Othello Essays - Othello, Michael Cassio, Iago, Emilia, Roderigo

Othello Dustin Mills English 102 Dr. Elisabeth Sachs Othello Essay Honest Iago One of the most interesting and exotic characters in the tragic play Othello, by William Shakespeare, is honest Iago. At first Iago seems to be motiveless. However, the motivation behind his actions lie more in Iago's quest for personal gain, as opposed to just being evil for evil's sake. Iago's greediness can be validated by examining his manipulation of Roderigo, Cassio, and most importantly, Othello. Iago's main interest is the destruction of Othello. The reason being that Othello has chosen another man, Cassio, as his second-in-command, preferring him to Iago. This resentment, accompanied by Iago's accusations of adultery and his blatant racism, cause Iago to despise the kindly moor. Because Iago is much too smart to immediately kill Othello, he proceeds with the arduous process of dismantling him emotionally. Iago also knows he must distance himself from any part of this, so he cleverly gets someone to do his dirty work. The first to fall victim to Iago's manipulation is half-witted Roderigo. Iago knows Roderigo is consumed by lust for Desdemona, and would do what it takes to make her his own. Iago tells Roderigo that the only way to win Desdemona's love is to make money to procure gifts for her. Put money in thy purse?(act I scene 3 line 339). However Iago is just taking those gifts intended for Desdemona and keeping them for himself, and making a profit. Roderigo eventually starts to question Iago's honesty. When faced with the accusations, Iago simply offers that the killing of Cassio will aid in his cause and Roderigo falls for it. In doing this, Iago keeps Roderigo in the dark and continues to profit from him monetarily. Roderigo is also used as a device in both Cassio and Othello's downfall. Iago's actions demonstrate his monetary and power based motivations, invalidating the claim that Iago is evil for evil's sake. Cassio like Roderigo follows Iago blindly, thinking the whole time that Iago is trying to aid him, when in fact Iago, motivated by his lust for power, is attempting to remove Cassio of his position as lieutenant. With Roderigo's help Iago causes Cassio to forfeit his position as Othello's second-in-command. Cassio is also used to bring out the monster inside of Othello. In Iago's exploitation of Cassio, it is clear to see that, although evil in his deeds, Iago is strictly motivated by his hunger for power. As mentioned earlier, Iago's main intention lies in the degradation of Othello. Iago feels that he was best suited to hold the position of lieutenant, as opposed to Michael Cassio. From this Iago manufactures accusations of adultery, claiming that Othello has slept with his wife, Emilia. ?Twixt my sheets/ he's done my office.(Act I scene 3 line 380) These accusations are merely excuses to validate his own pleasant acts and greed, and should be seen as nothing more. Again it's plain to see that, in Iago's deception of Othello he is motivated by his jealousy and subsequent bitterness. In conclusion, it's evident that Iago is evil for greed's sake, as opposed to evil for evil's sake. His craving can be seen in his clever manipulation of Roderigo, Cassio, and Othello. He uses Roderigo for his own financial benefit, as well as support his master plan; the destruction of Othello. Cassio was unfortunate enough to be chosen ahead of Iago as Othello's second-in-command, and was reduced to a deteriorated state by Iago because of it. Lastly, driven by his bitterness towards Othello for choosing Cassio over him, Iago takes it upon himself to ensure Othello's demise. Iago is an extremely complex character, and far from ordinary. His complexity and uniqueness makes him one of Shakespeare's greatest villains.

Marine Corp 14 Leadership Traits Essay Example

Marine Corp 14 Leadership Traits Essay Example Marine Corp 14 Leadership Traits Essay Marine Corp 14 Leadership Traits Essay I believe the LT judgment is the ability to weigh the starting, midway, and outcome of any decision and decide which would be best for his junior marines, which way would be able to incorporate the strength of his marines, be open for other suggestions too because there are so many angles that a situation can be looked at and you might miss something when someone might see it, and most of all be able to carry out the mission the most successful way possible. Next is justice, I believe that justice is a good thing to have when it’s not corrupt. Justice is being fair to all is someone messes up they must be held accountable for what they did, and hopefully learn from that mistake and not make it again. No matter the rank, billet, or relationship everyone should be treated the same. After that would be dependability. This is pretty clean cut, if you don’t have a dependable leader how are you supposed to trust him and how is he or she supposed to believe that the marines will follow them into combat and give them their 100% best? You can’t, yeah they might follow orders but they will half ass it and that’s how people get hurt and get killed. Next would be initiative, the drive to do the unsaid orders. Doing what should be done. It’s usually best when it’s done with good judgment. Good initiative and good judgment are the way to success. Next would be decisiveness, a good leader should be able to choose the path that they want for the correct course of action and stick with it. Following that would be tack. Tack is a good way to show that you are mature and know when it’s time for fooling around and when to be serious and how to get your point across with the proper wording and respect. After that would be integrity. Something that I hold dear to myself, I’ve been wronged plenty of times in the past because someone had a lack of integrity this is a big topic for me, if you loss all integrity with me then it’s hard to get it back. I try my best to be honest and keep my integrity no matter the consequence because as we know bad news does not age well with time, it gets worse. Enthusiasm is a great thing as well, no matter how hard things get if you have enthusiasm and a positive attitude you can pretty much over come anything that is thrown at you, and it’s also contagious even if you have to fake it, it will bring up the moral of your arines and they will in turn motivate you so it no longer is a fake motivation it’s a reality. Baring is important in ways. I don’t really have much to say on it because there isn’t much to it and I personally think it’s not something that is dire to have 100% down pat I guess. I mean yes it’s good to be able to have when the time comes but I guess I don’t find it that important. Next would be unselfishness. It’s a great this when you have junior marines, it shows them that you care about them and that you are willing to bend over backwards for them in they are in need. It makes it easy on the junior marines to approach their leader when they should. Courage is a also a great thing to have its like I said in enthusiasm if you show courage to stand up for what is right and what should be done other will follow and you will make a good name for yourself rather than your name be dragged through the dirt for the not so courageous actions. Knowledge is always a good thing to have for any marine not just leaders; knowledge is the strongest weapon and the most reliable. After that is loyalty. Loyalty to the Corp and your marines shows great leadership skills showing that you won’t leave a marine behind. If you are loyal to your marines they will be loyal to you in turn. Finally there is endurance. The drive to never quit, never stop, to keep going and overcome all odds. Everyone can learn and gain from having improved endurance. Those are what a leader is to me and what I believe a good leader has, obviously they can’t have them all and they will have them in their own way which also would work. There are many ways you can approach this and still be a great leader and maybe not have all of them. Every leader is different. But all in all this is what I would like to be when I grow in the ranks I want to be there for my marines, I want them to be able to come to me with their problems and I’ll do my best to help them in their problems and set their mind at ease with so they can focus on the mission at hand which should be the goal of all leaders. This is what I hope to achieve and be able to grow in this way to better myself and the marines below me.

