Git (Go) 25 43.9 1 1.8 57 61.3 Ye (Eat) 2

Yürü (Walk) 23 40.4 1 1.8 52 55.9 Koş (Run) 2

Dur (Stop) 22 38.6 2 3.5 51 54.8 Yat (Go to bed) 1

Koş (Run) 21 36.8 1 1.8 50 53.8 Giy(in) (Wear) 1

Giy(in) (Wear) 21 36.8 1 1.8 50 53.8 Oyna (Play) 5

Oyna (Play) 20 35 1 1.8 49 52.7 Ört (Cover) 1

Ağla (Cry) 20 35 1 1.8 46 49.5 Tak (Wear/put on) 1

Salla (Wave/Shake) 19 33.3 0 0 44 47.3 Vur (Hit) 1

Vur (Hit) 17 29.8 1 1.8 44 47.3 Çıkar (Take out) 1

42

Table 4.14a Continued Tara (Comb) 17 29.8 1 1.8 43 46.2 Ağla (Cry) 1

Gül (Smile) 17 29.8 0 0 43 46.2 Tara (Comb) 1

Sev (Love/Like) 16 28 0 0 43 46.2 Söyle(Say) 1

Yıkan(Be washed) 16 28.1 1 1.8 42 45.2 Oku (Read) 2

Söyle(Say) 14 24.6 0 0 40 43 Bekle (Wait) 2

Bağır(Shout) 14 24 1 1.8 39 41.9 Salla (Wave/Shake) 1

Çek(Pull) 13 22.8 1 1.8 39 41.9 Yap (Do/Make) 6

Ört (Cover) 11 19 0 0 38 40.9 Sev (Love/Like) 3

Çıkar (Take out) 11 19 1 1.8 38 40.9 Uyan (Wake) 1

Yap (Do/Make) 11 19.3 0 0 38 40.9 Yaz (Write) 1

Tak (Wear/Put on) 9 15.8 1 1.8 37 39.8 Gül (Smile) 1

Atla (Jump) 9 15.8 2 3.5 36 38.7 Yürü (Walk) 1

Gez (Wander) 9 15.8 0 0 36 38.7 Çek(Pull) 1

Oku (Read) 8 14 0 0 35 37.6 Atla (Jump) 1

Uyan (Wake) 7 12.3 1 1.8 35 37.6 Uç (Fly) 3

Yaz (Write) 7 12.3 0 0 34 36 Yüz (Swim) 3

Uç (Fly) 6 10.5 0 0 29 31.2 Gez (Wander) 2

Yüz (Swim) 4 7 0 0 27 29 Dinle (Listen) 2

Bekle (Wait) - - - - 24 25.8 Ol (Be) 2

Dinle (Listen) - - - - 23 24.7 Bağır(Shout) 1

Ol (Be) - - - - 13 14 Yıkan (Be washed) 1

Even though they are not used in the child books, “come, bring and take” are

frequently used by children (Table 4.14b). Clark and Garnica (1974; inWales, 1986)

revealed a comprehension test in which children had to use the contrast between

“come/go” and “bring/take”. These are deictic verbs as the motion is described by the

position of the speaker. Children were between 6 to 9 years of age. In their study, they

found out that “come” is easier than “go”, and “bring” is easier than “take”.

Furthermore, the former pair is easier than the latter pair of verbs. Parallel to these

results, “come” is the earliest and second most frequent verb that infants comprehend

(64.9%). It is not known if “go” is acquired later but it is clear that fewer children

comprehend this verb (43.9%). It is the same in the Toddler Group as well. “Come” is

the most frequently produced word (79.9%) and “go” is right after “come” in the

frequency of production (75.3%).

43

There are slight differences in the case of “bring/take” in the Infant Group. 32

of the infants (56.1%) comprehend the word “bring” and 33 of them comprehend “take”

(57.9%). It is not known if “take” is acquired before “bring”, only one more child

comprehends “take” in Infant Group. For Toddler Group, it is parallel with Clark and

Garnica. “Take” is acquired by 70 toddlers (75.3%) and precedes “bring” which is

produced by 64 toddlers (68.8%). In parallel to Clark and Garnica, the acquisition of

“come/go” precedes “bring/take” pair. However, these verbs are not observed in the

child books.

Table 4.14b Other Verbs Frequently Used by Children; Not Present in the Child

Books Words Infant Scale Toddler Scale-

Production

Words

Comprehension Production N %

N

% N %

Gel (Come) 37 64.9 9 15.8 74 79.9 Gel (Come)

Öp (Kiss) 35 61.4 7 12.3 73 78.5 At (Throw)

Al (Take) 33 57.9 9 15.8 70 75.3 Al (Take)

Ver (Give/Bring) 32 56.1 6 10.5 64 68.8 Ver (Give/Bring)

El salla(Wave hand) 31 54.4 2 2.5 63 67.7 (Canı) acımak (Be hurt)

Tut (Hold) 25 43.9 1 1.8 51 54.8 Tut (Hold)

In Table 4.15, words to describe nouns and actions comprehended and produced

by children and present in the child books are investigated. Comprehension rate of

these words in Infant Group are very low. “Beautiful” is the most commonly used

description word by infants. “Naughty” places at the end of the list and neither

comprehended nor produced by infants. Also, the word “White” is not present in the

Infant Group.

“Good” is the most frequently produced word in the Toddler Group with a

production rate of 38.7%. “White” and “huge” are the least frequently produced

description words by toddlers. In addition, “naughty” is not included in Toddler Group.

It should be considered that both “good” and “beautiful” have positive

meanings. They are used for encouragement of the states and actions. Children are

44

familiar with these words therefore they are able to comprehend and produce these

words more frequently than the others in both groups.

Even though it is not comprehended or produced in the Infant Group, “naughty”

is the most commonly used word in the child books (four times). It does not exist in

Toddler Group as well. Other the most commonly used words for description are

mentioned once in the child books.

Table 4.15 Description Words Words Infant Scale Toddler

Scale-

Production

Words Number in

Child Books

Comprehens

ion

Production N %

N

% N %

Güzel (Beautiful) 13 22.8 1 1.8 36 38.7 İyi (Good/Fine) 1

Kocaman (Huge) 7 12.3 1 1.8 34 36.6 Güzel (Beautiful) 1

İyi (Good/Fine) 5 8.8 0 0 31 33.3 Kırmızı (Red) 1

Kırmızı (Red) 3 5.3 0 0 23 24.7 Kocaman (Huge) 1

Yaramaz(Naughty) 0 0 0 0 23 24.7 Beyaz (White) 1

Beyaz (White) - - - - - - Yaramaz (Naughty) 4

In Table 4.16, words about time are investigated. Children up to 30 month of

age are not capable of knowing time concept. They are interested in the time that they

are in, and do not need to name it. Even though they produce words for time, they

generally misuse them in conversation. For that reason, there are not so many words

about time in the child books. “Morning” and “night” are the only words about time

that exist in the child books. They share the same comprehension and production rates

in the infant scale. However, 35.5% of the toddlers produce the word “morning” and

33.3% of them produce the word “night”. These two words are generally used to give

hope and delay a child’s demands by parents, such as “we will go to park in the

morning” of “Dad will come at night”. In addition, “morning” is used twice; “evening”

is used once in the child books.

45

Table 4.16 Words About Time Words Infant Scale Toddler Scale-

Production

Number in

Child Books

Comprehension Production N %

N

% N %

Sabah (Morning) 10 17.5 1 1.8 33 35.5 2

Gece (Night) 10 17.5 1 1.8 31 33.3 1

It is clear to see from the table (Table 4.17) that the most frequently used

pronouns refer to the immediate context of the child. Loveland (in Fletcher and

MacWhinney, 1997) states that “while children begin early on the perspective shifts

inherent in the “I/you” contrast, they take time to master details of perspective marking

in locative, demonstrative and verbal forms”. For both Infant and Toddler Group, “me”

is at the top of the pronouns table. In the total pronouns tables for both groups, “I and

me” are the most frequently used pronouns in the Infant Group. But still the number is

low (“I” is comprehended by 28%, “me” is comprehended by 26% of the infants) and it

is not possible to make a generalization. In the Toddler group, “me, this, I” are the most

commonly produced pronouns, in the order of frequency. Parallel to this, in his

longitudinal study, Chiat (in Fletcher and Garman, 1996) found out that first person

singular (I, my, mine) and third person inanimate (it) pronouns were the first to be used

in English.

“This” is the most commonly used pronoun in the child books. It is used three

times in a serial of books named “This boat”. “You and him” are used twice, “me and

(to) you” are used only once in the child books.

Table 4.17 Pronouns Words Infant Scale Toddler Scale-

Production

Words Number

in Child

Books Comprehension Production N %

N

% N %

Beni (Me) 15 26.3 2 3.5 62 66.7 Beni (Me) 1

Sen (You) 14 24.6 1 1.8 54 58.1 Bu (This) 3

Bu (This) 12 21.1 2 3.5 27 29 Sen (You) 2

46

Table 4.17 Continued Sana (To you) 8 14 25 26.9 Ona(Him) 2

Ona(Him) 4 7 24 25.8 Sana (To you) 1

In Table 4.18, comprehension and production scores of question words are

investigated. As children grow up, they start to wonder other dimensions of objects,

actions and states. They ask questions to have an idea about almost everything. In her

study, Sofu (1998) found out that children start to use question sentences as early as the

second year of their lives. They are able to make question sentences both by using

question words (what, who, where…) and question particle “-mi” after the word that is

desired to have information about.

There are three question words that are present both in the child books and

TCDI. Cho and O’Grady (1997) state that in English, “wh” questions are used gradually

between the ages of two and four. They note that the first wh question words to be

acquired are “what, where”, followed by “who, how, why”. It is also found out that

“when, which, whose” are acquired relatively late. Parallel to these findings, there are

similarities in Turkish. “Where” is the most frequently comprehended of all these three

question words in the Infant Group. But it is not produced yet. Only two of the infants

produced the question word “what” in the Infant group. “Why” is the least frequently

comprehended and produced question word in both groups.

Having a larger vocabulary, toddlers are eager to enlarge it by asking object

names. 55.9% of the toddlers produce the question word “what”. As they are not

cognitively mature enough for reasoning, “why” is produced by 24.7%of toddlers.

Table 4.18 Question Words Words Infant Scale Toddler Scale-

Production

Words Number in

Child Books

Comprehensio

n

Production N %

N

% N %

Nereye (Where) 9 15.8 0 0 52 55.9 Ne (What) 4

Ne (What) 7 12.3 2 3.5 28 30.1 Nereye (Where) 4

Neden (Why) 2 3.5 0 0 23 24.7 Neden (Why) 1

47

In the total word lists of TCDI for both groups, “who” is the most frequently

comprehended question word by Infants (35.1%). “What” is still the most frequently

produced question word in the total question words table in the Toddler Group (55.9%).

