Utterance length and the development of mandarin chinese
Date Issued
1998-02-06
Date
1998-02-06
Author(s)
cheung, hintat
DOI
20060927123130945247
Abstract
This study examined the application of MLU (Mean Length of Utterance) in Chinese. Three questions were addressed: (1) Is MLU a valid measure for the acquisition of Mandarin? (2) What would be its effective application range ? (3) What would be the counting unit of MLU in Mandarin? In this study, we followed five children (age range: 1;6 to 3;6) for two years and collected 67 one-hour spontaneous speech samples. Two MLU measures were computed, one counted by word, the other by syllable. It is found that both MLU measures correlated with age significantly. Based on the developmental patterns of these children, it is suggested that MLU 3.5 should be its upper limit of application. Besides, MLU in word (MLUw) and MLU in syllable (MLUs) correlates significantly with each other. In conclusion, MLU is found to be a valid measure for assessing preschool children's expressive ability. However, if with older subjects and higher MLU scores, we should be more conservative in interpreting the result.
Type
other
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