Principles and trends in curriculum development Essay

Principles and trends in curriculum development - Essay Example Children naturally express such creativity in their natural communication. Their communications may be expressed in various forms or â€Å"languages†Ã¢â‚¬â€œ in words, drawing, artwork, three-dimensional constructions, music and movement. Young children do not express their ideas in just one form but move naturally and easily between â€Å"languages†. They may vacillate from drawing, speaking, singing and moving (Fawcett & Hay, 2004). A more holistic perspective of learning that likewise entails creativity development is now being supported by many educators, as it threads segregated learning into a more integrated one. Littledyke (2008) has defined integrated curriculum as such: Integrated curriculum thus refers to the use of several different strategies across several different domains and encompassing project and process approaches for holistic learning and development designed to support meaningful learning for children† (pp. 21-22). Curriculum integration hel ps students recognize connections between curriculum areas. These connections are essential to the brain in order to learn effectively. Integration changes the emphasis from the instruction of discrete academic subjects to activities that promote learning through real-life tasks. It blends academic disciplines into integrated topic studies which support creative thinking and problem solving, as opposed to rote memorization and teacher-directed instruction of isolated skills and bits of information (Krogh, 1995). An integrated curriculum consists of a number of strategies that can be applied to deepen meaningfulness and support conceptual development (Bredekamp and Rosegrant, 1992). The initiative to integrate curriculum began when John Dewey (1938) proposed that curriculum be linked to real-life experiences and organized around activities that interest and engage children actively. Dewey asserted that children’s interests naturally progress into appropriate learning activitie s and extend to various areas of study. As implied by the guidelines for appropriate curriculum, the concept of integration can also be attributed to the integrated nature of development; that is, development in the different domains does not occur in isolation; rather they influence one another (Bredekamp and Rosegrant, 1992). An integrated curriculum allows the young child to perceive the world around him more clearly. Furthermore, it provides opportunities for in-depth exploration of a topic and learning that has a thorough coverage; more choices and therefore more motivation to learn and greater satisfaction with the results; more active learning; an opportunity for the teacher to learn along with the children and model lifelong learning; and a more efficient use of student and teacher time (Brewer, 2001). For the teacher, an integrated curriculum is a good planning device that offers much flexibility. If the children lean toward another way other than what the teacher had expec ted, the integrated curriculum quickly guides her as to how to integrate it to a related concept so the flow of learning is not disrupted. At one glance, the integrated curriculum shows the coverage of what the children learn in school. It advocates natural learning, as it follows children’s interests and not impose the concepts that they need to learn. It follows that the skills they learn become meaningful to them, as it sprouts from their own interests. It also gets to touch on

Two Types of Groups in Society Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Two Types of Groups in Society - Essay Example The people that I work with have been participating in the volunteer group since its inception. The second primary group I belong too is the card playing group. Typically such a group would be considered a secondary group, but in my case, it is a primary group because all the members of the group are immediate or extended family members. We meet every Saturday from 6:00 P.M to midnight to play cards while enjoying a home cook meal and a few drinks. These two primary groups are very important to me because they help me engage in social activities that I value. The primary groups provide me with moral support. I usually discuss my problems with my church buddies and with my family member during our meetings. Both groups are important for me and I value their existence. Secondary groups also serve a social purpose in life. The main difference between the primary and secondary group is that the person that compose the group are acquaintances or people we know such as co-workers. Also, these types of groups seem to be temporary. A secondary group I currently belong too is a team that formulated in school to complete a classroom project. The members of the group are fellow students who I just recently met. My behavior and the behavior of the other members of the group are impersonal. Our objective is to complete the classroom project on time and to get the best grade possible with the minimum requirement being that we obtain a passing grade. A second secondary group I belong to with a subgroup within my Facebook account. There are many secondary groups that a person can enter when they sign up for a social network. After the Haiti earthquake joined a secondary Facebook group called â€Å"Help for Haiti†.  

Police and Legitimacy Law Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Police and Legitimacy Law - Essay Example Therefore, for effective governing, an institution has to acquire political legitimacy as this is necessary to prevent the collapse of the government due to various legal setbacks that governs the state. However, there are some political systems that survive despite illegitimately acquiring power. This institution usually seeks the support of individuals who hold influential positions in the society and thereby considering such systems as legitimate despite opposition from the wider mass. Locke further argues that legitimacy comes from the popular consent of the people and without it, any institution formed and operating is illegitimate. Dolf Stanberger defines legitimacy as a foundation of an existence of governmental power with the knowledge of officials of government that they have a right to govern for the benefits of the people (Alderson, 1979). An author by the name of Seymour Martins disagrees with the definitions of Locke and Stanberger on legitimacy. He argues that legitimac y involves a belief by the ruling class that the practiced system of governance is the best and he does not involve the masses as in his definition (Blumberg, 1983). Legitimacy encompasses morality and scholars of moral philosophy define it as the normative position given to the government and other institutions operating in the country by the masses on the acceptance that they use their authority in accordance to the law. Scholars of law distinguish legitimacy from legality. They argue that a government can be legitimate in its composition but they actions can be illegal, for example implementing a budget without parliament’s approval. The police is an organ of the government and its main function is to maintain law and order. In conducting their operations there are always aspects of legitimacy in question. Are they acting within the law or are they violating the same law they are supposed to implement. This paper seeks to analyze legitimacy in the contest of a specific pol ice function. The police function identified is maintenance of law and order in England and Wales (Miyazawa, 1995). In talking about this role, it will highlight its different aspects and how it defines the concept of legitimacy in England and wales. The questions that this paper seeks to answer are two fold, What is legitimacy? How does the police role of maintaining law and order define the concepts of legitimacy in England and Wales? This paper has a concluder which basis its analysis from the research done and it explains other concepts of legitimacy. The main role of the police force is to maintain law and order and in order to function appropriately; the police need public help and support and it’s of great use to them when such support is voluntary and sincere. Such voluntary support from the public comes from the notion of legitimacy. The society has to acknowledge the roles of the police as outlined by the laws governing the state and if police action contravenes the se laws, they will lose legitimacy and therefore getting cooperation from the people becomes difficult. One of the main reasons as to why people agree to cooperate with the police is because they enjoy legal recognition and therefore people view them as a legitimate authority to be obeyed. The public are also concerned with the manner in which the police execute their functions and from their conclusions

