RESEARCH PROPOSAL

PROJECT

CONTEMPORARY ISSUES IN APPLIED LINGUISTICS

BS-ENGLISH SEMESTER V

FATIMA JINNAH WOMEN UNIVERSITY

GROUP MEMBERS

o AQSA GHAZAL

o RABIA TAYYAB

o ROZINA HASSAN KHAN

CONTENTS
SELECTED RESEARCH
1. TITLE
2. AREA OF RESEARCH
3. INTRODUCTION
4. LITERATURE REVIEW
5. METHODOLOGY
6. ANALYSIS
7. CONCLUSION

RESEARCH PROPOSAL
1. TITLE
2. INTRODUCTION
3. PROBLEM STATEMENT
4. HYPOTHESIS
5. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
6. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
7. CONCLUSION
SELECTED RESEARCH

TITLE OF THE RESEARCH

Influence of Cartoon Network on the Acquisition of American English during Childhood

AREA OF THE RESEARCH

This research comes under the area of cultural linguistics as it includes the study of
relationship between language and culture.

INTRODUCTION
The research is about students of English who are very good at pronunciation, and who can
successfully adopt almost pure American accent, including intonation. Before conducting this
research, the researcher tried to find out the reasons behind their fluent accent of American
English and therefore he started conducting brief, informal interviews with those rare
students, and found out they all grew up watching Cartoon Network. In order to confirm the
importance of English language, Svetozar Poštič conducted this research. So, the main
quantitative part of the research is connected to the actual time spent in front of TV and, more
specifically, Cartoon Network, and the qualitative part is linked to the influence cartoon-
watching had on the English-language acquisition combined with the students’ personal
assessment of that impact.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

Main aim of this research is to find whether watching American cartoons in the early
childhood has the most decisive influence on the students’ adoption of the impeccable
American accent or not. The significance of this study is that it will tend to prove that
watching and listening to cartoons, combined with limited usage, is enough for such effective
language acquisition.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Many of the researchers agree that the second language acquisition is strongly influenced by
the age of the learner. They believe that age is important factor affecting the second language
learning. Penfield and Roberts (1959) argued that the optimal age for language acquisition is
within the first ten years of childhood. The well-known Lenneberg (1967), proposed two
related hypotheses in his first hypothesis, he mentioned that certain biological events are
involved in language development, biological events such as lateralization of the brain for
specific functions, which can take place in childhood, which he labeled as critical period. In
his second hypothesis, he mentioned that certain linguistic events are also involved in
language development during critical period. During early childhood there is plasticity and
virginity in child brain and articulatory mussels by which child can easily produce a native
like accent.
Some other studies show that watching cartoons in early childhood has a great influence on
child language; they learn language faster during this age. Children during this age have
integrative motivation, which help them in improving their listening and speaking skills.
Cartoon watching bring young people close to English language and English speaking people
(Haque 2015). He mentions that, by watching cartoons, students are highly stimulated to
speak the target language.
In a research conducted by Rule and Auge (2005), the results suggest that students prefer
language learning through cartoons which motivate them to learn certain language and
improve their language skills and also achieve higher score in test. The research carried out
by Bahrani and Sim (2012) shows that low level language learner can also achieve language
proficiency through cartoons. The dialogues are in the form of simple sentences which are
complete and are frequently repeating. Thus children can learn significant number of words
and use it in real life. Another research conducted by Aboudan (2013), suggested that second
language learning requires a positive atmosphere, and only humor can create such
atmosphere.

METHODOLOGY
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
He followed different theories in order to support his hypothesis and research. He embraced
the idea of Penfield and Roberts (1959) who argued that the optimal age for language
acquisition falls within the first ten years of life. He also used the well-knownLenneberg
“critical period hypothesis” (1967) which suggests that there is a biologically determined
period of life when language can be acquired more easily.He also took the idea of Asher &
Garcia (1969) and Singleton (1989) that the chance of children reaching a near-native
pronunciation of English is highest until the age of six, very small after the age of 13, and
probable between those two ages. During this period, the brain retains plasticity, and
language acquisition, therefore, takes place much more easily.

POPULATION AND SAMPLE

The population selected for this study includes students of Vilnius University. The sample of
this empirical survey consists of eight first- and second-year students of Physics and
Economics at Vilnius University. Those eight students demonstrated native or near-native
knowledge of English and use of American pronunciation in classroom.

TOOL
The tool selected was questionnaire given to these students. These questionnaires consist of
eight questions related to the usage of media in their English-language learning process, and
especially to their watching of cartoons, with a special emphasis on a single channel, the
Cartoon Network. The set of questions in these questionnaires were related specifically to
Cartoon Network, the amount of time they spent watching it in childhood, and naming the
specific cartoons they remembered watching.

