Zachy Transcript Analysis

By looking at two comparable and reliable transcripts, we can depict certain factors and features that will tell us something about child language acquisition (CLA). First of all, the first transcript called "Drawing a banana" features Zachy as a 2 and 4 month year, talking to his mother about his day and what he was currently doing at the time. Immediately we notice that the conversation features mainly local topics, focusing more on the things that Zach is more likely to know and have an interest in talking about. This is clearly due to the fact that he is of such a young age and will not have the wider knowledge to talk about such unfamiliar and complex topics. Also, it is worth noting that H uses a lot more interrogatives than Z, and the opposite goes for declaratives. Looking further into the content of the two sentence moods, it appears that most of Halla's interrogatives double as an echoing interrogative. This means that H is repeating what Z has said to reassure and prompt him to go on. This encourages Zachy to talk more during the conversation, perhaps explaining why his utterances are slightly more advanced than his age suggests. His age of 28 months at the time of the transcript puts him in the telegraphic stage (three and more words combined), however his speech shows signs of a more post telegraphic development (more complex combinations). For example Zach says "I don't know (0.5) where's my little pad gone?". The use of the pronoun "I" and the adjective "little" show that Zach is already beyond the point of using simple 2/3 words to express himself by adding this more mature sense of detail.