If We Were Superheroes Philosophy Essay

If We Were Superheroes Philosophy Essay I always grew up looking up to superheroes, I loved super heroes. They saved the world more than once and always had a solution for a problem, but what they never do is give up, something that we as teenagers and adults still havent learned. Just imagine, what Saturday mornings would look like if our superheroes gave up? Someone would say LOOK! A HUGE asteroid the size of TEXAS is hurling toward Earth! Help us Superman and he would say I seem to be having a difficulty day-you see global warming has caused the hole in the ozone to release kryptonite and I am just not up to it! Nowadays if we encounter any problem that we feel we cannot endure, our 1st option is to give up and quit. Author Johnny James said, in his book Never Give UP à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦We must have a strong determination to persevere unto the end. The race is not to the swift all the time, nor is the battle to the strong. When it seems as though there is no need in even trying again, this is the time that we should never g ive up. In order for us not to quit we must first look at why we quit, some asteroids that do come our way and some super spidey solutions to help ourselves from making this decision. As a freshman, high school was going to be very different. New people, new school, and new challenges to face, being called a fish, bullied and the list goes on and on but I was unaware of the circumstances where my only option given, was to quit. I clearly remember close friends of mines telling me that I wouldnt be able to do well in debate. My first response was very rude including a couple of colorful words that could easily get me disqualified. Yet, I realized that the answer was not to quit, but to try even harder and try to accept that there is room, room for improvement. Quitting would only stop me from growing. So, I tried harder and did improve tremendously, and I had a great year. Even though Im nowhere near the best, I smelled a sense of accomplishment in the air and thought to ponder, why do people give up? The answer was pretty simple. The reason why we quit is simply because of the fact that we think we are unable to survive the circumstances ahead of us, but the stren gth to fight is inside of us. We just refuse to unleash the beast and let the green hulk take over. Instead, we sit there like people who have nothing better to do than to eat in front of their televisions and decide that the rest of the world doesnt exist. As Frank Lloyd Wright had once said I know the price of success: dedication, hard work, and an unremitting devotion to the things you want to see happen. The 2nd riches man in the 1900s once said, It is easy to dodge our responsibilities, but we cannot dodge the consequences of dodging our responsibilities. Superheros have taken their responsibility and fulfilled it to its fullest extent. However we choose to dodge our efforts and decide to stop trying. Walt- Disney was turned down 302 times before actually being financed, and look at the success that Walt Disney has reached today! One of the greatest men in history, Albert Einstein didnt do great at first either. Albert Einstein did not speak until he was four years old and didnt read until he was seven. His teacher described him as mentally slow, unsociable and adrift forever in his foolish dreams. He was expelled and refused admittance to Zurich Polytechnic School. The University of Bern turned down his Ph.D. dissertation as being irrelevant and fanciful. Imagine what would have happened if he did give up? You must believe in yourself-even if all those around you doubt you and in your ability to rise from within the insanity in which your life now finds itself and to stand tall against the obstacles and challenges within your life-and you will conquer all that you believe cannot be conquered and all that which you believed you had lost within your life. When we give up, we are a failure. Giving up on everything you have is going to leave you with nothing at all. In the same book I mentioned before; Author Johnny James stated once again, Those who give up in the race are never rewarded because quitters are never rewarded for quitting. Like the superheroes had a solution for every problem, there are some super spidey things we can do not to quit and truly achieve. Author Christine McGogy, in her aricle6 ways to never give up, gives us six step-by-step instructions, on how to not give up. The first thing to do, is keep an open mind, when you keep an open mind, you allow yourself to be open to more ideas, Once you say, I quit you basically are closing off your mind from any more ways to getting closer to your end result and having any breakthroughs. The 2nd step is trials and errors, you have to remember that you made an effort and tried, if you didnt like your result, you should try to change your actions, to get a better result. The 3rd thing to do is to is to realize that the questions, are the answer, When you run out of ideas its time to start asking [yourself] question Questions such as what can I do differently or what else can I do to improve myself. For extra effectiveness, try writing the question(s) down. Ask yourself the questions before you go to sleep at night and often times the answers will come the next day as your brain had time to think about it while you were sleeping! the 4th step is Guidance, Who can help you? Is there somebody that has already achieved the same goal? Find them and ask them what they did to get there. Asking doesnt cost anything. And guess what, chances are these people werent always doing great at first. The difference is that they kept going however small the action seemed at the time. Once you have the determination to persist until you get what you want, you will become more confident in yourself as well. She also reminds us that according to the 5th step, to make sure we arent making up excuses to stop ourselves from making this decision. And last, but not least, Picture it! In order for your goal to actually be a reality, can force you to zoom past your comfort zone, but keep focusing on the benefit of your goal to push yourself further along. Take a minute whenever you feel overwhelmed and DREAM about your goal! I have personally thought about quitting speech and debate because of many reasons, but when I sit back and think about my dreams, it just encourages me to try even harder. Walt Disney always said, If you can dream it, you can do it! Problems come and go in life but we, like the superheroes, should face our problems and find a solution no matter how big the problem is. By giving up we dont unleash the beast within, instead we unleash the wimp within. We hide and runaway-thinking things will be better, but they always end up following us, wherever we go. Superheroes are the coolest, smartest, and most wise people you can ever find. Despite them not being real, they give us real guidance. They do the most extraordinary things and teach us great lessons, some ranging from believing in you to never quitting. I encourage you to always keep an open mind and never give up There are a million reasons for you to quit, but if you can find one reason not to quit, dont make the decision. Some asteroids will come our way, but they wont destroy my Saturday morning, in stead my Saturday morning will be about my dream, my hopes, and ultimately my will, my will to never give up; even in the hardest of times.

Nowadays :: Business and Management Studies

Nowadays Nowadays, analysing competition is crucial for managers in order to understand the environment in which the business evolves, its competitors (their goals, plans etc) as well as implement strategies and position their companies. They can use a wide variety of techniques, each having its strengths and weaknesses. According to Prescott and Grant (1988), to select the appropriate techniques, managers have to know the different techniques available, how they are related to each other, the focus and scope of the area and the constraints limiting the extent of analysis. To analyse competition efficiently, they have to combine some of the different techniques available as they all have a specific aim. However, there are limitations that managers have to take into consideration in order to provide a clear and effective work. This essay outlines and evaluates the main weaknesses when understanding the business environment. They vary by nature. They can come from the interpretation of the managers and from the models themselves. However, they are in relation to each other, one flaw leading to another one. When analysing competition, the starting point is to precisely define the industry the firm belongs to and its boundaries. Managers may focus on the market of their company, narrowing their definition of the industry. They then forget or less consider other segments that can change quickly and have impact on the whole industry. According to Zahra and Chaples( 1993) â€Å"an effective definition of industry boundaries requires consideration of four interrelated issues: domain (where does the industry begin and end), customer group (sector to be served and their specific needs), customer functions (customer need and specific patterns) and critical technology (production, marketing and administrative system)†. Each point enables to define the competition more and more precisely. In addition to these issues, managers have to take time into consideration. Reviewing their business’ definition, the shape of the industry and the market over the time is crucial as industries change. Prahalad (1995) states that â€Å"many industries are undergoing massive transformation. Deregulation, global excess capacity, global competition, mergers and acquisitions, changing customer expectations, technological discontinuities [†¦] are changing industries, creating new industries and opening up new and large growth markets for existing businesses.† For instance, chemical companies enter the pharmaceutical industry by making alliances with young biotechnology companies, not considered as a threat by the pharmaceutical companies. This change in the industry led the pharmaceutical companies to redefine the industry and its boundaries as well as their strategy. Managers need to be vigilant in identifying its competitors. A poor identification leads to a wrong positioning and a possible long time response to the different actions coming from those undetected rivals. This identification is dependent on the managers’ perceptions and how

The Impact of Local Television in Today’s Society

Local Television in Today's Society Since the early 1940's, it has been clearly evident that television has played a crucial role in the way people receive and perceive news media on a day to day basis. According to State of the News Media, viewership and ratings have drastically changed over the years and as of 2012, it is suggested that it is in large part due to the pressing and irreversible shift towards social media.Now our country not only relies on our friendly local newscasters to fill us in on the weather or breaking news irst thing in the morning, but also on the latest KRQE tweet on Twitter or status update on Facebook. Our world is turning digital and as hard as many may try to stop it, there is no denying that a future in news will rely heavily on the efficiency and effectiveness of social media. So where does this leave our local television stations and ultimately, how will this digital frenzy effect their overall viewership, ratings and longevity?This is the prominent concern in our local news media world today and a question that must be discussed and actively researched to ensure the future of local elevision news. Throughout the course of this semester, the students in this Media Management course have had the opportunity to pick the brains of various news anchors, producers, directors, and Journalists to question and investigate this shift from both print media and local television, to our growing reliance on internet and various social networking sites.Each of our guests was forced to explore the same question: In a time of slipping credibility and growing opinion, how do you succeed in the digital era while maintaining values and traditions of great Journalism that rought us here in the first place? With no surprise, each speaker responded with a similar statement. The gist being that as a society, we must, as a whole, focus on seeking the truth behind any story. We must provide valid, reliable and timely information that pertains and relat es to the lives of every member in our community and remain a trustworthy source of news for years to come.We must place precedence on social responsibility. Seems a lot easier said than done considering there has been a noticeable decline in local TV news viewership since 2007. And lthough there was a slight increase in 2011, the mostly steady decline has been cause for great concern in the news world. While reading the substantial amount of information that State of the News Media provided on this issue, it was apparent that network and local stations alike are predominantly losing viewers (or in some rare cases reaching a time of stabilization) in both primetime television spots as well as in nontraditional time slots.The research suggests that although there is the occasional increase in viewers during times of national or worldwide distress, there is indeed a uantitative measure proving simply a sta bilization ot local news audiences in specific time slots (no increase) versus the drastic decline that was evident beginning in 2007. However, this ‘improvement' was not substantial enough to propose that local TV news has entered a period of new audience growth. According to SNM, â€Å"viewership of network affiliates was up for newscasts in both the morning (5 to 7 a. m. ) and late evening (11 p. m. when averaged across all sweeps periods studied. In the early evening time slot (5 to 7 p. m. , viewership was down slightly. † Delving a little deeper into the sweeps periods offered a clue to at least one reason behind the improvement – there has been higher interest in the news (for example the coverage of the chaos, rebellion, and distress surrounding Egypt and Libya earlier in the year or the 2012 Presidential election. ) But breaking news or continuous coverage of a significant event may not always dominate the airwaves considering there are times when news is slow and not as easily accessible.At that point reporters must rely on heir o wn investigative skills and creative thinking to find their own stories to dissect and examine. These facts were reiterated by a large number of our guest speakers in class including Alex Tomlin, Bill Anderson, Doug Fernandez and Jessica Garrate. They all made it a clear point to discuss the importance of understanding the average news consumers' daily routine, the most critical time of day that any one individual can be reached and what it is that truly attracts a news consumer to a particular station. That is the indeed the key to success for any local station.Understand the consumer and their wants and needs, take initiative on finding imperative stories regarding our community, and consistently provide viewers with the most up to date and relevant news possible while maintaining a good reputation by being credible, reliable and original. In todays news world, this in many instances means Jumping on that social media bandwagon and making the decision to provide consumers with pla y by plays via the internet. â€Å"Almost every station in the country now has a Facebook page, according to the annual RTDNA/Hofstra survey, and almost 90% have t least one Twitter feed. (SNM, 2012) This move to digital news has proven to be in some cases effective, and in others somewhat irrelevant to the success of local stations (or newspapers) as mentioned by Bill Anderson, general manager of KRQE, and Dan Mayfield, Sr. writer for NM Business Weekly. However, although results of viewer increase due to social media is not definitive; it has great potential to become a positive influence for any news team because social media can encourage consumers to sample any station's newscast.And once that seed has been planted, it becomes the responsibility of the news team to deliver a quality show that maintains that viewers' interest. Alex Tomlin, news reporter and correspondent for KRQE, discussed in great detail the value of delivering hard and entertaining news, without focusing on the trend of social media. She mentioned briefly how a reliance on networking sites is viewed in the news world as a method of being lazy and therefore unreliable because it is difficult to attribute any fact to the alleged statements being made.