ANALYSIS
The questionnaires were filled by eight students and five out of those eight referred to
cartoons as one of the important media that played role in improving their English language.
One related it to playing video games in which cartoons are used as well while two talked
about some other source which was influential in their learning process. One of those two
students named English summer camps with native speakers attended by her in her childhood
as the most important, and the other mentioned the popularity and importance of English
language in everyday life. They also said that they watched Cartoon Network at least two
hours a day. TV and movies which are watched by teenagers are also a key source after
cartoons and video games. When asked about the consumption of English in films, cartoons
and the internet before the age of twelve, all eight students confirmed cartoon-watching,
while two excluded films and two excluded the internet. Most students tried to explain the
influence cartoon-watching had on their learning process, when asked that how using the
English media helped them learn English.
In the quantitative part of the research, students were asked that how many hours a day they
spent watching Cartoon Network (or any other American cartoon channel), the answer varies
from two to three hours a day (four students) to 5-6 hours or “half of afterschool activities.”
That means that all the interviewed students spent at least some part of the afternoon and
weekends watching cartoons. Other than Cartoon Network, two students mention watching
Fox Kids, another American mostly-cartoon cable channel present in Lithuania since the
early 2000s.
Students remember watching 35 different cartoons, they mention Power puff Girls most
often (6 students), then Ed, Edd n Eddy (5 students), Dexter’s Laboratory, Courage the
Cowardly Dog and Ben 10 (4 students) and Tom and Jerry, Scooby Doo, the Flintstones,
Johnny Bravo (3 students). The other cartoons had less than three mentions. Generally all
these cartoons are modern-looking, have action and colourful cartoons which grab attention
of young viewers. The language used in these cartoons is full of conventional phrases and
adolescent slang which are easy to memorize. Students were asked if they used some lines
from cartoons and films when speaking English, especially when telling jokes. Most students
answered affirmatively. Five out of eight students are aware of having identified with a
specific cartoon or film character when speaking English and one admits that he tried to
replicate their manners of speech, and still does that.
Now the students who used to watch English cartoons mainly Cartoon network have turned
20, they use English language in their daily life on different social networking sites while
talking to their English speaking friends and colleagues. Cartoons developed their listening
and speaking skills and shaped their pronunciation in early childhood, social networks, video
games and the internet in general are now helping them refine their reading and writing skills.

CONCLUSION
For past two decades, we see an increase in the exposure of Lithuanian, as well as other non-
English speaking European children to American cartoons. As a result, there is increase in the
number of children who not only speak excellent English, but also speak it with an American
accent. Children are more aware of the importance of English language. Children learn
English from cartoons even before studying in classrooms and it seems to be related to the
number of hours they spend watching them. Even before benefiting from classroom foreign-
language studies, movies or the internet, children learn English from cartoons, and the level
of their successful adoption of the language seems directly related to the number of hours. In
correspondence with the studies on suitable age for second-language acquisition, the study on
the cartoon-watching and the rate of their consumption contributes to the finding that
cartoon-watching successfully improves both listening and speaking skills in children, while
transferring American culture and values at the same time.
RESEARCH PROPOSAL

TITLE
Influence of cartoon network on the acquisition of American English during childhood in
Pakistan.

PROBLEM STATEMENT/ RESARCH QUESTIONS

Our research proposal will cover the following research questions:

 How age factor is involved in language acquisition?

 How input influences language acquisition?
 How cartoons influence child language acquisition?
 How some Pakistani students speak English with native like accent?

HYPOTHESIS
Following are our two main hypotheses.

 If children watch English cartoons in their childhood, it will help them to learn
language.
 If children are given enough English language input in the form of cartoons, they will
acquire the language.

SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY
This study is theoretically and practically significant. Many experts say that ability or
compatibility of speaking foreign language is lost in the native speaking environment at an
early age before puberty, the results of this study will help to prove or disprove the idea that it
is possible to have effective language acquisition from cartoons along with limited usage.
Moreover, this study will also help school teachers to design their curriculum and add cartoon
sessions for better language acquisition.

INTRODUCTION

Language acquisition through cartoons is a vast and debatable topic. Here, language
acquisition refers to the development of language in children. Children have usually mastered
most of the basic vocabulary and grammar of their first language by the age of 6. I will
conduct this research with my group members in order to find out that do children acquire
language through cartoons. This research comes under the area of applied linguistics (refers
to the use of language-related research in a wide variety of fields, which include language
acquisition, language teaching, and literary studies etc). It is a very important interesting area
to be researched. This study will investigate that whether language acquisition occurs by
watching cartoons. In Pakistan, like many other countries television is a part of children’s
everyday life from 2 to 8 years of age. They watch different cartoon programs on daily basis.
We will conduct a study on university students considering their experience to find out that
language acquisition of a foreign language is stimulated by cartoons programs. Much of the
studies have been done on children to explore the effect of cartoons on language acquisition,
most of them selected children of age group 3-7 and adopted different methods to find out
results. This particular research involves university students as sample.
As students of linguistics we want conduct this research to explore and investigate the idea
of language acquisition and how cartoons in English language affect the language acquisition
in childhood. This research will try to make a connection between English language
acquisition and cartoon watching in childhood. In the questionnaires students will be asked to
review how much time they spent in watching cartoons in their childhood, which cartoons
they watched the most and which medium helped them to learn the language.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This is a qualitative research and we will choose qualitative research methodology to carry
out this research. Our population will be the students of Fatima Jinnah Women University
and National University of Modern Languages. The sample will be selected on random basis
and we will tend to select those students who show great proficiency in English language. We
will choose 30 students from Fatima Jinnah Women University and 30 students from
National University of Modern Languages. Our research tools will be questionnaire and
interview. We will distribute questionnaire among these students. We will also conduct
interview of these students.

ANALYSIS
The analysis of our data will comprise 3 stages.
First stage will be the collection of data and analysis of data obtained by questionnaires and
interviews. We will try to analyse data both qualitatively and quantitatively. We will draw the
results in the form of different graphs and charts.
Second stage will be the testing of our hypothesis with the collected data.
Third stage will be the arrangement of data in a coherent and cohesive manner.
CONCLUSION
Participants will take part in the research on voluntary basis. After analysis of the data that
we will collect through interviews and questionnaire, conclusions will be drawn. Our analysis
and conclusion will prove our hypothesis correct. We will also try to give recommendations
for future researchers.