Babies Pre-linguistic Period

RESEARCH PAPER QUESTION:
Your paper should entirely focus on comparing and contrasting two interactions of a caregiver interacting with a baby.  You should choose any two video interactions from SECTION 1 listed below.  First, present each of the two videos you have chosen to compare and contrast.  Provide the settings, the participants, and the topic of their conversation.  Then, describe each video interaction in two or more separate paragraphs while responding to the following questions: 

How does the caregiver interact with the baby?  What is the caregiver doing or saying?  How is he/ she facilitating language acquisition?  Describe the caregiver’s use of language: vocabulary use, pitch, tone, intonation, repetitions, and length of utterances (MLU). (MLUs refer to the number of morphemes and types of morphemes used by the caregiver in his/her utterances or sentences.)  Provide specific examples of how the caregiver uses language. You should transcribe at least 3 of the most complex sentences uttered by the caregiver and analyze the caregiver’s morphemes in these sentences.  Is he or she using more inflectional or derivational morphemes?  Explain why.  

How is the baby responding or reacting to the caregiver’s speech?  Explain whether the baby is using body language, vocalizations, and eye contact and how.  Is the baby listening?  How is he/she taking turns in the interaction?  Does he/she understand what the caregiver is saying?  What is your opinion?  How do you know?  Does the baby express Communicative Intent?  How do you know?  Explain the baby’s responses in detail.

Additionally, once you have described each interaction separately, compare and contrast the two caregivers and the two babies.  What do they have in common?  How do they differ?  Focus on at least one commonality and one difference for both the caregivers and the babies.  Finally, evaluate your observations by making two specific connections to course reading (Chapter 2 and Chapter 3) or class material (if you haven’t done so earlier in the paper).  Conclude your research paper by highlighting what you have learned about babies’ pre- linguistic and communicative skills and caregivers’ support to facilitate language acquisition. 

Your paper should have an introduction, a few body paragraphs, and a conclusion.  Additionally, your ideas should be clearly organized and developed.  Your paper should also be written using correct English grammar and punctuation.

SECTION 1:  Choose TWO of the following videos from Youtube.com presented below (also posted on Blackboard) that you would like to use for this research paper. 

Dad Has Full Convo with his Baby (by Acery)
Baby Argues with Dad  (by the ASANGAs)
Mommy Talking to Olivia (by Tracy Dean)
Baby Lily is One Month Old (by Keifers101)
Baby’s Hilarious Argument with Dad Over Who’s Cleaning the Mess (by Rumble Viral)
Newborn Baby Talking to Mom (by Jennifer Stavropoulos)
18 Month Old Baby Arguing with His Mommy (by Rod Shepherd Fit)