Like Cup Handles

Fei Yen communicates. 
==Text==
1. Cheung, Jin, and Hu (17:11.8, Chinese, Cadets) sprawl on their crash pad, going over the almost lastminute details of /Shaolin Rogue, due to launch in less than two months.
2. A knock.
3. They attend.
4. Mr Xiong’s got the half-perturbed look that says they moved so perfectly in sync so as to be eerie.
5. “/h/!” waves Fei Yen (0:10.26, Chinese, marshal’s daughter) as they scrambled to their feet. (Clark, 2009)
6. “Sir,” greets Cheung, bowing with Jin and Hu.
7. Mr Xiong (late 40s, Chinese, marshal’s husband) bows back, a little distracted by Fei Yen tugging his hand.
8. “/ɛ/?” she asks, patting, at hip level, the air beside her.
9. “Might Fei Yen stay for a bit?” he asks.
10. “Of course!” says Jin.
11. “We’ll be happy to have her,” adds Hu.
12. Fei Yen beams, “[dæŋ]!”, and kisses the air in Mr Xiong’s direction.
13. Cheung steps forward for the diaper bag.
14. Fei Yen toddles full-tilt into Jin’s arms.
15. “We gotta work on /Typhoon, though,” he warns, scooping her up.
16. “[ækiə],” says Fei Yen, making herself comfy.
17. “Awe—” Jin grunts the grunt of someone finding a tiny, plastic-shelled work boot digging into their stomach as a means of propelling a tiny body higher on the someone’s person.
18. “I’ll be with the Marshal,” says Mr Xiong. ”Have fun.”
19. “You bet!” replies Jin.
20. “[bæ]!” waves Fei Yen.
21. Cheung and Hu bow, Jin sort bows, Mr Xiong replies, blows a kiss to Fei Yen, and heads off.
22. Cheung sits back down on their crashpad, Hu flops, and Jin falls backwards, much to Fei Yen’s delight. 
23. She wiggles free almost immediately and beelines—
24. Hu eeps.
25. “No!” squeaks Jin, throwing himself after her. “Shoes!”
26. —for the diaper bag and tries to get it open.
27. Jin pulls off one shoe, Hu grabs the other.
28. “Would you like help with that?” asks Cheung.
29. Fei Yen smacks the bag and sits back with a huff and a glower.
30. Jin tosses Hu a tablet.
31. “Here you go.” Cheung opens the main compartment—
32. Fei Yen dives in.
33. –and abandons his attempt to free any of the smaller ones.
34. Fei Yen rummages around.
35. “Have they picked a colour yet?” asks Hu.
36. Jin taps away. “I think so—they did and Marketing cleared it.” Shows off the screen.
37. Cheung asks Fei Yen, “Can I help?”
38. She continues rummaging.
39. “That’s a lot of orange,” Hu remarks.
40. “Yes, yes it is,” says Jin. "At least it matches the /Braves."
41. Cheung sits back.
42. “Are we ordering it?”
43. “We are, and the Marshal wants us to wait until after the other ‘Domes open.”
44. Cheung offers, “Would you like me to dump it out?”
45. Fei Yen makes a frustrated sound.
46. Jin squees, “We get to paint soon!!!”
47. Hu huffs a laugh. “It’s gonna end up being on our birthday.”
48. “I know! Best. Present. Ever.”
49. Fei Yen exclaims, holds up her sippy cup triumphantly.
50. Cheung, Jin, and Hu cheer.
51. Jin asks, “Would you like something to drink?”
52. “[mmm],” Fei Yen hums, presenting her cup.
53. “Water okay?” Jin takes it.
54. Fei Yen hums again, calls, “[dæŋ]!”, and kisses the air.
55. Hu asks, “Did you sleep well?”
56. Fei Yen snores, giggles, and grins.
57. “We did, too.”
58. Cheung grumbles, “Jin kept kicking me.”
59. “Did not!” scoffs Jin.
60. “I have footprints!”
61. Jin hmphs.
62. Fei Yen giggles.
63. Jin bows with a flourish. “Your water, Mx.”
64. “[dæŋ]!” Fei Yen takes it with both hands, leans forward—
65. Jin shuffles closer.
66. –kisses his nose.
67. “Aw, sank you, Feiby!” Jin kisses her forehead, plunks down.
68. Fei Yen makes a sing-song-y sound, mouths her sippy cup, and crawls into his lap.
69. “Lucky me!”
70. Fei Yen replies with a high, nasaly sound and a happy face.
71. “We’re looking at paint.” Hu indicates the tablet.
72. Fei Yen attends.
73. “We’re not getting it ‘til later, though,” Jin sighs.