In the child books, “what” and “where” are used four times. Such books are

interactive books that join the child into the reading activity by pointing or labeling.

In Table 4.19, prepositions present both in the child books and TCDI are

investigated. In Turkish, prepositions are used as suffixes added at the end of words.

Therefore they are called “postpositions”. A child, comprehending or producing a word

such as “burada” should also be accepted that he has the recognition of the suffix at the

end of the word. English equivalents of “in, on, under, behind” are used in combination

with the separate words and case markers.

Bura - da Noun locative

Alt - ı - n - da Noun acc. comb. Loc.

sound

Evaluating the world from their own perspective, children are interested in

things that are near them. Clark (in Fletcher and MacWhinney, 1996) states that

English speaking children consistently take “here” (where the speaker is) to contrast

directly “there” (where the speaker is not) at around age four. But they start to use

prepositions as their vocabulary increases. “Here” is the most frequently comprehended

postposition in the Infant Group (45.6%). However, “in” is the least commonly

comprehended one. “On/at, behind, in” are produced by none of the infants.

“Here” is also the most frequently produced postposition in the Toddler Group

(44.1%). However, “behind” is at the end of the Toddler Group in the production.

“There” is not used in the child books but comprehension and production of it is

followed by “here” and “under” for both groups.

Although it is produced by 23.7% of the children, “behind” is the most

frequently used word in the child books. “Here” is the most commonly comprehended

and produced word by both infants and toddlers; however they take place only once in

the child books.

48

Table 4.19 Postpositions Words Infant Scale Toddler

Scale-

Production

Words Number in Child

Books

Comprehens

ion

Producti

on

N %

N

% N %

Burada (Here) 26 45.6 1 1.8 41 44.1 Burada (Here) 1

Altında (Under) 17 29.8 1 1.8 34 36.6 Altında (Under) 4

Üstünde (On) 14 24.6 0 0 28 30.1 Üstünde (On) 1

Arkasında (Behind) 14 24.6 0 0 27 29 İçinde (In)

İçinde (In) 13 22.8 0 0 22 23.7 Arkasında(Behind) 5

Table 4.20 presents the comprehension and production scores of quantifiers that

are both in the child books and TCDI. Guasti (2002) states that in English, children are

able to comprehend and produce quantified sentences from about 4 years of age. By this

age, they are able to distinguish referential from quantified noun phrases. Parallel to

this, quantifiers do not frequently take place among Turkish infants’ vocabulary. In

Turkish, “işte” (here) is used when the speaker wants to label something. It is the most

frequently used word in the Infant Group (8.8%). However as the numbers are very

low, it is not possible to accept that quantifiers are acquired by the infants.

Furthermore, none of the infants are able to produce quantifiers.

In the Toddler Group, “çok”, meaning “many, much, a lot, plenty” in English, is

the most frequently produced word (53.8%). But “İşte” is not included in the Toddler

Group. “Gibi” meaning “as if/like” places at the end of the table in the Toddler Group

and produced by 16.1% of the toddlers.

Table 4.20 Quantifiers Words Infant Scale Toddler Scale-

Production

Words Number in

Child Books

Comprehension Production N %

N

% N %

İşte (Here) 5 8.8 0 0 50 53.8 Çok (Many/Much/A lot) 1

49

Table 4.20 Continued Çok(Many/Much/

A lot)

4 7 0 0 19 20.4 Hiç (Any/None) 1

Hepsi (All) 4 7 0 0 18 19.4 Hepsi (All) 1

Hiç (Any/None) 2 3.5 0 0 15 16.1 Gibi (As/like) 1

Gibi (As/like) - - - - - - İşte (Here) 3

Even though it is the most frequently comprehended word by the infants, “işte”

does not exist in the Toddler Group. It is used three times in the books. Other

quantifiers are observed to be only once in the child books.

4.1.2 Grammatical Analysis of the 13 Child Books

Naturally, the language used in the child books has its own rules. It is clear to

see that repetitions of morphemes, words and phrases are commonly used in these

books.

There are examples of five different tenses in the books: simple past(-dı, -di, -du,

-dü, -tı, -ti, -tu, -tü), past continuous (-yordu), present continuous tense (-yor), past in

the future (-acaktı, -ecekti) and reported past tense (-mış). Repetition of tense

morphemes is commonly used in the books. For example, the present continuous tense

morpheme “-yor” used and repeated in the first three books (yapıyor, vuruyor, ağlıyor).

There are also examples of repetitions for simple present tense morpheme “-r”, such as

“yıkarım, içerim, yerim”.

There are a number of words that belong to different semantic categories such as

nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, question words, routines and animal sounds.

Adjectives are frequently used to define nouns such as “sarı ördek, yaramaz kaz, şipşak

fare, yaramaz kaplan, kırmızı şapkası”.

As stated earlier, there are repetitions of words and phrases. In one book,

voices of animals are repeated (hav hav hav, miyav, miyav, miyav). There are also

repetitions of question particles and questions such as “arkasında mı?” (Is it

behind….?), “altında mı?” (Is it under…?) or “……. nerede?” (Where is …?) In one of

the books, the whole question sentence is repeated: “Bebek nereye gitmiş?”

In Table 4.1, examples of tense morphemes, the total number and percentages

of these morphemes in the books are listed. It is clear that present tense morphemes

(simple present and present continuous tense) are the most frequently used ones. This is

50

because children at these ages are mostly related with “here and now” Clark (2003).

During the shared reading times, parent and the child talk about the pictures and

children frequently ask endless questions on what is happening or what the character is

doing on the picture. As most of the children do not have enough access to past or

future they frequently misuse “tomorrow, yesterday, two days ago or later” words.

Consequently, conversation is held around immediate time, place and context, that is by

present continuous tense.

For the past tense morphemes, Simple Past tense is used most frequently as it is

easier to use and convey the meaning of past. Past continuous tense is rarely used in the

books; the total number is five. There is only one example of the expression of

“hearsay” (-mIş, -miş), as children are not ready to talk about things that they did not

witness. If they have to use it, simple past tense is more accessible for them. There is

only example of past possibility, which is used as “past in the future” in Turkish. As

children still have problems on using simple tenses, it is hard to see the morphologically

complex tenses in their conversation repertoire.

Table 4.21 Examples and Numbers of Tense Morphemes Used in the Child Books Tenses Examples from Child Books Total Number

of Usage

%

Simple Past Tense “-dı, -di,

-du, -dü, -tı, -ti, -tu, -tü”

Durdu, baktı, dedi, kondu, gitti, atladı, kurtardı,

koştu, kahramandı, alkışladı, uçtu

14 18

Present Continuous Tense

“-yor”

Hazırlıyor, yapıyor, yerleştiriyor, söylüyor,

ağlıyor, vuruyor, oynuyor, okuyor, kesiyor,

yapıştırıyor, çıkarıyor, takıyor, güneşleniyor,

yüzüyor, topluyor, yazıyor, çekiyor, gülüyor,

dinliyor, tamir, ediyor, yiyor, uyuyor, pişiriyor,

yıkanıyor, tarıyor, yürüyor, izliyor, giyiniyor,

içiyor, düşürüyor, duruyor, bekliyor, geziniyor,

diyor

42 55

Past Continuous “-yordu” Diyordu, çırpınıyordu, bekliyordu, ağlıyordu,

duruyordu

5 6

Reported Past

“-mış, -miş, -muş, -müş”

Gitmiş 4 5

Simple Present Tense “-r” Girilir, çıkarır, kullanırız, yüzer, yaşar, meler,

koşar, anırır, bağırır, gıdaklar, miyavlar, havlar,

korur, severim, yerim, oynarım, olur, içerim,

yıkarım

20 26

51

Table 4.21 Continued Past in the future

“-ecekti,-acaktı”

boğulacaktı 1 1,3

Total:76

Commands are salient in the child language in Turkish. Before learning to add

suffixes to verbs, using only the stem of a verb is enough to make command sentences.

In the books, there are eight commands: uyu, (ses) çıkarma, salla, ört, söndür, söyle,

göster. One of them “(ses) çıkarma (don’t make noise)” is a negative command.

Negative sentences are not done by using “-me, -ma” suffixes in the books. It is

provided by using the word “yok” (no, not available). There is only one example for

negation in the total ten books. Importance of being positive to children on every way is

supported by using negative language least.

Case markers are categories that state the relationship of a noun with the other

words. In Turkish, case markers show the relationship of the noun with the following

word. There are examples of five case markers in the child books. Accusative case is

the most frequently used one. It is used for determination and indication. As a result,

using accusative case make children feel that there is something definite and concrete in

the conversation. It consists of 34 percent of the total 79 usages of case markers. It is

used twenty seven times. Ablative case is the least used case marker. It is only used

once.

Table 4.22 Examples and Number of the Case Markers Used in the Child Books Case Markers Examples from Child Books Total

Number of

Usage

%

Dative “-e, -a” kapıya, ona, nereye(4 times), sana, suya

(twice), yatağa, dereye, gezmeye, kayığa

(twice)

15 19

Accusative “-ı, -i, -u, -ü” Çantasını, dilini, gözlüğünü,fotoğrafları,

resimleri,dilini,kitapları, tüylerini, suyunu,

bardağı, elimi, yüzümü, dişlerimi, yapmayı,

yemekleri, meyveleri,beni., kayığı, sesini,

hangisini, isimlerini, kardeşi,

kelebeği,ışıkları, baloncukları,onu,üstünü

arkadaşı

27 34

52

Table 4.22 Continued Locative “-de, -da” Arkasında, burada, altında, nerede, kumda,

kumsalda, suda, içinde, kahvaltıda

19 24

Ablative “-den, dan” Nereden 1 1,2

Genitive “-ın, -in, -un, -ün” Annemin, suyun, eşyaların, hayvanların,

senin, adın, soyadın, civcivin, saatin,

perdenin, kitabın, yastığın, battaniyenin,

şemsiyenin, topun, bloklarının, havlunun

17 21

Other morphemes are decided and detected according to the grammatical items

in the CDI. As a result they can be listed in five categories: suggestive marker referring

to second person singular, plural, possessive, conjunction morphemes and yes/no

question particles.

In Turkish, question sentences are constructed in two ways. First one is using

question words at the beginning of the sentences such as “what”, “when”, “who”. Other

way is to add “mi” particle at the end of the word that is related to the desired

information. According to Sofu (1998), acquisition of question sentences is regular and

easy as questions do not need a syntactic change.

Table 4.23 Inflectional Morphemes Used in the Child Books Inflectional Morphemes Examples from Child Books Total Number

of Usage

%

Plural “-ler, -lar” Dişlerimi, yemekleri, meyveleri, hastalıklardan,

köpekler, kediler, resimlerdeki, hayvanların,

bunlar, kardeşleri, görenler, ışıkları, geceler,

oyuncaklar, bloklarının, baloncukları

16 45

Yes/No Question Particle

“mı? mi?”

