Cover not available

In:Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics XXIX: Papers from the Annual Symposium on Arabic Linguistics, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 2015
Edited by Hamid Ouali
[Studies in Arabic Linguistics 5] 2017
► pp. 229–248

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload Book PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload Book EPUB
authorization required

Chapter 9
Language growth in child Emirati Arabic

 | United Arab Emirates University
 | Qatar University
Published online: 14 December 2017
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/sal.5.10nte
Abstract
This study calculates developmental indices of language growth in Emirati Arabic based on a two-year longitudinal corpus collected from six Emirati children. The target indices include Mean Length of Utterance in morphemes and words (MLUm and MLUw), utterance-per-turn counts (UoT), type-token-ratio (TTR) and an index of vocabulary diversity (D). Spearman correlation tests show significant correlations between MLUm, MLUw and age. A slightly weaker correlation is found between age and D, while no correlation is found with TTR. Finally, a strong correlation is found between age and UoT. The results provide an important new data point in the body of knowledge about language growth, and show that language acquisition displays similar developmental patterns for linear morphological processes across languages.
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Developmental indices
    • Mean length of utterance
    • Lexical growth and turn taking
  • Methodology
    • The EMALAC database
    • Coding and analysis
  • Data and analysis
    • MLU results
    • Lexical diversity
    • Utterance over turn counts
  • Discussion
  • Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
References (45)
References
Abdalla, F. A. (2002). Specific language impairment in Arabic-speaking children: deficits in morphosyntax. Ph.D. Dissertation, School of Communication Sciences and Disorders, McGill University.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Al-Kaabi, M. (2015). The Anatomy of Arabic Words: The Role of the Root in Representations and Processing. Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Linguistics, New York University.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Aljenaie, K., Abdalla, F. & Farghal, M. (2011). Developmental changes in using nominal number inflections in Kuwaiti Arabic, First Language 31, 222–239. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Arlman-Rupp, A., de Haan, D. & van de Sandt-Koenderman, M. (1976). Brown’s Early Stages: Some evidence from Dutch, Journal of Child Language, 3, 267–274. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bates, E., Bretherton, I., & Snyder, L. (1988). From first words to grammar: Individual differences and dissociable mechanisms. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Blake, J., Quartaro, G., & Onorati, S. (1993). Evaluating quantitative measures of grammatical complexity in spontaneous speech samples. Journal of Child Language, 20, 139–152. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bol, G. W. (1996). Optional subjects in Dutch child language. In Ch. Koster & F. Wijnen (Eds.), Proceedings of the Croningen Assembly on Language Acquisition (pp. 125–133). Groningen, The Netherlands: Centre for Language and Cognition, Groningen.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Boudelaa, S., and Marslen-Wilson, W. D. (2000). Non-concatenative morphemes in language processing: Evidence from Modern Standard Arabic. In J. McQueen and A. Cutler (eds.) Proceedings of the Workshop on Spoken Word Access Processes, (pp. 23–26), Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brown, R. (1973). A first language: The early stages. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Crystal, D. (1974). [Review of the book] A First Language: The Early Stages. Journal of Child Language, 1, 289–334.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
DeThorne, L. S., Johnson, B. W., & Loeb, J. W. (2005). A closer look at MLU: What does it really measure? Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics, 19, 8, 635–648. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dromi, E. & Berman, R. A. (1982). A morphemic measure of early language development: Data from Modern Hebrew. Journal of Child Language, 9, 403–424. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Eisenberg, S. L., McGovern Fersko, T., and Lundgren, C. (2001). The use of MLU for identifying language impairment in preschool children: A review. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 10, 323–342. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gwilliams, L. & Marantz, A. (2015). Non-linear processing of a linear speech stream: The influence of morphological structure on the recognition of spoken Arabic words. Brain and Language, 147, 1–13. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hickey, T. (1991). MLU and the acquisition of Irish. Journal of Child Language, 18, 553–569. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Idrissi, A., Prunet, J-F. & Béland, R. (2007). On the Mental Representation of Arabic Roots. Linguistic Inquiry, 39, 2, 221–259. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ingram, D. (2002). The measurement of whole-word productions. Journal of Child Language, 29, 713–733. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Khater, M., & Shaalan, S. (2007). Reporting norms for mean length of utterance (MLU) in words and morphemes for Qatari Speaking Children. Paper presented at Linguistics in the Gulf Conference, University of Qatar, Doha, Qatar.
Klee, T., Schaffer, M., May, S., Membrino, I. and Mougey, K. (1989). A Comparison of the Age-MLU relation in Normal and Specifically Language-impaired preschool children. Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders, 54, 226–233. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Klee, T. (1992). Measuring children’s conversational language. In S. F. Warren & J. Reichle (Eds.), Causes and effects in communication and language intervention (pp. 315–330). Baltimore, MD: Brookes.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Linares-Orama, N., & Sanders, L. J. (1977). Evaluation of syntax in three-year-old Spanish speaking Puerto Rican children. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 20, 350–357. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Loban, W. (1976). Language development: Kindergarten through grade twelve. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Loeb, D. F., Kinsler, K., & Bookbinder, L. (2000). Current language sampling practices in preschools. Poster presented at the Annual Convention of the American Speech-Language Hearing Association, Washington, D.C.
MacWhinney, B. (1991). The Childes Project: Tools for Analyzing Talk. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2000). The CHILDES project: Tools for analyzing talk, Vol. 2: The database. 3rd ed. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence ErlbaumGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Malvern, D. D. and Richards, B. J. (1997). A new measure of lexical diversity. In Ryan, A. and Wray, A., (Eds.), Evolving models of language (p.p. 58–71). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McCarthy, P. M. and Jarvis, S. (2007). Vocd: A theoretical and empirical evaluation. Language Testing 24, 4, 459–488. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McKee, G., Malvern, D., & Richards, B. (2000). Measuring Vocabulary Diversity Using Dedicated Software, Literary and Linguistic Computing, 15, 3, 323–337. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McTear, M. (1985). Children’s Conversation. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Miller, J. F. (1981). Assessing language production in children: Experimental procedures. Baltimore, MD: University Park Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Miller, J. F., & Chapman, R. S. (1981). The relation between age and mean length of utterance in morphemes. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 24, 154–161. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2004). Systematic analysis of language transcripts (SALT, v8.0) [Computer software and manual]. Madison, WI: Language Analysis Laboratory, Waisman Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ntelitheos, D., Idrissi, A. & Tamimi, O. (2009). Acquisition of definiteness in Emirati Arabic. Proceeding of the 10th Annual UAE University Research Conference, 1235–1243.
Ntelitheos, D. (2013). A Corpus Study of the Distribution of Possessives in Child and Adult Emirati Arabic. Paper presented in Experimental Arabic Linguistics (EXAL 2013), UAEU, Al Ain, 6–7 November, 2013.
Parker, M. D. and Brorson, K. (2005). A comparative study between mean length of utterance in morphemes (MLUm) and mean length of utterance in words (MLUw). First Language, 25, 3, 365–376. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Prunet, J-F., Béland, R. and Idrissi, A. (2000). The mental representation of Semitic words, Linguistic Inquiry, 31, 609–648. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Richards, B. J. (1987). Type/Token Ratios: what do they Really Tell us? Journal of Child Language, 14, 201–209. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Richards, B. J., and Malvern, D. D. (1997). Quantifying Lexical Diversity in the Study of Language Development. The University of Reading New Bulmershe Papers.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Scarborough, H. S. (1990). Index of Productive Syntax. Applied Psycholinguistics, 11, 1–22. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Scarborough, H. S., Wyckoff, J., & Davidson, R. (1986). A reconsideration of the relation between age and mean utterance length. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 29, 394–399. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Shaalan, S. (2010). Investigating Grammatical Complexity in Gulf Arabic Speaking Children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI). Ph.D. Dissertation, University College London.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Shaalan, S. and Khater, M. (2006). A Comparison of Two Measures of Assessing Spontaneous language Samples in Arabic Speaking Children, Poster presented at Child Language Seminar, University of Newcastle Upon Tyne.
Templin, M. C. (1957). Certain language skills in children. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Thordardottir, E. T., and Weismer, S. E. (1998). Mean length of utterance and other language sample measures in early Icelandic. First Language, 18,1–32. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Treffers-Daller, J. (2013). Measuring lexical diversity among L2 learners of French: an exploration of the validity of D, MTLD and HD-D as measures of language ability. In: Jarvis, S. and Daller, M. (eds.) Vocabulary knowledge: human ratings and automated measures. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 79–104. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (9)

