Applied Linguistics
Session Coordinator: Kashama Mulamba
Dept. of English, Olivet Nazarene University
One University Avenue, Bourbonnais , IL 60914
kmulamba@olivet.edu

So What’s on Georgia’s Mind? A Systemic View of Language Development

This paper examines the language development of my daughter Georgia at the age of 20 months. It does this in the context of the functional language development theories proposed by M.A.K. Halliday in his studies of his son, Nigel, in Learning How to Mean (1975). At this stage of her development, Georgia has mostly abandoned her protolanguage and is rapidly acquiring the adult language, although the vestiges of a non- grammatical protolanguage are still perceptible in the simplified social functions underlying her utterances. The data set for this study is unique in that it employs an extended dialogue between Georgia and her mother, followed by a recursive analysis conducted by the subject viewing herself on video; she comments on and clarifies various linguistic points as they occur in the original dialogue. With Georgia’s help in clarifying the data, I am able to propose how she constructs her Acts of Meaning within the framework of systemic functional linguistic structures of discourse, and with particular attention to the role of dialogue itself.

Derek Irwin
English Programme, York University
irwind@yorku.ca

Language Variation between Chinese Women at Idaho State University and Those in China

Hong Ping Xiao
Idaho State Univ.

Rule of ‘Qalqala’ and Sound Change in Arabic

M. R. Elashiry
Univ. of Birmingham