Altında mı? Arkasında mı? 9 25

Possessive “-(i)m Elimi, yüzümü, dişlerimi, annemin 4 11

Conjunction “-(ı)nca, -

(i)nce” (meaning “when”)

Uyanınca, fırçalayınca 2 5,7

Conjunction “-yla” (with) Bilgisayarla, suyla 2 5,7

Suggestive Marker “-sene” Yüzsene, gitsene 2 5,7

53

In this study, yes-no question particles consist of 25 % of the morphemes in the

Table 4.23. However, there is no question formulated by a question word in the total

thirteen child books.

4.1.3 Comparison of Grammatical Items Both in the Child Books And Turkish

CDI

In this part, the number of tense morphemes in the child books and number of

children produced these morphemes are analyzed. According to the results, there are

seven tenses inquired in the Toddler Scale including simple present, past and future

tenses. In addition to these, there are two morphologically complex tenses:

Gel- (I)yor- muş Come Present Reported

Prog. Past

Gel- miş- ti Come Reported Simple

Past Past

However, there are six different tenses used in the child books including one

morphologically complex tense:

Gid- ecek- ti Go Future Simple past

In Table 4.24, the production number and percentage of time suffixes present both

in the child books and the TCDI are presented. Although present progressive suffix “-

yor” is used the most frequently in the child books (see Table 4.1), simple past tense

suffix “-dı” is the most commonly produced time suffix by the toddlers. In the child

books, present progressive suffix “-yor” is also used in a narrative style in the context.

It is inevitable to accept that children are interested in the immediate context that they

are in. However, in Turkish, simple past tense suffix “-dı” is acquired earlier and used

more frequently in conversation with children. Aksu-Koç (in R. M. Weist, in Eds. P.

Fletcher and M. Garman, 1996) stated the reason as this suffix is used for either

54

“ritualized” responses to questions or action verbs used after the completion of an

activity.

Table 4.24 Tense Suffixes

Time Suffixes Production in Toddler Scale Usage in the Child Books

N % N %

“-dı” Simple Past Tense 70 75.2 14 18

“-yor” Present

progressive

50 53.8 42 55

“-mış” Reported Past 34 36.6 4 5

“-r” Simple Present 32 34.4 20 26

In Table 4.26, production rate of case markers that are present both in the child

books and TCDI Toddler Scale are indicated. There are case markers in every

language, however, there are different affixes in different languages. In some

languages, such as English, it is done by the change in the pronoun. In Turkish, “bana

(bak)” is a dative pronoun made by the addition of “-a” at the end of the pronoun “ben”.

Due to the consonant harmony, “ben” turns to “bana” after taking dative case marker “-

a”. In English, there is the change of pronoun in “look at me”. “I” turns to “me” for

dative case. Accusative case is done by the addition of “-I” suffix to the same stem

“ben” (I). In Turkish “ben” (I) takes the suffix “-I” and pronoun is done accusative.

However, in English, without any change in the pronoun, “me” is used as accusative as

in “love me”.

Sofu (1989) found out that, children start to produce the nominative and the

genitive case markers before 18 months of age. However, the dative, the ablative and

the locative case markers are come across after 18 months of age for the first time,

between 16 and 25 months of age. She also stated that the accusative case marker is

observed to be produced after 25 months of age.

According to the results, it is clear to see that 58% of the toddlers produce dative

case. Locative is produced by 48.4% of the toddlers. It is early acquired and produced

by infants and toddlers with postpositions as in “iç-i-n-de” (in) and “üst-ü-n-de” (on).

Ablative is the least produced case by the toddlers (36.6%). It states moving away “ev-

55

den” (from house) or the source of an object or an action as in “anne-den aldım” (I took

from mom).

Table 4.25 Case Markers Time Suffixes Production in Toddler Scale Usage in the Child Books

N % N %

Dative “-e, -a” 54 58 15 19

Locative “-de, -da” 45 48.4 19 24

Accusative “-ı, -i, -u, -ü” 39 42 27 34

Genitive “-ın, -in, -un, -ün” 34 36.6 17 21

Ablative “-den, dan” 23 24.7 1 1.2

Table 4.26 presents the grammatical items that are both in the child books and

Turkish CDI. According to the results, even though plural suffix “-lar” is the most

frequently used item in the child books (see Table 4.23), possessive “(I)m” is the most

frequently produced suffix by toddlers (65.6%). On the other hand, “-(I)nca”

(conjunction meaning “when”) is the least commonly produced suffix by the toddlers

(4.3%).

Table 4.26 Comparison of Other Grammatical Items both in the Child Books and

Turkish CDI Grammar Items Production in Toddler Scale Usage in the Books

N % N %

Possessive “-(i)m 61 65.6 4 11

Yes/No Question Particle “mı?

mi?”

36 38.7 9 25

Conjunction “-yla” (meaning “ile”) 31 33.3 2 5.7

Plural “-ler, -lar” 28 30.1 16 45

Suggestive Marker “-sene” 13 14 2 5.7

Conjunction “-(ı)nca, -(i)nce”

(meaning “when”)

4 4.3 2 5.7

There are other grammatical items that take place in Turkish CDI but do not

exist in the child books. They are presented in Table 4.27. Among these items,

negation suffix “-ma” is the most frequently produced one by the toddlers (%48.4).

56

From early months on, children start to establish their personality. As they grow up and

start to live in a social context, they try to prove themselves as a unique personality.

Besides deciding their likes, they are eager to make people accept their dislikes. It is a

period that children say “no” for almost everything. This may be the reason why they

use negation suffix the most frequently.

Table 4.27 Grammatical Items not Present in the Child Books Grammar Items Production in Toddler Scale

N %

Negative 45 48.4

Causative 44 47.3

Passive 25 26.9

Unergative “gelelim”

(Kertez, 1999)

25 26.9

Reported Past in Simple Past

“-mıştı”

11 11.8

Conditional 10 10.8

Optative “-se, -sa” 9 9.7

Debitative “-ebilmek” 9 9.7

Reported Past Progressive“-

yormuş”

7 7.5

Present progressive in reported past is the least frequently used morpheme by

toddlers (7.5%). Kornfilt (1997) expresses that the progressive is used for an event or

action that takes place at a given point in time, delimited very narrowly to that temporal

point. That temporal point is stated with reported past. Toddlers are not able to

produce such morphologically complex tenses frequently.

4.1.4 Growth of Grammar Parallel to Lexical Development

It is impossible to look at grammar without considering some lexical

components. In the literature, there are studies that claim there is a positive correlation

between the children’s age and vocabulary size. For example, Conboy and Thal (2006)

point out that the use of grammatical terms and the complexity of utterances are linked

to overall vocabulary development. Bates, Bretherton and Synder, (in Hoff 2001),

analyzed the data that they collected on language production and comprehension of 27

57

children aged from 10 to 28 months. They found that measures of their lexical

development at ages 13 and 20 months are strongly related to measures of their

grammatical development at 2 years of age. As a result, it can be proposed that the

correlation between lexical and grammatical growth go hand in hand from early ages

on. That is, the use of grammatical morphemes increases as the child’s lexicon

develops.

As it can be seen in Table 4.28, the number of words that children produce

increases as their age increases. There are 13 children in 16-18 month olds’ group;

however one of them is excluded from this comparison as all of the items are marked

for this participant. There are 16 children in 28-30 month old group. So as to equate

the two groups four of the participants are excluded from the comparison. Therefore,

12 children from each age range (between 16-18 and 28-30 months) are chosen to

indicate the increase in production vocabulary. According to the comparison results,

the average number of words that are produced by 16-18 month old toddlers is 65

words. On the other hand, the average number of words that are produced by 28-30

month old toddlers is 397 words. As stated in section 1.0, there is a vocabulary spurt

after 16 months and it is possible to trace the sudden increase in the production

vocabulary.

Table 4.28 Numbers of Production Vocabulary of 16-18 and 28-30 Month Old

Toddlers Participants

(16-18 Month

Olds)

Number of Production

Vocabulary (Average 65

Words)

Participants

(28-30 Month Olds)

Number of Production

Vocabulary

(Average 397 words)

Arda K. 129 Melih 678

Yunus 119 Naz 675

Hatice 99 Ece 614

Sude Naz 75 Bilge 566

Avni 73 Salih 428

Aleyna 68 İlayda 409

Arda D. 59 Cansu 387

Yağmur 40 Aksel 380

Selim 38 Tuna 289

Eylül 37 Sude 195

Doruk 36 Hacı 78

Ali 10 Efecan 71

58

Devescovi et al. (2005) found out that age and vocabulary size correlates with

the children’s MLU, but they claim that the contribution of the vocabulary size to

grammatical development is larger. In this study, it is also found out that as the age and

the number of words that children are able to comprehend and produce increases, there

is an increase in the number of grammatical morphemes. The improvement in the usage

of tense suffixes can be seen in Table 4.29. The number of children who produce

present progressive suffix “-yor” is 14.2% between the ages of 16 to 18 months.

However, 76.4% of the toddlers produce the same suffix between 28 to 30 months of

age. It is the same in the production of case markers. 37.5% of the toddlers aged

between 16-18 months are able to produce dative case marker. In the production of 28-

30 month old toddlers, the number rises up to 70.6%.

It can also be seen that number of words and morphemes increase as the child

develops lexically. Toddlers between 16 to 18 months of age are able to produce at most

two word utterances. In those utterances, there are at most three morphemes. However,

when they are between 28 to 30 months of age, the number of words that they are able

to use in an utterance is 9 at most. The number of the morphemes in those utterances

rises up to 18.

It is wise to accept that children are able to use more grammatical items as their

lexicon develops. As they grow up, they are also able to use longer utterances with

increasing numbers of grammatical morphemes.

Table 4.29 Production Number of Grammatical Items between 16-18 and 28-30

Month Old Toddlers Grammatical Items 16-18 Months (Average

65 production

vocabulary)

28-30 Months (Average

398 production

vocabulary)

N(13) % N(16) %

Command 8 57.1 15 88.2

Sımple Past “-dı” 7 50 14 82.3

Dative “-e,-a” 5 35.7 12 70.6

Possesive “-im” 4 28.6 12 70.6

Present Progressive “-yor” 2 14.2 13 76.4

Locative “-da” 2 14.2 11 64.7

Negation Suffix “-me” 2 14.2 10 58.9

Accusative “-I” 1 7.1 11 64.7

Unergative for 1st Person Plural “-elim” 1 7.1 11 64.7

59

Table 4.29 Continued Command for 3rd Person Singular “-sın” 1 7.1 11 64.7

Reported Past “-mış” 1 7.1 9 53

Simple Present “-ar” 1 7.1 9 53

Ablative “-den” 1 7.1 8 47.1

Conjunction Meaning “with/and” “ ile” 0 0 11 64.7

Yes- No Question Particle ”-mı” 0 0 10 58.9

Causative 0 0 9 52.9

Conjunction Meaning “While/As” “ –iken” 0 0 6 35.3

Optative 0 0 6 35.3

Reported Past in Simple Past “-mıştı” 0 0 5 29.4

Reported Past Progressive “-yormuş” 0 0 4 23.5

Passive 0 0 4 23.5

Conditional 0 0 3 17.6

Conjunction Meaning “When/As” “ –(ı)nca” 0 0 1 5.9

So as to be more specific on the subject, the increase in the number of verbs and

the number of tense morphemes added to the verbs are indicated in Table 4.30. It can

be seen in the table that toddlers between 28-30 months of age are able to produce more

verbs and tense morphemes than 16-18 month olds in general. 16-18 month old

toddlers are able to produce at most three tense morphemes with less number of verbs.