Cited by nine other publications

AbuShawar, Bayan, Shrouq Al-Daja, Mozah H. Al-Kaabi, Majdi Sawalha, Usra H. Idris & Abdallah T. AlShdaifat
2025. Children’s science language: a semantic arabic ontology approach. International Journal of Information Technology DOI logo
Ntelitheos, Dimitrios, Alexandra Marquis & Nikolaos Tsigilis
2025. The development of basic word order in child Emirati Arabic. First Language DOI logo
Ntelitheos, Dimitrios & Marta Szreder
2024. Non-verbal predicate negation in child Emirati Arabic. Language Acquisition 31:1 ► pp. 37 ff. DOI logo
Ntelitheos, Dimitrios
2022. Tracing the acquisition of definiteness in Emirati Arabic. In Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics XXXIII [Studies in Arabic Linguistics, 11], ► pp. 169 ff. DOI logo
Marquis, Alexandra
2021. LATFA. In Experimental Arabic Linguistics [Studies in Arabic Linguistics, 10], ► pp. 125 ff. DOI logo
Ntelitheos, Dimitrios & Tommi Leung
2021. Introduction. In Experimental Arabic Linguistics [Studies in Arabic Linguistics, 10], ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Szreder, Marta, Donald Derrick & Chahla Ben-Ammar
2021. Affricate variation in Emirati Arabic. In Experimental Arabic Linguistics [Studies in Arabic Linguistics, 10], ► pp. 57 ff. DOI logo
Marquis, Alexandra, Meera Al Kaabi, Tommi Leung & Fatima Boush
2020. What the Eyes Hear: An Eye-Tracking Study on Phonological Awareness in Emirati Arabic. Frontiers in Psychology 11 DOI logo
Marquis, Alexandra, Meera Al Kaabi, Tommi Leung & Fatima Boush
2021. An eye-tracking study of phonological awareness in Emirati Arabic. In Experimental Arabic Linguistics [Studies in Arabic Linguistics, 10], ► pp. 109 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 1 december 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue