The use of discourse markers by Afrikaans-speaking preschoolers with and without specific language impairment
Date
2010
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Department of General Linguistics, Stellenbosch University
Abstract
Discourse markers (DMs) are words or phrases speakers employ to coordinate what they want to say
when, to whom and how during conversation. The purpose of this study was to establish (i) what types
of DMs occur in the language of young Afrikaans-speaking children; (ii) what development, if any,
takes place in DM use from the age of 4 years to 6 years; and (iii) how, if at all, the use of DMs by
children with specific language impairment (SLI) differs from that of typically develping (TD)
children. The participants were three Afrikaans-speaking groups: 15 TD 6-year-olds, 15 6-year-olds
with SLI, and 15 TD 4-year-olds matched on mean length of utterance with the SLI group. A 30-
minute spontaneous language sample was obtained from each participant. The number of occurrences
of DMs (tokens) and the number of different DMs (types) used during these 30 minutes were tallied
for each participant individually and for each of the three groups. It was found that maar 'but', en 'and',
ja 'yes', and dan 'then' were some of the most frequently occurring DMs in the three groups. The SLI
group used DMs that also occurred in the language of the TD groups, but the SLI group also used
DMs which were not used by the TD groups at all. In terms of number of different DMs used, the SLI
group functioned at a level between the two TD groups: They used more and a wider range of markers
than the 4-year-olds but fewer and a smaller range of markers than their 6-year-old peers. It appears
then that the use of DMs shows development between the ages of 4 and 6 years and that the use of
DMs is delayed in children with SLI. Appropriate use of DMs can improve listeners' understanding of
what is said; as such, it is recommended that speech-language therapists make DMs a focus point
during therapy delivery to children with language impairment.
Description
CITATION: Southwood, F., Carinus, M. & Engelbrecht, S. 2010. The use of discourse markers by Afrikaans-speaking preschoolers with and without specific language impairment. Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics Plus, 40:79-94, doi:10.5842/40-0-6.
The original publication is available at http://spilplus.journals.ac.za
The original publication is available at http://spilplus.journals.ac.za
Keywords
Discourse markers, Sociolinguistics, Children -- Language, Language disorders in children, Afrikaans language -- Study and teaching (Preschool)
Citation
Southwood, F., Carinus, M. & Engelbrecht, S. 2010. The use of discourse markers by Afrikaans-speaking preschoolers with and without specific language impairment. Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics Plus, 40:79-94, doi:10.5842/40-0-6.