Toddlers between 28-30 months of age are able to produce at most six tense morphemes

with more verbs than 16-18 month group.

Table 4.30 Production Numbers of Verbs and Tense Morphemes Produced by 16-

18 and 28-30 Month Old Toddlers Participants

(16-18 Month

Olds)

Number of

Verbs (169

verbs)

Number of Tense

Morphemes

(7 Morphemes)

Participants

(28-30 Month Olds)

Number of

Verbs (169

verbs)

Number of Tense

Morphemes

(7Morphemes)

Sude Naz 70 1 Melih 169 6

Hatice 26 1 Ece 147 5

Arda K. 25 1 Salih 128 4

Yunus 22 1 Bilge 113 7

Avni 7 3 İlayda 105 4

Aleyna 7 2 Aksel 85 2

Eylül 7 0 Sude 71 3

60

Table 4.30 Continued Arda D. 6 0 Tuna 63 2

Doruk 5 0 Naz 53 6

Yağmur 5 0 Cansu 38 2

Selim 4 0 Hacı 12 2

Ali 0 0 Efecan 0 0

In such a comparison, it can be seen that the overall number of verbs and tense

morphemes increase as children get older. On the contrary of the results, there are

specific examples that point the opposite of our claim. For example, one of the

participants in 16-18 months age group, Avni, is able to produce three tense morphemes

even when he is able to produce seven verbs. On the other hand, another participant in

28-30 months age group, Sude, is also able to produce three tense morphemes; however

the number of verbs she is able to produce is 71. Therefore it is not always possible to

claim that children are able to produce more tense morphemes as they get older and

produce more verbs. Personal differences must be taken into consideration.

61

CHAPTER FIVE

CONCLUSION

5.0 Introduction

In this chapter an overall conclusion of the study will be presented. The answers

of the research questions will be laid out briefly. There will also be the implications for

ELT and suggestions for further research.

5.1 Conclusions

The first aim of this study is to investigate the language used in 13 child books

and make a comparison of the vocabulary in the books with the actual language used by

the children as determined by Turkish CDI. This study also aims to compare the

grammatical items used in 13 child books selected from four different publishers with

the actual language used in the grammar section of the Turkish CDI. Lastly, this study

investigated the increase in the grammatical morphemes of 16-30 month old toddlers

with age.

The participants of the study are 149 children aged between 8 to 30 months.

Children have been divided into two groups according to their ages. 8 to 16 month old

children have been applied Infant Scale; 16 to 30 month old children have been applied

Toddler Scale. There are 57 children in the Infant Group. There are 92 children in the

Toddler Group. Data have been collected from five cities in Turkey: Adana, Ankara,

Eskişehir, Istanbul and Osmaniye. Mothers were interviewed either face to face or they

were asked to fill in the scale on their own.

On the basis of the aims, three research questions have been formulated. The first

research question is:

1. Does the vocabulary children use as indicated by Turkish CDI match with the words

present in 13 child books?

The words in Turkish CDI and the child books have been compared according to the

20 semantic categories in Turkish CDI and their frequencies of usage have been

presented in detail on the tables in section 4.2.1. The words used in the child books

chosen and TCDI generally match in this respect. We are able to find vocabulary items

that are present both in the books chosen and child vocabulary as measured by Turkish

62

CDI in the categories such as sound effects, toys, body parts, small household items,

furniture and rooms, people, verbs and postpositions. However, There is not a perfect

match in the rest of the categories. That is, in some of the categories, not even 30% of

the children comprehend or produce the frequently used words in the child books, such

as animals, vehicles, clothes, outside items, words about time, description words, words

about time, pronouns, question words and quantifiers As the number of the books is

restricted to 13, the words in the books does not comprise the majority of the words in

Turkish CDI. Among the available ones, the frequency of usage has been presented in

comparison with Turkish CDI. In categories such as clothes, games and routines and

verbs, there are significant number of usages that did not exist in the books. These

results imply, there are more frequently used words by children than the available ones

in the books. Using them in the child books will make the language used in the books

more meaningful for children.

In the child books, verbs are the most frequently used words. There are not verbs in

the books for infants, as there are only names of the objects under the pictures. Verbs

are more than the words in other categories as they state the action in the books. As

Şimşek (2004) states, in the child books, a vivid and active style should be used with

short and regular sentences. This active narration style is provided by the use action

verbs.

Even though there were more items on “clothes” and “places to go” categories in

Turkish CDI, there was only one example in the books for these categories (şapka ‘hat’

and deniz ‘sea’). This result point out that there are more frequently used additional

words to be used in the child books.

The second research question is:

2. Do the grammatical forms children use as indicated by Turkish CDI match with the

forms present in 13 child books?

The answer to this research question is presented in two aspects. Firstly, the results

related to the grammatical items in the child books, then, the match between the

grammatical items on the books chosen and the grammatical items that can be produced

by toddlers as determined by Turkish CDI is presented.

There are six different tenses used in the child books (Simple Past, Present

Continious, Simple Present, Reported Past and Past in the Future). Present Continuous

Tense is the most frequently used tense in the child books. 55% of the tense suffixes

are Present Continious Tense suffix “-yor”. This tense is not only used to state the

63

present action, it also used to maintain the narrative style in the story. Suffix for past in

the future “-yordu” is the least frequently used time suffix in the books (1.3%). In the

books for children, there are morphologically complex tenses; however, they are not

frequently used as children are not linguistically mature enough to understand and

produce these tenses.

In the books chosen, there are five case markers: “dative, accusative, locative,

ablative and genitive” case markers. Among these, accusative case marker “-I, -i, -u, -

ü” is the most frequently used one. However, ablative case marker “-den, -dan” is the

least frequently used case marker.

Other grammatical morphemes used in the child books are “plural suffix “-lar”,

yes/no question particle “-mı?” , possessive suffix “-(I)m”, suggestive marker “-sene”

and conjunctions “-(I)nca” (meaning “when”) and “-yla” (meaning “with”). Plural

suffixes “ler, -lar” are the most frequently used morphemes in the child books (45%).

The two conjunctions and suggestive marker are the least frequently used morphemes.

Each of them is used twice and consists of the 5.7% of the total morphemes.

Conjunctions are not preferred to be used in the books frequently because the sentences

should be short for children not to lose their interest and miss the beginning of the

sentence (Şimşek, 2004; Şirin, 1998). There are also eight command sentences that are

made by using only the verb stem.

On the other hand, there are some differences in the frequency of usage between the

grammatical items in the books and children’s productions determined by Turkish CDI.

Even though there are six different tenses in the child books, four of them are present in

Turkish CDI (Simple Past, Present Continuous, Reported Past and Simple Present

Tense). Clark (2003) points out that a child’s interests and needs are limited to their

immediate time and setting, that is “here and now”, therefore it is natural for children

produce present tenses in their speech. Even though, Present Continuous Tense is the

most frequently used tense in the child books, according to the Turkish CDI results,

Simple Past Tense suffix “-dı” is the most frequently used tense morpheme by toddlers.

Our study also illustrated that even though the accusative case marker is the

most frequently used case marker in the child books, it was found out that the dative is

the most frequently produced case marker by the toddlers. According to the Turkish

CDI results, the locative case marker is the second most frequently produced case

marker by 16-30 month old toddlers. These findings are parallel to Sofu (1989) who

64

stated that the dative and the locative case markers are come across after 18 months of

age for the first time, between 16 and 25 months of age.

In the child books, plural suffix is the most frequently used morpheme.

Nevertheless, possessive suffix is the most frequently produced suffix by the toddlers.

In addition, the suggestive marker “-sene” is not included in the Turkish CDI.

Therefore, it is not determined if this marker is produced by toddlers.

There were grammatical items that did not take place in the child books such as

suffixes for negation, causative, passive, unergative, reported past in simple past,

conditional, optative, debitative and reported past progressive. These were included in

Turkish CDI and it was found out that negation suffix “-ma” is the most frequently

produced one by the toddlers. It is also found out that suffix for reported past

progressive “-yormuş” the least frequently used one by the toddlers.

In an overall evaluation, our results indicate that the grammatical items that are

present in the child books do not match with the grammatical items that are produced by

16-30 month old toddlers. There are also additional grammatical items that are

frequently produced by toddlers, but do not take place in the child books.

The third research question is:

3. Do the grammatical morphemes that 16-30 month old toddlers use increase as

their age and lexicon increase?

According to the results of the present study, it was found out that the number of the

grammatical morphemes and their frequency of usage increases as the children between

16-30 months of age get older. This is an expected result. Many of the studies (Conboy

and Thal, 2006; Devescovi et al, 2005; Bletes et al, 2008) also indicate that, as children

get older, they expand their vocabulary and parallel to this, they are able to produce

more grammatical items.

5.2 Implications for ELT

Studies show that children who are read books from infancy to age three have larger

vocabulary than the children who are not read books (Hart and Risley, 1995). Sofu,

(2003) also found out that, in homes where adults read book and talk about the events in

the books with children, the awareness of the language structure and functions, that is

metalinguistic awareness develops earlier. It is also found out that reading books to

children makes them do exercises on listening, mimicry, and language (Turla and Tür,

1999). They also point out that reading book to children makes them have interactions

65

with the written language and help to facilitate the passage from pictures to written

language.

There is not a checklist in front of the mothers that will help to choose a book for

their child’s language level. In the light of the findings of this study, parents have the

chance to detect the vocabulary and the grammar of their children and decide to choose

the right book for their language level.

Another group of audience that we have in mind is the writers of child books. On

the contrary to the belief that writing child books is easy, there are many issues to be

considered when writing a child book. Being aware of the language of the infants and

toddlers, writers of the child books are able to make an index of the vocabulary and

grammar forms of the children and use the language in the child books appropriately for

different ages.

In addition to mother tongue education, teaching English to children as early as they

start to speak is more frequent than in the past. Being aware of their vocabulary

repertoire and teaching language by using known information to unknown will make

teaching more effective. Cook (2000) points out that children’s level of proficiency in

the native language including oral language and metalinguistic development, affects the

acquisition of a second language. In the process of teaching English, using short stories,

riddles and songs including the vocabulary that children are able to comprehend and

produce helps children make meaningful learning.

