Language acquisition in a German DLD child
-
Dagmar Bittner
Abstract
As shown in Jordens (this volume), Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) in children learning their mother tongue leads to ‘a significant delay’ (Leonard 2014) in language acquisition. The present study is a case study of Bastian, a DLD child learning German as his mother tongue. As with typically developing (TD) children, language development with Bastian is a two-stage process. At the initial, lexical stage, Bastian’s language system is based on two types of utterance structure, i.e. utterances with an agent in initial position referring to situations that are under control and utterances with a theme in initial position referring to situations that happen to occur. As with TD children, at some point Bastian is going to give up this initial, lexical system in favour of a targetlike, functional system. However, compared to TD children, language development with Bastian is subject to a delay of about 2 years. Given that language disorder in Bastian is not a particular linguistic deficit, it seems that Bastian has problems with the use of the linguistic features that serve to establish contextual cohesion. It is argued that this is caused by an underdeveloped working memory which prevents him from dealing with the relevant computational demands. Nevertheless, Bastian is cognitively more mature than younger TD children who have reached the same level of language development. So, it is claimed that it is this cognitive ability that allows Bastian, while he is still at the lexical stage, to accommodate the linguistic features of the target language such that they meet the constraints of a limited working memory.
Abstract
As shown in Jordens (this volume), Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) in children learning their mother tongue leads to ‘a significant delay’ (Leonard 2014) in language acquisition. The present study is a case study of Bastian, a DLD child learning German as his mother tongue. As with typically developing (TD) children, language development with Bastian is a two-stage process. At the initial, lexical stage, Bastian’s language system is based on two types of utterance structure, i.e. utterances with an agent in initial position referring to situations that are under control and utterances with a theme in initial position referring to situations that happen to occur. As with TD children, at some point Bastian is going to give up this initial, lexical system in favour of a targetlike, functional system. However, compared to TD children, language development with Bastian is subject to a delay of about 2 years. Given that language disorder in Bastian is not a particular linguistic deficit, it seems that Bastian has problems with the use of the linguistic features that serve to establish contextual cohesion. It is argued that this is caused by an underdeveloped working memory which prevents him from dealing with the relevant computational demands. Nevertheless, Bastian is cognitively more mature than younger TD children who have reached the same level of language development. So, it is claimed that it is this cognitive ability that allows Bastian, while he is still at the lexical stage, to accommodate the linguistic features of the target language such that they meet the constraints of a limited working memory.
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Preface V
- Acknowledgements XI
- Contents XIII
- Developing language. Driving forces in children learning Dutch and German 1
- Developmental language disorder and the functional category system 55
- Language acquisition in a German DLD child 89
- Testing the extended optional infinitive hypothesis in a German child with DLD 137
- The acquisition of finiteness in auch- and aber-clauses in DLD. A case study 165
- Index 211
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Preface V
- Acknowledgements XI
- Contents XIII
- Developing language. Driving forces in children learning Dutch and German 1
- Developmental language disorder and the functional category system 55
- Language acquisition in a German DLD child 89
- Testing the extended optional infinitive hypothesis in a German child with DLD 137
- The acquisition of finiteness in auch- and aber-clauses in DLD. A case study 165
- Index 211