74. Fei Yen hums a sigh.
75. Hu remembers something. “Hey, when’s the left thumb coming?”
76. “I don’t even know,” Cheung says tiredly, reaching for his tablet. Taps away— “It’s in transit!”
77. Jin and Hu cheer.
78. Fei Yen looks at her cup.
79. Cheung flops back. “/Never using that supplier again.”
80. Hu taps away. “Making a note of that.”
81. Cheung grumps, “Thanks.”
82. Fei Yen navigates from Jin’s lap, plunks down at Hu’s side.
83. Jin studies his tablet. “If the map’s right, they should be here by the end of the week—”
84. Cheung continues, “Installation’ll take a day—”
85. Hu says, “Everything else’s already there.”
86. “—and then /Rogue’ll go for her test walk….” mutters Hu.
87. Fei Yen abandons her cup, takes hold of Hu’s sleeve, heaves herself to her feet.
88. “Armour’ll go on—,” Hu adds thoughtfully.
89. “And we’ll paint!” cheers Jin.
90. Cheung rolls his eyes.
91. Fei Yen wiggles Hu’s ear.
92. Cheung continues, “I was gonna say, ‘And then we’ll have data for /Typhoon’.”
93. Fei Yen pulls his ear—and his head—from side to side.
94. “But it’s /painting day!”
95. Fei Yen tugs Hu’s head closer.
96. Hu complies.
97. “But data! For /our Jaeger!”
98. “Data, data, data.” Jin rolls his eyes, asks Fei Yen, “What’s got you so interested?”
99. “[dæ].” Fei Yen streeetches, pats his crown.
100. Hu querries.
101. “[dædədæ-dədædædəb].”
102. Hu says, “You want to get /Cherno, don’t you.”
103. “[dəb-dəp. dædəb].” Fei Yen tilts Hu head this way--“[dəddæbgə].”-- and that. “[gæb. gəgɒbdəbgəb].”
104. Jin puffs up. “How could you even /think such a thing?”
105. “[ta. dædəbdəbgɒb].” Fei Yen rubs Hu’s crown with the heel of her hand.
106. “I just like to paint, ‘s all.”
107. Fei Yen yanks Hu’s ear. “[tɒb].”
108. Hu lies down on his side, props himself up.
109. “[tɒp]?” Fei Yen huffs, presses her mouth to Hu’s crown.
110. “Using /Rogue’s paint for pranks.” Jin huffs.
111. Hu deadpans to Cheung, “He’s totally gonna get /Cherno.”
112. “[təbtɒp. tɒbtəpdɒp].” Fei Yen pats around with more force, brow furrowed. “[təpdæpgəp].”
113. Cheung says, "If you restart the prankwar, Tall Sasha and I are gonna get the Marshal and she's /not going to be happy."
114. “[Gɒpkə].” Fei Yen mouths Hu’s head, taps with her front teeth. “[ʌb].”
115. “Traitors,” grumbles Jin. “The lot of you. Traitors.”
116. Fei Yen pulls away. “[gɒbdəbtɒbtɒpdəpgʌb].” Frowns, digs in her teeth.
117. Cheung says, “You’ve got, uh….”
118. Hu touches—pokes Fei Yen’s nose—
119. She exhales angrily.
120. —his head, looks at his bloody fingers as he sits up.
121. Fei Yen reaches after him, “[mmm]!”
122. “What’s up?”
123. “[tʌp]!”
124. “Why’re you biting him?”
125. Fei Yen goes pink, face scrunching. “[gəp]!”
126. “Feiby?”
127. “[mmm]!” Fei Yen reaches again.
128. “Feiby, what’s wrong?”
129. “[gʌb]!” Fei Yen stomps her feet.
130. “Fei Yen?”
131. Fei Yen sits down heavily. “[kʌb].” Bursts into tears.
132. Jin squeaks.
133. Cheung flutters. “What’s wrong?”
134. Fei Yen throws her sippy—”Cup!”
135. They watch it bounce away, landing face-side up.
136. “I don’t get it,” says Jin.
137. “Make your happy face again,” says Hu.
138. Jin cheers.
139. Cheung says thoughtfully, “You think we’re cups.”
140. Fei Yen reaches for Jin, cries, “Cup!”
141. Cheung rolls off their crashpad, leaves in search of a washcloth.
142. “We’re not cups, sorry,” Hu says gently, offering a hug.
143. Fei Yen wails.
144. “Guys,” says Jin. “She thinks we’re /cups.”
145. “Clearly,” says Hu softly. “C’mere, Feiby.”
146. Cheung gets Fei Yen into something of a gentle armlock--
147. Fei Yen howls and goes wiggly--
148. --and scrubs her mouth.
149. “She /said cup.”