5.3 Suggestions

The present study shed light on various aspects of child books. The benefits of

reading books to children and the language to be used in the books are presented.

This study did not consider the education level of the parents or the impact of

home reading environment on the acquisition of vocabulary or grammar. Therefore,

trying to determine any kind of correlation between the education level of the parents or

the impact of home reading environment on child’s language acquisition might be

worthwhile.

This study investigated the most available child books on the bookstores. In

addition, a further investigation on the appropriateness of the language used in the best

seller child books will undoubtedly be meaningful.

66

REFERENCES

Aksu Koç, A. & Slobin, D. I. (1985), “Acquisition of Turkish”, In D. I. Slobin (Ed.).

The Cross-Linguistic study of Language Acquisition, (p. 839-878),

London: Lawrence Earlbaum

Aksu-Koç, A. (1986), in R. M. Weist, “Tense and aspect”, in P. Fletcher and M.

Garman, (Eds.). Language Acquisition, (pp.376-374), Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press

Anderson, D. & Rielly, J. (2002), “The MacArthur Communicative Development

Inventory: normative data for American Sign Language”, Journal of

Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 7/2, 83-106

Anglin, J. M (1983), in M. Barrett “Early Lexical Development”, in P. Fletcher and B.

MacWhinney (Eds.). The Handbook of Child Language (pp. 362-392).

Oxford: Blackwell Publications

Baker, J. W. & Derwig, B. L. (1986), “Assessing Morphological Development”, in P.

Fletcher and M. Garman (Eds.). Language Acquisition, (pp. 326-338),

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Barrett, M. (1986), In S. A. Kuczaj and M. Barrett (Eds.) The Development of Word

Meaning. New York: Springer- Verlag

Barrett, M. (1999), “An introduction to the nature of language and to the central themes

and issues in the study of language development”, in Barrett, M. (Ed.).

The Development of Language, (pp. 1-24) UK: Psychology Press

Bates, E., Bretherton, I. & Snyder, L. (2001) in Hoff, E., Language development,

Belmont, CA: Wadsworth-Thomson Learning

Bates, E. et al. (1994), “Developmental and stylistic variation in the composition of

early vocabulary”, Journal of Child Language, 21, 58-123

Bates, E. & Goodman, J.C. (1995), “On the Inseparability of Grammar and the

Lexicon: Evidence from Acquisition”, in M. Tomasello and E. Bates

(Eds.). Language Development EssentialRreadings,(pp. 134-162)

Oxford: Blackwell Publications

Bates, E. & Tomasello, M. (2001), Language Development The Essential Readings,

Oxford: Blackwell Publications

Bauer, H. R. (1995), In R. D. Kent and G. Miolo, “Phonetic Abilities in the First Year

67

of Life”, in P. Fletcher and B. MacWhinney (Eds.). The Handbook of

Child Language (pp. 303-334). Oxford: Blackwell Publications

Berman, R. A. (1986), “A Crosslinguistic Perspective: Morphology and Syntax”, in E.

Hoff (Ed.). Language Development. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth-

Thomson Learning.

Berman, R. A. (2004), “Between Emergence and Mastery. The Long Developmental

Route of Language Acquisition”, in R. A. Berman (Ed). Language

Development Across Childhood and Adolescence, (pp. 9-34),

Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company

Bletes et al. (2008a), “The Danish Communicative Developmental Inventories: Validity

and main developmental trends”, Journal of Child Language, 35, 651-

669

Bletes et al. (2008b), “Early vocabulary development in Danish and other languages: A

CDI- based comparison”, Journal of Child Language, 35, 619-650

Bloom, P. (2000), How Children Learn the Meanings of Words. Cambridge, MA:

MIT Press

Bornstein, M. H., Dromi, E., Matial, S. L. & Sagı, A. (2000), “The Hebrew

Communicative Developmental Inventory: Language specific properties

and cross-linguistic generalizations”, Journal of Child Language, 27, 43-

67

Brown, R. (1973), A First Language The Early Steps, London: Penguin Books

Bruner, J. S. (1983), in M. Barrett “Early Lexical Development”, in P. Fletcher and B.

MacWhinney (Eds.). The Handbook of Child Language, (p. 362-392),

Oxford: Blackwell Publications

Caselli, M. C., Casadio, P. & Bates, E. (1999), “Lexical Development in English and

Italian”, in M. Tomasello and E. Bates (Eds.). Language Development

Essential Readings, (p. 76-110), Oxford: Blackwell Publications

Chapman, K. and Thomson, C. (1986), in S. A. Kuczaj and M. Barrett (Eds.).

The Development of Word Meaning, (p. 102) New York: Springer-

Verlag

Chiat, S. (1986), in P. Fletcher and M.Garman (Eds.). Language Acquisition, (pp. 339-

374), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Cho, S. W. & O’Grady, W. (1997), in M. Dobrovolsky and F. Katamba (Eds.).

68

Contemporary Linguistics: An Introduction, (p 437-471), London:

Longman

Chomsky, N. (2004), “Knowledge of Language as a Focus of Inquiry”, in B. C. Lust

and C. Foley (Eds.). First Language Acquisition The Essential Readings,

(p. 15-24), Oxford: Blackwell Publications

Clark, E. V. (1978), In S. A. Kuczaj, “Thoughts on the Intentional Basis of Early

Object Word extension: Evidence from Comprehension and

Production”, in S. A. Kuczaj and M. Barrett (Eds.). The Development

of Word Meaning, New York: Springer-Verlag

Clark, E. V. (1996), “Later Lexical Development and Word Formation”, in P. Fletcher

and B. MacWhinney (Eds.). The Handbook of Child Language, (p. 393-

412), Oxford: Blackwell Publications

Clark, H. H. (1996), Using Language, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Clark, E. V. & Garnica, O. K. (1974), in R. Wales, “Diexis”, in P. Fletcher and M.

Garman (Eds.). Language Acquisition, (pp. 401-428), Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press

Clark, E. V. (2003), First Language Acquisition, Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press

Conboy, B. T. & Thal, D. J. (2006), “Ties between lexicon and Grammar: Cross-

sectional and Longitudinal studies of bilingual toddlers”, Child

Development, 77/3, 712-735

Cook, V. (2000), Linguistics and second language acquisition: One person with two

languages, Oxford:Blackwell Handbook of Linguistics

Debarshe, B. D. (2004) in “Let’s read literature review”, Retrieved from

http://www.rch.org.au/emplibrary/ccch/LetsRead_ExecSumm.pdf on

August, 06, 2007

Devescovi et al. (2005), “A crosslinguistic study of the relationship between grammar

and lexical development”, Journal of Child Language. 32, 759-786

Durkin, B. (1966), in S. Hepler, J. Hickman, and S. C. Huck (Eds.), (1989), Children’s

Literature in theElementary School, Madison, WI: Brown and

Benchmark Publishers

Farrar, J. and Tomasello, M. (1986), in M. Barrett, “Early Lexical

69

Development”, in P. Fletcher and B. MacWhinney (Eds.). The

Handbook of Child Language, (p. 362-392), Oxford: Blackwell

Publications

Fay, D. and Fremgen, A. (1986), in S. A. Kuczaj and M. Barrett (Eds.).

The Development of Word Meaning, (p. 102) New York: Springer-

Verlag

Fenson, L. et al. (1994), In Bloom, P. (2000), How Children Learn the Meanings of

Words ,(p. 35), Cambridge, MA: MIT Press

Fletcher, P. & M. Garman (1986), Language Acquisition, Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press.

Fromkin, A. V. (2000), Linguistics: An Introduction to Linguistics Theory, Oxford:

Blackwell Publishers

Garton, A. & Pratt, C. (1998), in H. Sofu (2003), “Metalinguistic development in

preschool children”, Studies in Turkish Linguistics, Bogazici University

Press

Gillette, J. and Gleitman, L. R. (1995), “The role of syntax in verb learning”, in B.

MacWhinney and P. Fletcher (Eds.). The Handbook of Child Language,

(pp. 413-428),

Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.

Goldfield, B. & Reznick J. S. (1992), in K. Plunket and G. Shafer, “Early speech

perception and word learning”, in M. Barrett (Ed.), (1999). The

Development of Language, (pp. 51-72), UK: Psychology Press

Guasti, M. T. (2002), Language acquisition. The growth of grammar. Cambridge, MA:

MIT Press

Hart, B. & Risley, T. R. (1995), in B. H. Wasik and J. S. Henrickson, “Family

Literacy Practices”, C. A. Stone, E. R. Silliman, B. J. Ehren and K.

Apel (Eds.), (2004). Handbook of Language and Literacy. Development

and Disorders. (pp.154-174), New York: The Guilford Press

Hamilton, A., Plunkett, K. and Shafer, G. (2000), “Infant vocabulary development

assessed with a British communicative development inventory”, Journal

of Child Language, 27, 689-705

Hepler, S., Hickman, J. and Huck, S. C. (1989), Children’s Literature in the

Elementary School, Madison, WI: Brown and Benchmark Publishers

High, P. C. et. al. (2000), “Literacy promotion in primary care pediatrics: Can we

70

make a difference?”, Pediatrics, 105/4, 927–934

Hoff, E. (2001), Language development. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth-Thomson Learning

Irvin, K. (1960), in Hepler, S., Hickman, J. and Huck, S. C. (1989), Children’s

Literature in the Elementary School, Madison, WI: Brown and

Benchmark Publishers

Kertez, M. (1999), “Early verbs and the acquisition of Turkish argument structure”,

Unpublished MA Thesis, Boğaziçi University, İstanbul, Turkey

Kornfilt, J. (1997), Turkish, London, Routledge

Kuczaj, S. A. (1986), in S. A. Kuczaj and M. Barrett (Eds.), (1986), The Development

of Word Meaning, (p. 102) New York: Springer-Verlag

Landau, E. & Glaitman, L. (1985), in P. Bloom (Ed.), (2000). How Children Learn

the Meanings of Words, (p. 26), Cambridge, MA: MIT Press

Loveland, K. A. (1995) in E. V. Clark, “Later Lexical Development and Word

Formation”, in P. Fletcher and B. MacWhinney (Eds.). The Handbook

of Child Language, (p. 393-412), Oxford: Blackwell Publications

Manczak, D. W. (2003), The Importance of Books. McKesson Health Solutions LLC

Marchman, V. A. & Bates, E. (1994), in Dixon, A. J. & Marchman, V. A. (Eds.),

(2007), “Grammar and the lexicon: Developmental ordering in language

acquisition”, Child Development, 78/1, 190-212

Marchmann, V. (2004), in R. A. Berman (Ed.). Language Development Across

Childhood and Adolescence, (pp. 9-34), Amsterdam:John Benjamins

Publishing Company

Rice, V. (1984), in S. A. Kuczaj and M. Barrett (Eds.), (1986), The Development of

Word Meaning, New York: Springer-Verlag

Sofu, H. (1989), “Acquisition of case markers in Turkish: A cross-sectional study”,

Unpublished MA Thesis, Çukurova University, Adana, Turkey.