Do fathers use the same features of child-language as mothers and how does parental usage of CDS compare The WritePass Journal

Do fathers use the same features of child-language as mothers and how does parental usage of CDS compare Do fathers use the same features of child-language as mothers and how does parental usage of CDS compare CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION1.1 TOPIC AREA1.2 FOCUS OF STUDY1.3 RESEARCH QUESTION1.4 STRUCTURE OF STUDYCHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW2.1 FIRST STUDY IN THE FIELD 2.2 – DIFFERENTIAL EXPERIENCE HYPOTHESIS2.3 – FINE-TUNING HYPOTHESIS 2.4 – TOTAL LANGUAGE PRODUCED 2.5 – STRUCTURAL AND LEXICAL ASPECTS2.6 – FUNCTIONAL AND CONVERSATIONAL ASPECTS2.7 – SUMMARY AND RESEARCH QUESTIONSCHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY  3.1 – PILOT STUDY3.2 – THE SUBJECTS3.3 – DATA COLLECTION3.4 – DATA TRANSCRIPTION3.5 VARIABLESCHAPTER 4: RESULTS4.1 – THE AMOUNT OF PARENTAL SPEECH4.2 COMPLEXITY 4.3 – THE FUNCTIONS OF PARENTAL SPEECH Related CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 TOPIC AREA Child-directed speech (CDS) has been central to research ever since Noam Chomsky declared it to be a ‘degenerate’, ‘deficient’, ‘impoverished’ form, (Fletcher MacWhinney, 1995) stating children could not learn the rules of a language by hearing such complex input. Other studies have shown that adult input is by no means as complex as Chomskyan theories had assumed. Such studies have observed that adult-child interaction is somewhat different from adult-adult interaction, giving rise to the finding that adults generally adapt their speech when talking to children, which is termed ‘CDS’ or ‘motherese’ as it is otherwise known. Some common features have been attributed to this unique speech register. These features are said to include shorter sentences, clearly segmented slower speech, phonologically simplified utterances, restricted vocabulary, exaggerated prosody, repetitions and expansions. The language used is said to be constrained to ‘the here and now’ and related to the child’s focus of attention and ongoing activity (Harley, 2008), which all in all result in effective communication between parents and their children and also contribute to the speed and ease of a child’s language acquisition (Snow 1972). 1.2 FOCUS OF STUDY As child-directed speech is often termed ‘motherese’ it gives a misleading impression that fathers have a negligible impact upon child language development. Hence, why the verbal environment provided by the father has been largely ignored until recent years. However, the ever-changing family roles and changes in typical male-female stereotypes in western society have influenced a change in the nature of parenting, which has given rise to the introduction of research into paternal input to children. The late twentieth century has seen an increase in fathers adopting the primary caregiver role, which has led to the popularity of ‘stay-at-home dads’. While tending to the immediate needs of children was traditionally considered to be a female responsibility, nowadays that is not the case as it is becoming increasingly popular for mothers to be in employment. Therefore, a number of studies since the 1970’s have discovered fathers as well as mothers produce the typical modifications of CDS in their speech to children, hence the suggestion that males provide an equally large facilitation to child language development as females (Berko-Gleason 1975). The scope of the literature in this area is somewhat limited, however research has indicated that the most important features of CDS are maintained by paternal input; simplicity, well-formedness, repetition and immediacy, (Berko-Gleason 1975) which has given rise to the newly-coined term ‘fatherese’. Nevertheless, there is an inconsistency in the findings of the studies in this domain. 1.3 RESEARCH QUESTION The research question central to this dissertation is do fathers use the same features of child-language as mothers and how does parental usage of CDS compare. The focus will consider the parental input to two language-learning siblings, at different stages of language development. 1.4 STRUCTURE OF STUDY Following this introduction, a literature review addresses the findings of numerous existing studies in the field of gender-specific child-directed speech. The methodology section explains how this investigation was carried out, including a description of the subjects observed, the methods of data capture, transcription and the variables used for analysis, followed by a description of the results gathered in the investigation and a discussion of the findings and problems encountered throughout the study.   To conclude the investigation, the outcome of the study will be related back to the review of literature in order to address how the findings fit in with what is already known in the field of gender-specific CDS. CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 FIRST STUDY IN THE FIELD The research of Jean Berko-Gleason (1975) was the first in the area of CDS to consider a paternal contribution. She conducted a study to determine whether the defined features of CDS were limited to the speech of mothers or if they could be characterised as a function of adult language to children. Before the conduction of the study it was of question whether there was such a thing as men’s speech to children at all, as a previous study made a bizarre statement that men only spend an average of 37.7 seconds per day engaged in speech interaction with their children (Berko-Gleason 1975). Berko-Gleason overruled this finding stating fathers do talk to their children, but her research was not solely orientated around paternal input. She discussed unpublished studies into the speech of mothers and fathers in interactions in their home settings and also reported upon studies of interactions in a day-care setting, exploring more broadly the speech of ‘non-mothers’. When addressing children in a home setting, the research indicated that there are some similarities in the speech styles of male and female adults, but it also asserts that differences arise due to the father’s role. It was asserted that fathers perform many of the characteristics attributed to â€Å"motherese† such as restraining their speech to the ‘hear and now’, and considerably simplifying the length of their speech, as fathers were found to use a similar mean length of utterance (MLU) to mothers. However, it is asserted that mothers are more sensitive to their child’s ages in families of more than one child, stating they directed less complex utterances to their younger children and more complex utterances to the older of the siblings (Berko-Gleason 1975). An instance where a father addressed the younger of his children with a more complex utterance is mentioned, suggesting a lack of sensitivity on paternal behalf. The study concerned also distingu ished between the types of sentences used by each of the parents, generalising in a qualitative sense that fathers use more direct imperatives and produced more threats as well as rarer vocabulary. This more frequent use of rare vocabulary could also suggestively contribute to the judgement that fathers are less sensitive than mothers. The research gathered in the interactions of day-care teachers further supported the findings regarding sensitivity, as the data observed an unexpected lexical usage by a male teacher towards a three year old. This suggests that weaker sensitivity is characteristic of ‘male’ language towards children as appose to the more constricted ‘father’ language. Berko-Gleason asserts that even though â€Å"fathers are not as well tuned-in to their children as mothers are in the traditional family situation: they do not have to learn to attend to subtle signals from the child, and frequently have no penalty to pay for any lack of atten tionthere are probably serious and far-reaching effects that result from the fact† (1975; 293). She also examined a study of gender-specific CDS in a storytelling situation, in which fathers were said to concentrate on the activity of telling a story rather than using the story to facilitate interaction with the child, which was characteristic behaviour of mothers. The mothers in this study were reported to ask a lot of questions to ensure their child fully understood the activity. Berko-Gleason maintained that â€Å"the children had to exert themselves more for the fathers, and try harder to make themselves both heard and understood. In this way, fathers can be seen as a bridge to the outside world, leading the child to change his or her language in order to be understood† (1975; 293). This gave rise to the ‘Bridge Hypothesis’ proposed by Berko-Gleason; (Dato 1975; 294) maintaining that speaking to fathers who are less sensitive than mothers in terms of la nguage use, provides children with the linguistic skills required for talking to strangers and people in more abstract contexts. Contextually speaking, Berko-Gleason notes that â€Å"the fathers’ language clearly demarked their role within a family: a father playing with his small son might break off the game to send the child to his mother to have his diaper changed† (Dato 1975: 291). 