THE DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH BY SIKH CHILDREN IN SINGAPORE

Abstract

This is a study of the development of English by Sikh children in Singapore. Six Sikh children whose ages range from 1;11 to 4;11 were chosen as subjects of this cross-longitudinal study. The main aim of this study is to describe the patterns of the development in the use of the English Language by these children. The features for which development is traced are Discourse Particles, Interrogatives, Negation, Verb and Noun Morphology, Sentence Complexity and Universal Features of Language. Generally, patterns of development can be found in these features. ln terms of the use of discourse particles, the three pragmatic particles used by my subjects were lb. lab and what. These particles were used only by the older children. The usage of these particles is restricted in number compared to the usage of particles by Chinese children in other studies (Gupta 1990, Kwan-Terry 1989). An interesting particle used by most of my subjects was nab. This particle was used in accompaniment with the act of giving, pushing or offering an object to another person. In terms of the development of interrogatives where is the earliest wh-word to be acquired followed by what, who and others. Three stages of the development of interrogatives are postulated. Polar interrogatives were used only by the two oldest children, S and P. In the section on negation, there was also a developmental pattern to be seen. The development of auxiliaries and the distinction between no and not are some of the features which show that there has been a development in negation. In terms of verb and noun morphology, only the three oldest children can be said to mark the past tense. There is a relationship between the existential got and don't have. Don't have functions as the negator of got. In terms of noun morphology, pronouns are generally marked for possession. The four older children in my study mark the genitive case for nouns. It is common to find unmarked tense, concord, number and case in children who are learning SCE (Gupta. 1993). In terms of sentence complexity, only the four older children display the use of co-ordinated and subordinated clauses. All children showed the ability to carry out object complement constructions. In terms of the universal features of language, categorisation problems and phonological processes were discussed briefly. Generally, the children did not make a distinction between the male and female gender pronouns. he and she. In terms of the phonological processes my subjects undergo, the younger children engage in five of the seven processes which Reich ( 1986) describes as universal. Comparisons have been made with other studies done on the development of English by Chinese children. I found an overall similarity in the development of English by Chinese and Sikh children. This development involves distinct features of SCE.