Sofu, H. (1995), “Acquisition of lexicon in Turkish”, Unpublished Doctoral

Dissertation, Çukurova University, Adana, Turkey

Sofu, H. (1998), “Acquisition of question words”, Studies on Linguistics (p. 90-98)

Sofu, H. (2003) “Metalinguistic development in preschool children”, Studies in Turkish

Linguistics. Boğaziçi University Press

Sofu, H. (2005), “Dil gelişim çalışmalarında yöntem sorunu: Otistik bir olgu

71

incelenmesi”, Presented in the 3rd Language and Speech Disorders

Congree held by Language and Speech Disorders Association, 2-4 June

2005, Ankara

Strickland, D. S. and Taylor, D. (1986), in B. H. Wasik and J. S. Henrickson, “Family

Literacy Practices”, in C. A. Stone, E. R. Silliman, B. J. Ehren and K.

Apel (Eds.), (2004), Handbook of Language and Literacy. Development

and Disorders. New York: The Guilford Press

Şimşek, T. (2004), Çocuk Edebiyatı, Konya: Suna Yayınları

Şirin, M. N. (1998), 99 Soruda Çocuk Edebiyatı, İstanbul:Çocuk Vakfı Yayınları

Tomasello, M. and Farrar, J. (1995), in M. Barrett, “Early Lexical Development”, in

P. Fletcher and B. MacWhinney (Eds.). The Handbook of Child

Language, (p. 393-412), Oxford: Blackwell Publications

Tomasello, M. & Mervis, C. B. (1994), “The instrument is great, but measuring

comprehension is still a problem”. Monographs of the Society for

Research in Child Development, 59/5, 77-83

Turla, A. & Tür, G. (1999), Okul Öncesinde Çocuk, Edebiyat ve Kitap, İstanbul:Ya-Pa

Yayınları

72

APPENDIX 1

TEXTS OF CHILD BOOKS

Marsık Yayınları: 0-3 Yaş Tırtıl Dizisi

Tırtıl dizisi 1

Sarı ördek çantasını hazırlıyor.

Kuzucuk resim yapıyor.

Pamuk kapıya vuruyor.

Yaramaz kaz ağlıyor.

Domuzcuk şarkı söylüyor.

Ayıcık kitapları yerleştiriyor.

Duman bilgisayarla oynuyor.

Şipşak fare kitap okuyor.

Yılan resim yapıyor.

Sakız resimleri kesiyor. (tavşan)

Tekir fotoğrafları yapıştırıyor.

Kurbağacık dilini çıkarıyor. Tırtıl Dizisi 2

Sarı ördek şapka takıyor

Kuzucuk güneşleniyor

Pamuk kayak yapıyor

Yaramaz kaz yüzüyor

Domuzcuk midye kabuğu topluyor

Ayıcık mektup yazıyor

Duman top oynuyor

Şipşak fare fotoğraf çekiyor

Yılan gülüyor

Sakız müzik dinliyor

Tekir müzik dinliyor

Kurbağacık gözlüğünü tamir ediyor.

73

Tırtıl Dizisi 3

Sarı ördek kale yapıyor

Kuzucuk yemek yiyor

Pamuk uyuyor

Yaramaz kaz oyun oynuyor

Domuzcuk yemek pişiriyor

Ayıcık yıkanıyor

Duman tüylerini tarıyor

Şipşak fare yürüyor

Yılan televizyon izliyor

Sakız giyiniyor

Tekir meyve suyunu içiyor

Kurbağacık bardağı düşürüyor

Yapa Yayın

ABC Kitapları- Oyuncaklarım-0-2 yaş

Top, oyuncak ayı, küp, fırıldak. Oyuncak mutfak eşyalarım: kova, bez bebek, lego,

tren, balon, oyuncak araba, telefon, parmak kuklası, can simidi, bilye, uçurtma, robot,

topaç.

Sağlığım

Sabah uyanınca elimi yüzümü yıkarım

Sabah kahvaltıda bir bardak da süt içerim

Dişlerimi fırçalayınca inci gibi bembeyaz olur

Oyun oynarım banyo yapmayı çok severim

Annemin yaptığı yemekleri severek yerim

Meyveleri çok severim

Aşı beni hastalıklardan korur

Hayvanlar:

Köpekler havlar. Hav hav hav.

Kediler miyavlar. Miyav miyav miyav.

Kuş uçar cik cik cik öter.

74

Tavuk gıdaklar gıt gıt gıdak.

İnek mö diye bağırır.

Eşek anırır. Ai ai.

Tavşan zıplayarak koşar.

Koyun meler. Me öme me.

Balık suyun içinde yaşar.

Ördek suda yüzer. Vak vak.

Bu kayık 2-3 yaş

Bu, kayık. Kayık kumda duruyor.

Bu, deniz

Deniz kayığı bekliyor

Bu, martı. Martı kumsalda geziniyor. Martı durdu kayığa baktı.

Kayığa: yüzsene dedi. Kayık kumda duruyordu

Martı uçtu kayığa kondu. Ona: gitsene dedi

Kayık ağlıyordu

Deniz bekliyordu

Martı çırpınıyordu kayıkçı gelse diyordu.

Konuşmamı Geliştiriyorum(MEB kreş programına uygun) 2-3 yaş

Bu ne? Sesini çıkar.

Resimlerdeki eşyaların adlarını söyle. Saçımızı yıkamak/kurutmak için hangisini

kullanırız?

Göster! (Önce kitap sonra banyoda)

Hayvanların isimlerini söyle. Her biri Nasıl ses çıkarır?

Hangisi anne?

Hangisi kardeş?

Kardeşi göster.

Senin adın soyadın ne? Söyle

Ev: çatısı nerede? Kapısı nerede? Penceresi nerede? Nereden girilir?

Bu civciv

Bu annesi olan tavuk

Bunlar da kardeşleri

75

Nedense civcivin boynu uzun

Hiç arkadaşı yok

Yalnız geziyor

Dereye gitti suya baktı

A kelebek uçmuş dedi

Kelebek neredeyse boğulacaktı

Civciv hemen suya atladı. Kelebeği kurtardı, görenler koştu

Civciv kahramandı

Hepsi onu alkışladı.

Net Çocuk Yayınları

Ce-eee Haydi Beni Bul 1

Koca kulaklı tavşan nerede? Saatin arkasında mı?

Tik tak yatma zamanı. Haydi yatağa.

Yaramaz kaplan nerede? Perdenin arkasında mı?

Işıkları söndür üstünü ört.

Oyuncak bebek nerede? Kitabın arkasında mı?

Haydi uyumadan önce bir öykü okuyalım.

Oyuncak domuz nerede? Yastığın altında mı?

Bak sana iyi geceler diyor. Sen de ona el salla.

Oyuncaklar nerede? Battaniyenin altında mı?

Ses çıkarma, herkes uyuyor, haydi sen de uyu.

Ce-eee Haydi Beni Bul 2

Bebek nereye gitmiş? Şemsiyenin altında mı?

İşte burada. Haydi gel gezmeye gidelim.

Bebek nereye gitmiş topun arkasında mı?

İşte bebek işte kırmızı şapkası.

Bebek nereye gitmiş? Oyun bloklarının arkasında mı?

Bebek nereye gitmiş? Havlunun altında mı?

Suyla oynamak ne güzel.

Haydi baloncukları patlatalım.

76

Tudem Yayınları- İlk Sözcüklerim

Oyuncaklar

Ayı, küpler, araba, hayvanlar, bebek, top

Yemek Zamanı

Elma, meyve suyu, muz, yoğurt, ekmek, makarna

77

APPENDIX 2

TURKISH CDI INFANT SCALE

TÜRKÇE İLETİŞİM DAVRANIŞLARI GELİŞİMİ ENVANTERİ (8-16 AY)

“8-16 ay arasında bebekler duydukları dildeki sözcükleri anlamaya ve dönemin sonuna doğru da tek tek sözcükler üretmeye başlarlar. 8 aylık bu yaş diliminde gelişim hızlı seyreder ve bu dönemin başındaki ve sonundaki çocuklar arasında dil gelişimi açısından önemli farklılıklar görülür. Ayrıca çocuklar gelişim hızı açısından da farklılık gösterirler. İngilizcede yapılan araştırmalar göstermiştir ki, kimi 10 aylık çocuk 11 tane sözcüğü anlayabilirken kimisi 150 kadar sözcüğün anlamını bilebilmektedir. (Bu yaştaki bir çocuğun üretebildiği sözcük sayısı ise 50’nin altındadır.) Bu anket dil gelişimi açısından çok farklılık gösteren bu yaş dilimindeki çocuklar için düzenlenmiştir. O yüzden bahsedilen davranışlar ve sözcükler henüz sizin çocuğunuz tarafından kullanılmıyor olabilir. Bu nedenle bunun bir sorun olduğunu düşünmenize gerek yoktur.” “Bir sorunuz var mı?” (soru varsa cevaplandırınız) “Peki, o zaman başlayabiliriz.”

BÖLÜM I: ERKEN SÖZCÜKLER

A. ANLAMANIN İLK İŞARETLERİ

Çocuklar konuşmaya başlamadan önce bildikleri sözcüklere veya ifadelere cevap vererek dili anladıklarını gösterirler. Aşağıda bunlara ilişkin bazı örnekler verilmiştir. Sizin çocuğunuz bunlardan hangilerini yapıyor?

Evet Hayır

1. Adıyla çağırıldığında sese doğru dönerek ve bakarak O O

tepki verir.

2. “Hayır” dendiğinde kısa bir süre için yaptığını bırakarak tepki verir. O O

3. “Anne/baba burada” dendiğinde onları arayarak tepki gösterir. O O

B. İFADELER (tümce, sözcük öbeği)

Çocuğun Adı-Soyadı: ____________________________ Cinsiyeti:___________ Doğum Tarihi:____________________________ Tarih: _____________

78

Aşağıdaki listede çocuğunuzun anladığını düşündüğünüz ifadeleri lütfen belirtin.

anlar anlar anlar

Aç mısın? O

Uykun geldi mi? O

Dikkatli ol. O

Sessiz ol / Sus. O

Ellerini çırp / Alkış. O

Bezini değiştirelim. O

Buraya gel. O

Evimize geldik. O

Daha ister misin? O

Yapma. O

Elleme / Dokunma. O

Kalk. O

Bana ver. O

Kucağıma gel. O

Öpücük ver. O

Git ... getir. O

Aferin. O

Kıpırdama. O

Bay bay yap / el salla. O

Bak/buraya bak. O

Aç ağzını . O

Otur. O

Tükür onu. O

Dur. O

Yatma zamanı. O

Topu at. O

Buraya bir kuş konmuş. O

Gezmeye / atta gidelim. O

C. KONUŞMAYA BAŞLAMA (KONUŞMANIN BAŞLANGICI)

1. Bazı çocuklar “papağan” gibidir ve yeni duydukları Hiç Bazen Çoğu Zaman şeyleri taklit ederler. Örneğin, siz “Anne şimdi işe

gidiyor” dedikten sonra “işe gidiyor” diyerek cümlenin bir

kısmını veya yeni öğrendikleri sözcükleri tekrar ederler.