2.2 – DIFFERENTIAL EXPERIENCE HYPOTHESIS Similar to the Bridge Hypothesis in terms of sensitivity is what is known as the ‘Differential Experience Hypothesis’, (McLaughlin, White, McDevitt Raskin 1983, Lewis Gregory 1987) which is theorised on the basis of findings that mothers provide more linguistic support for their children due to the fact they are more attuned to the child’s needs and abilities. Fathers, on the other hand, are seen to be less sensitive to children’s’ capabilities, which sees them being more linguistically demanding than mothers. This hypothesis maintains that fathers instigate a greater performance from children due to their lack of sensitivity. However it does not insinuate that fathers are better language facilitators than mothers, on the contrary, that the functions of each of the speech styles give equal contributions to child language development, in the sense that they offer experiences of a differing nature. In sum of the above hypotheses, mothers and fathers are suggested to engage in different kinds of interactions with their children. It is not to be believed that one of these speech styles is in any way superior to the other, they are viewed in a complementary manner to one another and interpreted to manifest and reflect each of the parental roles (Chanu Marcos 1994). â€Å"The mother’s specific role is to provide a feeling of security by avoiding situations where the child’s established acquisitions would be challenged, while still stimulating the child. The father’s specific role is to prompt the child to attain higher levels of success, even if it means momentarily destabilising the child† (Chanu Marcos 1994; 3). Due to these observed differences in parental speech behaviour in terms of CDS, the communicative behaviour of children should also be expected to differ when conversing with mothers and fathers. 2.3 – FINE-TUNING HYPOTHESIS Many studies (Snow 1972, Berko-Gleason 1975, Sokolov 1993) have found that mothers seem to ‘fine-tune’ their speech when talking to young children. Cross (1977) proposed the ‘Fine-Tuning hypothesis’ based on correlations between the measures of maternal input structure and child competence. It has been theorised that mothers adjust the length and complexity of their utterances in line with the increase in their child’s mastery of linguistic competence. This implies that parent’s decrease their use of CDS as their child’s linguistic ability develops. This is observable in terms of mean length of utterance (MLU) as it is expected that parental growth in the use of word classes and word order will occur in accordance with the growth of child comprehension and production levels. Cross observed that individual differences were found to reflect the speech styles of mothers in some cases; however, statements have been made that a mother more cl osely ‘fine-tunes’ her language to the child than any other family member. It is a possible point of analysis in this study to test these statements in order to see how the MLU of mothers and fathers compare. It has been noted that mothers ‘fine-tune’ their speech to young children in more ways than one. As well as lexical and structural adjustments, prosodic adjustments are also said to be found. Prosodic fine-tuning is said to be marked by higher pitch and exaggerated intonational patterns which appeal to infants’ attention patterns (Fletcher MacWhinney, 1995). â€Å"Manipulation of these prosodic characteristics is very high at precisely the age when infants are most responsive and by age five children receive almost no prosodic adjustments† (Fletcher MacWhinney 1995, p.182). Such adjustments are said to be tuned to the child’s responsiveness and attentiveness whereas phonological and syntactic adjustments are tuned to the child’s production and comprehension levels respectively. Phonetics are said to be adjusted from the one-word stage onwards and include enhanced clarity of vowels and full production of often-reduced consonants. (Fletcher M acWhinney, 1995). 2.4 – TOTAL LANGUAGE PRODUCED In terms of analysing how much mothers and fathers speak to their young children in mean number of utterances, there is a general agreement that mothers speak more than fathers on the whole (Golinkoff Ames 1979, Rondal 1980, Davidson Snow 1996, Pancsofar Vernon-Feagans 2006). However, McLaughlin et al (1983) and Lewis and Gregory (1987) found no significance in mean number of utterances. Golinkoff and Ames (1979) found situation to have a bearing on conversational turns. They recorded parents in dyadic and triadic situations, reporting fathers to produce half as many utterances and take fewer conversational turns in a free-play situation with the mother present. However, in a dyadic play situation, mothers and fathers were reported to produce the same number of utterances and take the same number of turns. McLaughlin et al (1983) found parents to take relatively equal conversational turns while Rondal (1980) proposed that mothers take more turns. 2.5 – STRUCTURAL AND LEXICAL ASPECTS The complexity of the parents’ sentences can be measured by making comparisons between their mean length of utterance (MLU) and number of verbs per utterance. However, there is large differentiation in the results regarding their MLU. Giattino and Hogan (1975) carried out the first published study in the field of ‘fatherese’. They provided a father-only speech analysis with which they made comparisons to previously reported investigations of mother-child data of the same nature. For the means of comparison for MLU, they recorded the father in adult-adult interaction, in which his MLU was recorded as 9.7 words. In his interaction with the child, his MLU was recorded as 5.2 words which was found to be closely correlated to the child’s MLU of 4.5 words. This evidence supports the finding that the father was aware of the child’s level of comprehension, which in turn influenced his language as he directed considerably shorter sentences to her than he did in adult-adult conversation. Discrepancies occurred in the conflicting results regarding MLU. Some studies found that mothers and fathers have similar MLU (Golinkoff Ames 1979, Lewis Gregory 1987, Pancsofar Vernon-Feagans 2006) while other studies found that mothers produce a significantly longer MLU (McLaughlin et al 1983, Davidson Snow 1996). Rondal (1980) supported the ‘Bridge Hypothesis’ and the ‘Differential Experience Hypothesis’ with the finding that although fathers’ speech was found to be shorter in length, the longest utterance in the study was also addressed by a father, portraying the lack of sensitivity central to the hypotheses. McLaughlin et al (1983) also reported that although the utterances spoken by mothers were significantly longer, they were more ‘well-tuned’ into the child’s abilities, also in support of the hypotheses. Lewis and Gregory (1987) and Pancsofar Vernon-Feagans (2005) are in agreement that fathers use fewer verbs per utterance. This is troublesome evidence as this variable is said to contribute towards complexity as it is evidence of low sensitivity, meaning it shows conflict with the ‘Bridge Hypothesis’ that fathers are less sensitive than mothers. In the means of vocabulary, Davidson and Snow (1996) asserted that mothers talked more complexly, in that they used more low frequency words. They also stated that children spoke more complexly themselves in maternal dyads, showing a greater use of low-frequency vocabulary than in paternal dyads. Previous studies, the ‘Bridge Hypothesis’ and the ‘Differential Experience Hypothesis’ all undertake the belief that fathers create a more linguistically challenging environment for the child, however this study has shown that this is not always the case as it has proven an instance where mothers have provided a more sophisticated input than fathers. It was assumed that the mothers’ linguistically challenging behaviour in this study had prevailed over the stereotypically female behaviour of ‘fine-tuning’. This was attributed to the mothers’ advanced scholarly background as they were said to be as highly educated as the fathers (Davidson S now 1996). Lexically speaking, there is said to be little difference in the speech of mothers and fathers measured by the type token ratio (TTR) (McLaughlin, Schutz and White 1980, Ratner 1988, Pancsofar Vernon-Feagans 2006). Rondal (1980) found the speech of fathers to be more diverse, and Ratner (1988) in a more detailed analysis of vocabulary, found fathers to be more lexically demanding through their frequent use of rare nominal words and infrequent use of common nouns. Both of these findings are in support of Berko-Gleason’s theory that the linguistic style of fathers provides children with a ‘bridge to the outside world’. Giattino and Hogan (1975) stated that declaratives were used in 35% of the corpus, interrogatives 34%, exclamatory sentences 9% and imperatives 6%. Giattino and Hogan (1975) and Golinkoff and Ames (1979) are in agreement that mothers and fathers use these sentence types to similar proportions. Further conflicting evidence has been found in the area of questions. Some studies found that mothers and fathers ask the same number of questions, (Davidson Snow 1996, Pancsofar Vernon-Feagans 2006) whereas other studies found that mothers ask more questions, (Lewis Gregory 1987) although other studies concluded that fathers ask more questions (McLaughlin et al 1983). Such contradictory findings are difficult to deduce an inference from. The ‘Bridge Hypothesis’ maintains that fathers are more challenging interlocutors than mothers, therefore in the means of interrogatives it is to be expected that fathers ask more wh-questions (questions that require a more elaborate response) than