“| processing | As the child learns about the world from playing, concepts such | as size and shape and time ~ which you will recognize as abstract | nouns — begin to make sense. i Piaget suggested that language emerges at the same time as understanding. For example, a child playing a shopping game | might be able to put into words the idea that the shopping bag had become heavy; a child playing with a shape-sorting toy might be able to identify colours ot shapes, and eventually will recognize both. ("les that one!” “Oh, it’s the big square yellow one!”) (How awake are you? Did you notice that in the example above the child is also learning about the right order in which to put adjectives? Shape (square) comes before colour (yellow), but size (big) comes before all of them. Look back at Chapter 9, after Activity 9.7.) Like almost all theories, ideas about child language acquisition ‘make better sense when we look at specific examples. So here is some more data.to examine. This isa transcription of an | interaction between Amit, a three-year-old boy, and his mother, ‘They have been playing with his toy train set. || | Dranscription key () = micro-pause (1) = pause in seconds // = speech overlap CAPITALS = raised volume [shrugs] = paralinguistic fequre | Mother: is that a piece ofthe bridge as well? | Amit: yeah (.) don’t matter | Mother: shall we put that one on (,) ye | Wy | Amit: that | Mother: there we go (.) there | Amit: here. a waeosc fircrant Amit: Mother: | Amit: Mother: Mother: Amit: Mother: Amit: Mother: Amit: Mother: Amit: ‘Mother: Amit: Mother: | Amit: | Mother: | Amit: |, Mother: Amit | | Mother: Amit where're you gonna put the bridge (.) the tunnel? (1) that’s it (1) we'll have to try and get you some more of these pieces (,) won't we () to match this train? (1) see if auntie sue can get you some for christmas and go to father christmas a yeah, what would you like? (1) what else do they do? WW + father christmas got this () birthday () got this got that who put the heater on? 1 did (, earlier (1) it was cold hot mmm hmm? these ones (1) these ones like (1) these ones are (1) these ones are what? these ones are a car ones there? (1) shall we put them there? yeah (1) leave the tunnel up Teave it up a bit? yeah (1) LOOK (1) both trains coming () can put it that way okay done that () hother one? other one? (1) behind you () there itis (1) put that one like that (1) yes - {got no trains what darling? got no trains (.) that one pushing that one is pushing that bit (.) cause that bit (1) got no trains you have got lots of trains (.) haven't you? I go get some more Read through the transcript, paying attention to how Amit's mother helps her son to communicate as well as to play. Look especially at how she uses different utterance types.