Sizin çocuğunuz sözcükleri ne sıklıkta taklit ediyor? O O O

2.Bazı çocuklar etrafta dolaşarak bildiklerini göstermek ister

gibi çevrelerindeki nesneleri isimlendirirler.

Sizin çocuğunuz bunu ne sıklıkta yapar? O O O

D. SÖZCÜK DAĞARCIĞI KONTROL LİSTESİ Aşağıdaki liste küçük çocukların sözcük dağarcığında sıklıkla yer alan sözcükleri

içermektedir. Biz, çocuğunuzun anladığı, ve de hem anlayıp hem söylediği sözcükleri merak ediyoruz. Çocuğunuzun anladığı ama henüz kullanmadığı sözcükleri anlar sütununda belirteceğiz. Çocuğunuzun anladığı ve kullandığı sözcükleri ise anlar ve söyler sütununda belirteceğiz. Çocuğunuzun bir sözcüğü burada yazıldığından farklı söylüyor olması bir şey değiştirmez (örneğin, balık yerine bayık veya çay yerine tay), bu yine de onun sözcüğü bildiği anlamına gelir. Unutmayın ki aşağıdaki liste farklı yaş gruplarındaki birçok çocuğun kullandığı sözcüklerden oluşmaktadır. Bu nedenle eğer çocuğunuz şu an yalnızca bir kaçını biliyorsa bu bir sorun değildir.

79

1. ÇEŞİTLİ SESLER VE HAYVAN SESLERİ ( 16) an

lar

anla

r ve

sö

yler

anla

r

anla

r ve

sö

yler

anla

r

anla

r ve

sö

yler

Aaa

Cee

Cıss

Çufçuf

Düt

Ham

О

О

О

О

О

О

О

О

О

О

О

О

Havhav

Hop/Hoppa

Mee

Miyav

Möö

О

О

О

О

О

О

О

О

О

О

Pisi-pisi

Şişt

Uf

Vak vak

Vınn

О

О

О

О

О

О

О

О

О

О

2. HAYVANLAR (24)

anla

r

anla

r ve

sö

yler

anla

r

anla

r ve

sö

yler

anla

r

anla

r ve

sö

yler

Arı О О Fil О О Kurbağa О О

Aslan О О Hayvan О О Kuş О О

At О О İnek О О Kuzu О О

Ayı О О Kaplan О О Maymun О О

Balık О О Kedi О О Ördek О О

Böcek О О Kelebek О О Tavşan О О

Eşek О О Köpek О О Tavuk О О

Fare О О О О О О

3. TAŞITLAR (8) an

lar

anla

r ve

sö

yler

anla

r

anla

r ve

sö

yler

anla

r

anla

r ve

sö

yler

Araba О О İtfaiye О О Tren О О

Bisiklet О О Kamyon О О Uçak О О

Gemi / Vapur О О Otobüs О О О О

4. OYUNCAKLAR ( 9)

anla

r

anla

r ve

sö

yler

anla

r

anla

r ve

sö

yler

anla

r

anla

r ve

sö

yler

Balon О О Kalem О О Kürek О О

Bebek О О Kitap О О Oyuncak О О

Boya О О Kova О О Top О О

80

5. YİYECEK VE İÇECEKLER (50)

an

lar

anla

r ve

sö

yler

anla

r

anla

r ve

sö

yler

anla

r

anla

r ve

sö

yler

Armut О О Havuç О О Pilav О О

Ayran О О Kahve О О Pizza О О

Bal О О Karpuz О О Poğaça О О

Balık О О Kek О О Portakal О О

Bisküvi О О Kiraz О О Reçel О О

Börek О О Kola О О Simit О О

Çay О О Köfte О О Su О О

Çikolata О О Kurabiye О О Süt О О

Çorba О О Limon О О Şeftali О О

Dolma О О Makarna О О Şeker О О

Domates О О Mandalina О О Tarhana О О

Dondurma О О Meyve О О Tost О О

Ekmek О О Muhallebi О О Yemek О О

Elma О О Muz О О Yoğurt О О

Et О О Pasta О О Yumurta О О

Fındık О О Peynir О О Zeytin О О

Fıstık О О Patates О О О О

6. GİYSİLER (21)

anla

r

anla

r ve

sö

yler

anla

r

anla

r ve

sö

yler

anla

r

anla

r ve

sö

yler

Ayakkabı/ pabuç О О Gömlek О О Pijama О О

Bez (çocuk bezi) О О Gözlük О О Şapka О О

Boncuk О О Kazak О О Terlik О О

Ceket О О Kolye О О Tişört О О

Çorap О О Manto/palto О О Yelek О О

Düğme О О Mayo О О О О

Elbise О О Önlük О О О О

Gecelik О О Pantolon О О О О

81

9. MOBİLYALAR VE ODALAR (26)

anla

r

anla

r ve

sö

yler

anla

r

anla

r ve

sö

yler

anla

r

anla

r ve

sö

yler

Balkon О О Kapı О О Pencere О О

Banyo О О Koltuk О О Sandalye/iskemle О О

Beşik О О Lazımlık/Oturak О О Televizyon О О

Bilgisayar О О Masa О О Tuvalet О О

Buzdolabı О О Merdiven О О Yatak О О

Çekmece О О Minder О О Yastık О О

7. VÜCUT BÖLÜMLERİ (19)

anla

r

anla

r ve

sö

yler

anla

r

anla

r ve

sö

yler

anla

r

anla

r ve

sö

yler

Ağız О О Diş О О Meme О О

Ayak О О Diz О О Parmak О О

Bacak О О El О О Popo О О

Baş / kafa О О Göbek О О Saç О О

Bıyık О О Göz О О Yanak О О

Burun О О Kol О О О О

Dil О О Kulak О О О О

8. KÜÇÜK EV EŞYALARI (31)

anla

r

anla

r ve

sö

yler

anla

r

anla

r ve

sö

yler

anla

r

anla

r ve

sö

yler

Anahtar О О İp О О Pipet/kamış О О

Ayna О О Kağıt О О Radyo О О

Bant (plaster) О О Kaşık О О Resim О О

Bardak О О Kumanda О О Saat О О

Battaniye О О Kutu О О Sabun О О

Biberon О О Kürek О О Süpürge О О

Çanta О О Lamba / ışık О О Şişe О О

Çatal О О Makas О О Tabak О О

Emzik О О Örtü О О Tarak О О

Havlu О О Pil О О Telefon О О

İlaç О О О О О О

82

Dolap О О Mutfak О О Yorgan О О

Fırın О О Oda О О Zil О О

Halı

10. EVİN DIŞI (28)

anla

r

anla

r ve

sö

yler

anla

r

anla

r ve

sö

yler

anla

r

anla

r ve

sö

yler

Ay/ Aydede О О Havuz О О Sokak О О

Ağaç О О Kar О О Taş О О Ateş О О Kaydırak О О Toprak О О Bahçe О О Kaza О О Toz О О Çamur О О Kozalak О О Yağmur О О Çiçek О О Köprü О О Yaprak О О Duman О О Kum О О Yıldız О О Duvar О О Ot О О Yol О О Garaj О О Rüzgar О О О О Güneş О О Salıncak О О О О

11. GİDİLECEK YERLER (16)

anla

r

anla

r ve

sö

yler

anla

r

anla

r ve

sö

yler

an

lar

anla

r ve

sö

yler

Atta О О Dükkan О О Maç О О

Bakkal О О Ev О О Market О О

Cami О О İş О О Okul О О

Çarşı О О Köy О О Park О О

Dışarı О О Kreş / Yuva О О Pazar О О

Deniz О О О О О О

83

12. İNSANLAR (27)