yes/no questions (questions that require the child to answer with a one-word answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’). Several studies (Giattino Hogan 1975, McLaughlin et al 1983) support this finding, however there are studies opposing this evidence (Lewis Gregory 1987, Pancsofar Vernon-Feagans 2006). Wh-questions are said to be a challenge for children as they require the child to construct a lexical response rather than repeat the parents structure or simply give a non-verbal response (Berko-Gleason 1975). In terms of question types, Golinkoff and Ames (1979) and McLaughlin et al (1983) agreed that yes/no questions are asked more frequently overall than wh-questions. This makes sense in the respects that mothers speak more than fathers and mothers are more inclined to ask yes/no rather than wh-questions. â€Å"Many researchers have studied ‘language-teaching’ aspects of parental speech. These include explicit educative behaviours such as corrections, expansions and self repetitions. Although all parental communicative behaviours are ‘educative’, considering a child can learn by observation and imitation, these specific behaviours manifest the parents’ intentional effort to teach their child† (Chanu Marcos 1994; 7). Some research has concluded that fathers use repetitions more frequently than mothers (McLaughlin et al 1983, Lewis Gregory 1987) while others have concluded the reverse (Ratner 1988). Giattino and Hogan (1975) found that repetitions made up 9% of their corpus. These were said to always be repetitions of the child’s preceding utterance, not self-repetitions. When compared to a set of previously recorded female-child data, a difference was realised in the respect that mothers’ repetitions are repetitions of themselves. The conflicting findings of Golinkoff and Ames (1979) recorded that both genders use repetitions to the same frequency, and that when they occur they are always repetitions of themselves not their children. They stated repetitions are more likely to be found when requesting action rather than giving information. Giattino and Hogan (1975) found very few instances where the father used corrections and Rondal (1980) found that mothers correct their children more than fathers. While comparing their data to data from previous investigations, Giattino and Hogan (1975) found that fathers rarely used grammatically incomplete sentences where as mothers are far more likely to do so. They found very few instances where completion sentences were used and said that expansions made up a mere 0.5% of the corpus whereas they contributed 30% to the previously conducted investigation of female CDS. The explanation attributed to the low frequency of expansions in the male corpus regarded the child’s production level. As the child was considered to be linguistically fluent, the need for the father to expand her utterances was eliminated. 2.6 – FUNCTIONAL AND CONVERSATIONAL ASPECTS Berko-Gleason (1975) found trends in the studies he examined, in that fathers produce more requests for clarification. This finding was later supported by Rondal (1980). This suggests that fathers do not understand their children as well as mothers, possibly a consequence of fathers who assume secondary caregiver position due to their employment status. Research which has focussed on directives separates imperatives; the most direct form of directives, from interrogatives; an indirect form. â€Å"The use of more direct or indirect forms of directives challenges the child’s comprehension level to differing degrees. When a parent uses a direct form (‘be quiet’) it is much easier to understand the communicative intention than when a parent uses an indirect form (‘can we reduce the noise level in here?’)† (Chanu Marcos 1994; 8). In agreement with Berko-Gleason (1975), several studies found that fathers use more direct imperatives than mothers (Rondal 1980, McLaughlin et al 1980, McLaughlin et al 1983). Interestingly, McLaughlin et al (1980) found that fathers directed more imperatives at their sons than their daughters. Berko-Gleason attributes the finding that fathers use more direct imperatives to the fact that fathers cast themselves into the role of disciplinarian in the home setting, and he states the finding that fathers direct more imperatives to their sons than their daughters â€Å"gives the impression that in our society males become accustomed early on to taking orders, and, if their fathers provide role models, to giving them† (1975; 294). McLaughlin et al (1980) found mothers use more indirectly controlling language whereas fathers use more directly controlling language. Berko-Gleason proposes that â€Å"mothers tend to couch their imperative intent in question form† (1975; 295) wh ich conflicts with research that has evidence that fathers ask more questions overall. Golinkoff and Ames (1979) found that the situation has a bearing on parental use of directives as the amount found in dyadic situations increased from the amount used in triadic situations regardless of the gender of the parent. Parents were said to fall into a directive mode in dyadic situations. 2.7 – SUMMARY AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The examination of the literature in the area of caregiver input shows that there are a number of similarities and differences between mothers’ and fathers’ speech. Parental interactive styles in dyadic behaviours have been the primary focus of research, and it has been proven, despite the many discrepancies in the research, that both parents play an important effective role in child language development. Berko-Gleason asserts that â€Å"when men occupy a nurturant role they become increasingly sensitive to the needs and intentions of the child† (1975; 296), suggesting that fathers who adopt the primary caregiver role because their female partners are in employment, are more sensitive to their children’s needs, assumingly so because they spend more time with them. The ‘Bridge Hypothesis’ and the ‘Differential Experience Hypothesis’ have been theorised based on the notion of sensitivity, proposing that mothers are more sensitive of a child’s needs as they are found to ‘scaffold’ children’s utterances more often. Fathers on the other hand, are seen as more insensitive interlocutors in comparison, as they are generally found to provide children with a bigger linguistic challenge. Generalisations have been made in summary of the variables recorded by previous studies. It has been found that mothers address more speech to their young children than fathers, both in terms of mean number of utterances and conversational turns, asserting that mothers are more talkative. Dependant on context, it has been found that fathers are capable of producing the same number of utterances and turns in dyadic situations with a child, however there is consistency in the results in the fact that it has never been proven for fathers to speak more than mothers, neither in terms of mean number of utterances nor conversational turns, withholding the hypotheses mentioned above in the respect that fathers provide the child with a more challenging conversational partner as a result of not making themselves as linguistically dependable as mothers. Mothers seem to take more responsibility for sustaining a conversation through their more frequent vocalisations. Differences between mothers and fathers have appeared in a number of areas of research, including vocabulary and use of directives. The vocabulary of fathers is said to be more diverse and lexically demanding which contributes to the challenging linguistic behaviour fathers demonstrate towards children. Fathers are said to direct more imperatives at children than mothers, and fathers are said to direct more imperatives to their sons than their daughters. This distinction between the behaviour directed at children is attributed in relation to the socialisation of gender as males in society are said to need to become accustomed to giving and taking orders. Fathers are more likely to use an imperative whereas mothers are said to frame their directives in interrogative form. Fathers are said to engage in such usage because they adopt the role of disciplinarian. Research shows that mothers and fathers use sentence types to relatively the same proportions, using declarative and interrogative sentences most frequently. It is commonly postulated that when repetitions occur in parental input, fathers are more likely to repeat their child’s preceding utterance whereas mothers are more likely to repeat themselves. It is generalised that mothers make more corrections to their children’s speech than fathers and mothers are significantly more probable to produce grammatically incomplete utterances. The speech of mothers is also expected to contain more expansions: a notable contributor in aiding the ‘scaffolding’ of children’s utterances, therefore showing support for the ‘Bridge Hypothesis’. Inconsistencies have occurred across numerous variables that have been tested, including questions and MLU. Given the somewhat sceptical findings of previous studies in the area, the aim of this study is to provide a clearer insight through my own investigation of gender-specific CDS, which will hopefully shed light on the discrepancies that have occurred. Previous research has shown that findings between parental input can largely differ based on the situation they occur in (dyadic or triadic) and the context in which the interaction