anla

r

anla

r ve

sö

yler

anla

r

anla

r ve

sö

yler

anla

r

anla

r ve

sö

yler

Abi О О Çocuk О О Kral О О

Abla О О Bebek О О Nine О О

Adam О О Dayı О О Oğlan О О

Amca О О Dede О О Öğretmen О О

Anne О О Doktor О О Palyaço О О

Anneanne/ babaanne/

büyükanne

О О Hala О О Polis О О

Arkadaş О О Kardeş О О Prenses О О

Asker О О Kendi ismi О О Şoför О О

Baba О О Kız О О Teyze О О

13. OYUNLAR VE RUTİNLER (35)

anla

r

anla

r ve

sö

yler

anla

r

anla

r ve

sö

yler

anla

r

anla

r ve

sö

yler

Aferin О О Hoşçakal О О Saklambaç О О

Alkış О О Hadi О О Sürpriz О О

Alo О О Hayır О О Şaka О О

Ayıp О О İyi geceler О О Şarkı О О

Banyo О О Kahvaltı О О Takla О О

Bay-bay О О Kaka О О Tamam О О

Çiş О О Kucak О О Teşekkür/Sağol О О

Dikkat О О Mama О О Uyku О О

Evet О О Merhaba О О Var О О

Gol О О Müzik О О Yeter О О

Güle-güle О О Ninni О О Yok О О

Günaydın О О Öcü О О

84

14. EYLEM SÖZCÜKLERİ-I (79)

anla

r

anla

r ve

sö

yler

anla

r

anla

r ve

sö

yler

anla

r

anla

r ve

sö

yler

Acı (canı) О О Çıkar О О İç О О

Acık О О Çiz О О İn О О

Aç О О Dokun О О İste О О

Açıl О О Doy О О İt О О

Ağla О О Dön О О Kaç О О

Al О О Döv О О Kal О О

Anla О О Dur О О Kaldır О О

Anlat О О Dök О О Kalk О О

Ara О О Düş О О Kana О О

Atla О О Düzelt О О Kapat О О

At О О Elle О О Karıştır О О

Bağır О О El salla О О Kır О О

Bak О О Geç О О Kırıl О О

Bas О О Gel О О Kirlet О О

Başla О О Getir О О Kokla О О

Bat О О Gez О О Kopar О О

Bırak О О Gıdıkla О О Kork О О

Bin О О Gir О О Koş О О

Bit О О Git О О Koy О О

Bitir О О Giy О О Oku О О

Boya О О Giydir О О Ol О О

Boz О О Gör О О Otur О О

Bul О О Göster О О Oyna О О

Çağır О О Götür О О Öksür О О

Çarp О О Gül О О Ol О О

Çek О О Isır О О О О

Çık О О Islan О О О О

85

EYLEM SÖZCÜKLERİ-II (41) toplam 71

anla

r

anla

r ve

sö

yler

anla

r

anla

r ve

sö

yler

anla

r

anla

r ve

sö

yler

Öp О О Söyle О О Yakala О О

Ört О О Sus О О Yap О О

Patla О О Susa О О Yat О О

Piş О О Tak О О Yaz О О

Sakla О О Tara О О Ye О О

Salla О О Taşı О О Yedir О О

Sallan О О Tut О О Yıka О О

Sarıl О О Uç О О Yıkan О О

Say О О Unut О О Yırt О О

Sev О О Uyan О О Yut О О

Seyret О О Üşü О О Yürü О О

Sil О О Ver О О Yüz О О

Sok О О Vur О О Zıpla О О

Soy О О Yak О О О О

15. TANIMLAMAYA YARDIMCI SÖZCÜKLER (30)

anla

r

anla

r ve

sö

yler

anla

r

anla

r ve

sö

yler

anla

r

anla

r ve

sö

yler

Acı (lezzet) О О Islak О О Kuru О О

Açık О О İyi О О Küçük О О

Boş О О Kapalı О О Mavi О О

Büyük О О Karanlık О О Sıcak О О

Çok О О Kırık О О Soğuk О О

Cici О О Kırmızı О О Pis О О

Çirkin О О Kirli О О Tatlı О О

Güzel О О Kocaman О О Temiz О О

Hasta О О Komik О О Yaramaz О О

Hızlı О О Kötü О О Yeni О О

86

16. ZAMANLA İLGİLİ SÖZCÜKLER (9)

anla

r

anla

r ve

sö

yler

anla

r

anla

r ve

sö

yler

anla

r

anla

r ve

sö

yler

Akşam О О Gece О О Sabah О О

Bugün О О Hemen О О Şimdi О О

Dün О О Öğlen О О Yarın О О

17. ZAMİRLER (14)

anla

r

anla

r ve

sö

yler

anla

r

anla

r ve

sö

yler

anla

r

anla

r ve

sö

yler

Bana О О Senin О О Sana О О

Ben О О Şu О О Herkes О О

Benim О О O О О Biri О О

Bu О О Ona О О Şey О О

Sen О О Onun О О О О

18. SORU SÖZCÜKLERİ (9)

anla

r

anla

r ve

sö

yler

anla

r

anla

r ve

sö

yler

an

lar

anla

r ve

sö

yler

Kim О О Neden О О Nereden О О

Nasıl О О Nereye О О Niçin О О

Ne О О Nerede О О Niye О О

19. YER BİLDİREN SÖZCÜKLER (13)

anla

r

anla

r ve

sö

yler

anla

r

anla

r ve

sö

yler

anla

r

anla

r ve

sö

yler

Altında О О

İçeride

О О

Şurada

О О

Arkasında О О İçinde О О Üstünde/Üzerinde

О О

Burada О О Orada О О Yanında

О О

Dışarıda О О Ortada О О О О

Dışında О О Önünde О О О О

87

20. BELİRLEYİCİ SÖZCÜKLER (10)

anla

r

anla

r ve

sö

yler

anla

r

anla

r ve

sö

yler

anla

r

anla

r ve

sö

yler

Aynı

О О

Daha /

bir daha О О

İşte

О О

Başka О О Hepsi О О Öbürü/öbürsü О О

Biraz О О Hiç О О Yine /Gene О О

Çok О О О О О О

88

BÖLÜM II. EYLEMLER VE JESTLER

A. İLK İLETİŞİM JESTLERİ Bebekler ilk iletişim kurmaya başladıklarında, isteklerinin anlaşılması için işaret kullanırlar. Çocuğunuzun bu günlerde yaptığı işaretleri tanımlayan maddenin yanındaki seçenekleri işaretleyin. (ANKETÖR OKUYACAKSA: “... işaretleri okuyacağım listeden hangileri tanımlıyor belirtmenizi istiyorum” )

Çocuğunuz: Henüz değil

Bazen Çoğu zaman

1. Elindeki bir şeyi size göstermek için elini size uzatır 0 0 0 2. Elinde tuttuğu bir nesneyi ya da oyuncağı uzatarak size verir 0 0 0 3. İlgisini çeken bir olaya veya ulaşamadığı bir nesneye parmağını ya da kolunu uzatarak işaret eder.

0 0 0

4. Birisi ayrılırken (kendiliğinden) el sallayarak güle güle işareti yapar

0 0 0

5. Kucağa alınmak istediğini belirten bir şekilde kollarını size doğru uzatır

0 0 0

6. “Hayır” anlamında başını iki yana sallar ya da kafasını yukarı kaldırır.

0 0 0

7. “Evet” anlamında başını öne eğer. 0 0 0 8. “Şıışşt /suss..” anlamında parmaklarını dudağına değdirir. 0 0 0 9. Elini açıp kapayarak veya kolunu uzatarak bir şey ister. 0 0 0 10. Uzaktan öpücük yollar. 0 0 0 11. Yediği bir şeyin tadının iyi olduğunu belirtmek için dudaklarıyla “hımmm… yapar.

0 0 0

12. “Bitti /gitti” anlamında uygun işaret kullanır (örn.boş avuçlarını gösterir, omuzlarını silker, vs..)

0 0 0

13. Kavanoz/ kutu kapağının açılması için ya da yapamadığı bir şey için (işaret ederek) yardım ister.

0 0 0

14. Tuvalet ihtiyacının giderilmesi için (işaret ederek/.bezini çekiştirerek) yardım ister

0 0 0

15. Sizin işaret ettiğiniz bir oyuncağa veya nesneye parmağınızı / kolunuzu izleyip bakar.

16. Kendine dikkat çekmek için annenin eteğini çeker/ ses çıkarır.

0 0 0

B. OYUNLAR VE RUTİNLER Çocuğunuz aşağıdakileri yapabiliyor mu?

EVET HAYIR

1. Cee /cöö oyununa katılır 0 0 2. Gıdı gıdı /geldi geldi kara kedi/ badi kara geliyor oyununa katılır

0 0

3. Tel sarar /sar makarayı-çöz makarayı oyununa katılır 0 0 4. Fış fış kayıkçı oyununa katılır 0 0 5. Kovalamaca oynar 0 0 6. Şarkı söyler 0 0 7. Dans eder 0 0 8. Annenin söylediği diğer oyunlara * (BELİRTİNİZ) katılır 0 0

89

C. NESNELERLE EYLEM GERÇEKLEŞTİRME Çocuğunuz gerçek nesneler veya oyuncaklarla aşağıdaki davranışları gerçekleştirir mi veya yapmaya çalışır mı?

EVET HAYIR

1. Kaşık veya çatalla yemek yer. 0 0 2. İçinde sıvı bulunan bir bardaktan içer. 0 0 3. Kendi saçını tarar veya fırçalar. 0 0 4. Dişlerini fırçalar. 0 0 5. Havluyla veya bir bezle elini, yüzünü siler. 0 0 6. Şapka giyer. 0 0 7. Çorap veya ayakkabı giyer. 0 0 8. Kolye, bilezik veya saat takar. 0 0 9. Kolunun üstüne başını koyup / gözünü kapatıp uyurmuş gibi yapar.

0 0

10. Yediği bir şey sıcaksa üfler/ üf yapar. 0 0 11. Oyuncak uçağı tutup uçurur. 0 0 12. Telefonu kulağına tutar. 0 0 13. Çiçek koklar. 0 0 14. Araba veya kamyon iter. 0 0 15. Karşıya top atar. 0 0 16. Bir kaseden /şişeden bir diğerine su döker gibi yapar. 0 0 17. Bardağın içinde su varmış gibi kaşıkla karıştırır. 0 0 D. ANNE-BABA GİBİ DAVRANMA Aşağıda çocuklarınızın bebekleriyle veya oyuncak hayvanlarla yapabildiği eylemler var. Çocuğunuzun yaptığını gördüklerinizi işaretleyin/söyleyin.

EVET HAYIR

1. Yatağa yatırır. 0 0 2. Üstünü örter. 0 0 3. Biberonla besler. 0 0 4. Kaşıkla yedirir. 0 0 5. Saçını tarar. 0 0 6. Sırtını sıvazlar veya gazını çıkartır. 0 0 7. Bebeği arabasıyla dolaştırır. 0 0 8. Bebeği sallar. 0 0 9. Öper veya kucaklar. 0 0 10. Başına şapka, ayağına çorap veya ayakkabı giydirir. 0 0 11. Yüzünü, ellerini siler. 0 0 12. Onunla konuşur. 0 0 13. Bezini bağlar. 0 0

90

E. YETİŞKİN DAVRANIŞLARINI TAKLİT ETME

Çocuğunuz gerçek nesne veya oyuncaklarıyla aşağıdaki hareketleri yapıyor mu veya yapmaya çalışıyor mu?

EVET HAYIR

1. Süpürgeyle süpürür. 0 0 2. Anahtarla kilitler. 0 0 3. Çekiçle çakar. 0 0 4. Testere ile keser. 0 0 5. Bilgisayar klavyesinde yazar. 0 0 6. “Okur” (kitabı veya sayfalarını açarak). 0 0 7. Elektrik süpürgesi ile süpürür. 0 0 8. Çiçekleri sular. 0 0 9. Müzik enstrümanı (aleti) çalar (piyano, gitar veya flüt gibi). 0 0 10. Direksiyonu döndürerek araba kullanır/sürer. 0 0 11. Bulaşık yıkar. 0 0 12. Toz alır. 0 0 13. Kalem veya tebeşirle yazar. 0 0 14. Kürekle kazar. 0 0 15. Gözlük takar. 0 0 16. Ruj sürer / makyaj yapar. F. YERİNE KULLANMA Oyun sırasında, çocuklar bazen bir nesnenin yerine bir diğerini kullanırlar. Örneğin, ayısını beslemek isteyen bir çocuk elindeki legoyu elma yerine kullanabilir, bebeği ile oynayan bir çocuk bir kaseyi şapka olarak kullanabilir. Siz çocuğunuzun bu tür değişimler yaptığını gördünüz mü?

0EVET 0HAYIR Yanıtınız evet ise, lütfen örnekleyiniz DİĞER EKLEMELER

111

CURRICULUM VITAE

Name: Emel UÇAR

Place and Date of Birth: Adana- 17 November 1983

E-mail: ucaremel@hotmail.com

Educational Background

2008 (MA) Çukurova University Institute of Social Sciences

English Language Teaching Department

1999-2003 (BA) Çukurova University Faculty of Education

English Language Teaching Department

1996-1999 Adana Kız Lisesi

Experience

2008-… Yüreğir Lisesi- Adana (English Teacher)

2005-2008 Merkez 19 Mayıs Lisesi-Osmaniye (English Teacher)

2003-2005 Toprakkale Lisesi-Osmaniye (English Teacher)

2002-2003 Adana Ticaret Odası Anadolu Lisesi-Adana (Student

Teacher)