is held (free-play or structured play), therefore these factors will remain constant in this study. The nucleus of this analysis is the difference in gender-specific CDS styles. A mother and father each in dyadic interactions with a child of approximately two years old will be recorded and then the study will be extended in order to observe the same parents in a dyadic interaction with an older sibling. Few studies in the existing research have explored the nature of gender-specific CDS in this way; however Broen (1972) found that when mothers spoke to younger in comparison to older children they used a lower rate, fewer disfluencies, and smaller type-token ratios. They also used smaller vocabularies, but they repeated their utterances more frequently (Giattino Hogan 1975). Davidson and Snow (1996) suggest that fathers become better conversational partners as children get older. This is an area for examination in this study. Reviewing the variables of a number of previous investigations in order to highlight comparisons and discrepancies in their findings regarding parental speech styles has allowed me to establish a set of variables for analysis in my own investigation. Since very few conclusive results have been established by previous studies, my analysis will provide a clearer explanation to these somewhat ambiguous generalisations. Due to the inconsistent results of previous studies, the following research questions will be attempted: Do fathers use the same features of CDS as mothers? How, if at all, do the parental speech styles differ? and due to the lack of information regarding the differences in parental speech styles in families with more than one language-learning child, the following question will be aimed at: Do parents direct the same linguistic behaviour towards an older and younger sibling? In line with the ‘Fine-Tuning’ hypothesis, it is expected to find that parents ‘fine-tune’ their speech more towards the younger of the siblings. Prosodic features are expected to become seldom used to the older of the siblings and it can also be hypothesised that the parent’s MLU will increase with the older child.   Since the ‘Bridge Hypothesis’ and ‘Differential Experience Hypothesis’ entail that mothers are   more sensitive interlocutors, my experimental hypothesis is that mothers will ‘fine-tune’ their speech more than fathers. If this is the case, it will entail the mother having a MLU score lower than the father’s and closer to the MLU of her children. The null hypothesis is identifiable if the mother and father do not produce significantly different measures of ‘fine-tuning’ or MLU. It is important to note that individual differences may arise in the study and have a considerable b earing on the results, e.g. culture, socioeconomic class or parent’s level of education. CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY   The purpose of this study was to analyse the speech of a male and female parent in dyadic interactions with their language-learning children, in order to produce a cross-sectional analysis which will lead to answering the central question of whether fathers as well as mothers use the features of CDS. The following general observation questions were considered: Do fathers use the same features of CDS as mothers? How, if at all, do the parental speech styles differ? Do parents direct the same linguistic behaviour towards an older and younger sibling? 3.1 – PILOT STUDY Prior to the actual recordings, I conducted a small preliminary investigation using only two of the subjects (the mother and child O) in order to test whether the ‘Observer’s Paradox’ would arise. I wanted to be present for the recording; however, as a consequence of this child Y was not responsive to her mother’s speech. I vacated the room, leaving the mother to start the recording after my departure. In my absence the mother described child O’s language as typical entailing that my presence gave rise to the ‘Observer’s Paradox’. I therefore ensured that only the subjects involved in any one interaction were in the play-room at the time of the recording in order to eliminate the effects of the ‘Observer’s Paradox’ altering the authenticity of my main study recordings. I attempted a preliminary transcription exercise from the results of my pilot study, in which I was exposed to the problems associated with the calculation of mean length of utterance (MLU). I carried out online research in order to obtain a protocol for such calculations (see variables below) and followed this protocol when transcribing the data. 3.2 – THE SUBJECTS There were four subjects in the main study: the mother, the father, the older child who I will refer to as child O and the younger child who I will refer to as child Y. At the time of the recording, child Y was 1;10 and child O was 4;4. I chose the children in my investigation not to be of similar ages so that they were not at similar stages of language development. Child Y was at the one-word stage, occasionally using two-word utterances and child O was at the grammatical stage, producing utterances relatively adult-like. Both of the parents in the study were of similar ages, there was an eighteen month age gap between them. In order to make accurate comparisons with the existing results identified in the literature review section, I ensured I maintained the social class variable of the majority of those studies by recording a family representative of middle class. In terms of occupation, the mother is a part-time psychiatric consultant and the father is a full-time college lecturer , therefore both parents are university-educated. In the means of family structure, I ensured that the parents in the family I observed were the biological parents of both children, i.e. to ensure that neither child O nor child Y were step children to either parent through divorce and remarriage as atypical linguistic behaviour may be expected from a non-parent towards a child and vice versa. 3.3 – DATA COLLECTION The speech of the family was recorded on a digital voice recorder. All recording was done during periods of free-play and all interactions took place in the family play-room, as this is the area where the subjects engage in free-play on a daily basis. I obtained four recordings in total: the mother and father both in a dyadic interaction with each child. Each separate recording consisted of at least twenty minutes of speech. The lengths of the recordings slightly differed in total as the children terminated their play sessions at different times; however, I extracted exactly fifteen minutes from each recording for analysis. I anticipated that the adult subjects may have been inhibited to behave differently with anyone other than the subjects in the room; therefore the parents began the recording after I vacated the room. The inherent problem in such a recording is the subjects’ awareness of the recorder as the investigation had to be carried out obtrusively. This could have ha d a possible bearing on the naturalistic nature of the data; however none of the subjects seemed to be concerned that they were being recorded. In order to eliminate the possibility of the presence of the recorder having a bearing on my results, I overlooked the first two minutes of each recording as literature advises that most people forget about the recording as they engage in activities (Wray Bloomer 2006). Neither of the children were unfamiliar to the tape recorder as they had been recorded by their father in this way previously. The subjects were not given any special instructions in the means of expected behaviour and they were encouraged to ignore the presence of the tape recorder.   Throughout the session the parents and children engaged in spontaneous play: in activities such as a scrabble board-game, an ‘etch-sketch’ drawing toy, a wooden shapes toy, a plastic utensils game, an ‘aqua beads’ shape game, a ‘guess-who’ game, playing with a ball, building blocks and making a cup of tea. After the recording I gave the adult subjects a self-completion questionnaire (see appendix 2). Questionnaires are advantageous in the fact that they are efficient to administer, they eliminate interviewer effects and they are convenient for the respondents to complete. In order to eliminate respondent fatigue, I limited the questionnaire to eight questions and ensured that they were simple and unambiguous. I asked two open questions in order to obtain qualitative data. 3.4 – DATA TRANSCRIPTION After obtaining the four separate recordings of conversational data, I made a copy of the original recordings. I discarded the first two minutes of each recording before analysis, in order to eliminate possible effects caused by the ‘Observer’s Paradox’. I decided to transcribe exactly fifteen minutes of each recording in order to ensure a fair test overall. I orthographically transcribed the data so that the speech could be represented in order to be analysed structurally and accurately (see appendix 1). Using the set of variables below, I then analysed the data. 3.5 VARIABLES In order to answer the observation questions mentioned above, the following variables were measured: Communicative Turn (CT) this is analysed as everything a speaker says before the next speaker begins. This could be one word, one sentence or several sentences. Total number of utterance – number of utterances produced. Mean length of utterance (MLU) – measured by the total number of morphemes divided by the total number of utterances in the dyad. An utterance is a word or a string of words identified by a pause, grammatical completeness (Golinkoff and Ames 1979) or other indication of new thought. When counting MLU the following are counted as a single morpheme: a)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   -s plural marker e.g. letter-s b)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   -ed past tense marker e.g. finish-ed c)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   -ing present participle marker e.g. smil-ing d)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     -s 3rd person regular tense marker e.g. plays-s e)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Possessive -‘s marker e.g. daddy’s bike f)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Compound words e.g. teapot g)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Proper names e.g. Hazel h)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Irregular past tense verbs e.g. went i)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Irregular plurals e.g. children j)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Diminutives e.g. horsy k)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Catenatives e.g. wanna l)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Contractions e.g. let’s, don’t and won’t (but the following contractions are counted as two morphemes e.g. she’s, he’ll, they’re, what’s, she’d, we’ve, can’t, aren’t) m)  Ã‚   Reduplications e.g. daddy daddy daddy are counted as one morpheme unless the repetition is for emphasis (Speech Therapy Information and Resources 2009-2010). n)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Fillers e.g. mm, ah, oh are not counted as a morpheme Sentence types Declarative sentence – (including one-word declaratives) used to make a statement. Interrogative sentence – used to ask a question. Wh-questions – questions that employ the use of: what, when, where, why, who, whose, which or how. Yes/no questions – questions that require a yes or no answer from the hearer. Intonation questions – questions marked by a rise in intonation. Tag questions – a question attached to the end of a statement, usually seeking confirmation. Imperative sentence – used to give command, request or give instructions of some kind – orders, warnings advice etc. Exclamatory sentence – emphatic sentences used to express strong emotion. Repetitions Self-repetition Repetition of child    Grammatically incomplete sentence – sentences involving the deletion of some words. Sentences which could be categorised in more than one way were placed in the highest category in the order of priority list: repetition, interrogative, declarative, imperative, exclamatory, and grammatically incomplete (Giattino Hogan 1975). CHAPTER 4: RESULTS    MOTHER FATHER CHILD Y CHILD O    CHILD Y CHILD O CHILD Y CHILD O MOTHER FATHER MOTHER FATHER Conversational Turns (CT)729463134776294132Total utterances1821751632118462104152Total number of morphemes794104954995012593571660Mean length of utterance (MLU)4.3663.374.51.491.55.494.34Declaratives42422469  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Wh-questions3234916  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Yes/no questions12321136  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Intonation Questions7291130  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Tag questions5503  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Imperatives1585726  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Exclamations 35162714  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Parental self repetitions101164  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Repetitions of child 227612  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Grammatical incompletions2121    TABLE 4.1: Summary of means and amounts of parental speech and child vocalisation. Most of the measures used in the speech analysis were simple counting procedures, using relatively straightforward criteria. In order to ensure reliability in the findings, I recalculated the data twice which removed any data verification errors that had occurred the first time.    4.1 – THE AMOUNT OF PARENTAL SPEECH The parents‘ total utterances to child Y suggest that the mother and father direct a similar amount of utterances to the younger, in comparison to the older sibling. The results show that the mother produced approx 12 utterances per minute to child Y, while the father produced approx 11 utterances per minute to the same child. The parents’ total utterances to child O show a significant difference. The father was found to produce almost 2.5 more utterances per minute to child O than the mother. In terms of conversational exchange, there are conflicting findings in the means of conversational turns (CT). The mother was found to take 9 more CT’s than the father in the dyad with child Y, however she was found to take 30 fewer turns in the dyad with child O. Though it is not to assume that the father spoke more to child O on the whole, as although his total of utterances was greater, his turns were also shorter, shown by his MLU in the dyad with child O (4.5), which wa s 25% less than the mother’s rate of MLU to the same child (6), as show in FIGURE 4.1a. The father also made fewer utterances (19 less than his partner) and addressed shorter utterances to child Y, which is again evidential in his MLU. This is contrary to existing research and hypotheses that propose fathers to be more challenging, demanding interlocutors than mothers. All in all, the mother consistently talked more than the father, speaking for 68% of her dyadic interaction with child Y and 63% of her dyadic interaction with child O. 4.2 COMPLEXITY The complexity of parental speech In terms of MLU, the mother and father were found to show a significant difference. The father’s MLU to child O is almost equal to the mothers MLU to child Y (as shown in FIGURE 4.1a). Although the MLU of the parents conflicts with evidence from previous research, the MLU of each parent in the separate dyads correlates with the MLU of each child in the specific dyad (as shown in FIGURE 4.2a). Albeit the exception to this finding is the dyadic interaction involving the mother and child Y, which stipulates the mother’s MLU to be triple the child’s measure. This finding contradicts the ‘Fine-Tuning’ hypothesis. The complexity of children’s speech Although child Y made more conversational turns with the mother than the father, her MLU value was the same with both parents. It is plausible to say from this finding that the father elicited more complex speech from child Y as although she measured the same MLU with both parents, she made 22 fewer utterances with her father. The reverse can be said for child O. The findings show that the mother elicited more complex, longer speech from child O than the father, due to the fact child O’s MLU value with her mother is over 1 morpheme per utterance longer than with her father and she produced 48 less utterances in total with her mother. Repetitions FIGURE 4.2b shows the percentages of repetitions used in each of the dyads. The repetitions made by the mother were more consistent than the repetitions made by the father. The majority of the mother’s repetitions were repetitions of the child rather than herself. The findings regarding the repetitions made by the father show an inconsistency as it was found that the father made 3 times as many self repetitions with child Y than he did with child O. 4.3 – THE FUNCTIONS OF PARENTAL SPEECH TABLE 4.3a presents the proportions of utterance types employed in the parental speech. It shows the proportion of each utterance type as a percentage of the total utterances in each dyad. Totals add up to 100 per cent as sentences which could be categorised in more than one way were placed in the highest category in the order of a priority list (see methodology). FIGURE 4.3b shows the findings in table 2. FIGURE 4.3a shows the frequency of the utterance types in each dyadic interaction in the form of a clustered graph.    MOTHER FATHER CHILD Y CHILD O CHILD Y CHILD O Declaratives 23% 24% 15% 33% Wh-questions 18% 19% 5% 7.5% Yes/no questions 7% 18% 7% 17% Intonation questions4%16.5%7%14%Tag questions3%3%0%1%Imperatives8%4.5%35%12%Exclamations19%9%16%7%Parental self repetitions5%1%10%2%Repetitions of child12%4%4%6%Grammatical incompletions1%1%1%0.5%                                           TABLE 4.3a: Summary of distribution of utterance types in parental speech (% of total utterances). The mother used the same proportion of declaratives in both of her dyads with the children. These included one-word declaratives and statements. In contrast, 15% of the total utterances produced to child Y by the father were declaratives, as were 33% of the total utterances he produced to child O. Examples produced by the father included: â€Å"I’ve got three now† â€Å"one† Examples produced by the mother included: â€Å"I didn’t hear you properly that time† â€Å"Uh-huh†    MOTHER FATHER    CHILD Y    CHILD O    CHILD Y    CHILD O    Number of questions asked Percentage of total of questions asked in dyad (%) Number of questions asked Percentage of total of questions asked in dyad (%) Number of questions asked Percentage of total of questions asked in dyad (%) Number of questions asked Percentage of total of questions asked in dyad (%) Total questions 56 100 31 85 Wh-questions 32 57% 34 34% 9 30%

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