150. Hu’s brow wrinkles.
151. Cheung lets Fei Yen go, dabs at Jin’s head with a clean corner of the washcloth.
152. “Have you said an actual word before?” asks Hu. (Stilwell-Pecci, 2006)
153. Fei Yen keeps wailing.
154. Cheung tapes up Jin with a /Cherno Alpha bandage.
155. Jin beams. “Pretty sure you haven’t.”
156. “Holy s—” Hu scoops up Fei Yen, Cheung grabs the diaper bag, Jin snatches up the cup, and they fly for the Marshal’s office.
==Meta==
===Nonreduplicated Babbling===
The onset of variegated babbling is not as clearly delineated as other stages (Stark, 1980), however one may safely assume a typical, 9-10 month old infant has reached this stage and will likely prolong the overlap with pre-linguistic schemas and early word use for another couple years (Clark, 2009). Unlike reduplicated babbling, an infant will offer variegated babbles as conversation (Stark, 1980). While true consonants become more well-defined, language-specific characteristics become less obvious and more difficult for adults to discriminate (Hoff, 2013). Infants typically begin to use a greater variety of consonants, vowels, syllables, and prosodies (Stark, 1980), and begin to sound as if they are speaking the target language even though they still only produce nonsense sounds (Hoff, 2013). Infants who remain at this stage and produce quite a bit of this "jargon" are known as "intonation babies", while infants who quickly proceed to learning the labels of their environment are "word babies". An infant will make their preference clear around their first birthday (Goodluck, 2001). 
====Analysis====
In dialogue three, 11 months, Fei Yen exhibits the overlap of variegated babbling, pre-linguistic schemas, and early word use:
* 127. “[mmm]!” Fei Yen reaches again.
** Pre-linguistic schema for a request (see “Pre-linguistic Schemas”)
* 128. “Feiby, what’s wrong?”
: 129. “[gʌb]!” Fei Yen stomps her feet.
** A short varigated babble
As is typical of an infant at this stage, Fei Yen’s babbling has a greater variety of syllable types and sounds:
* 99. “[dæ].” Fei Yen streeetches, pats his crown.
* 101. “[dædədæ-dədædædəb].”
* 103. “[dəb-dəp. dædəb].” Fei Yen tilts Hu’s head this way--“[dəddæbgə].”-- and that. “[gæb. gəgɒbdəbgəb].”
* 105. “[ta. dædəbdəbgɒb].” Fei Yen rubs Hu’s crown with the heel of her hand.
* 107. Fei Yen yanks Jin’s ear. “[tɒb].”
* 109. “[tɒp]?” Fei Yen huffs, presses her mouth to Hu’s crown.
* 112. “[təbtɒp. tɒbtəpdɒp].” Fei Yen pats around with more force, brow furrowed. “[təpdæpgəp].”
* 114. “[gɒpkə].” Fei Yen mouths Hu’s head, taps with her front teeth. “[ʌb].”
* 116. Fei Yen pulls away. “[gɒbdəbtɒbtɒpdəpgʌb].” Frowns, digs in her teeth.
* 123. “[tʌp]!”
* 125. Fei Yen goes pink, face scrunching. [gəp]!” 
* 129. “[gʌb]!” Fei Yen stomps her feet.
* 131. Fei Yen sits down heavily. “[kʌb].” Bursts into tears.
Instead of strings of CV syllables with very little variation, Fei Yen babbles with both CV syllables and CVC syllables with more than one difference between each segment and with a greater variety of articulation and voicing, such as word initial [t, g, k], and [d], and word final [p] and [b], than in the previous, reduplicated babbling stage where she only produced word initial [d] and [g].
Since Fei Yen’s babbling is also serving to as a means of communication (Stark, 1980), she attempts to limit her production of different sounds to those in the neighbourhood (Hoff, 2013) of her target word, [kʌp].
===Pre-linguistic Schemas===
Children produce meaningful utterances around 10 months; meaningful /words appear around 12 months. The former are not ‘words’ by virtue of not sounding adult-like, and have usually developed from an isolated segment of variegated babbling. These utterances constitute “protowords” but fail to capture an important distinction of early word development; at this stage, a meaningful utterance is a combination gesture-vocalization as much a part of their lexicon as words and will continue to do so until the child is two years old (Clark, 2009). 
These utterances typically have properties that make them easier to pronounce, for instance, they tend to be one or two syllables and they are usually open. [m, p, d] are found consistently in children’s early vocabularies, while [θ, ð, l, r] and consonant clusters are consistently absent, however there is considerable variation in production repertoires (Hoff, 2013). 
====Analysis====
In dialogue three (eleven months), Fei Yen communicates in a fashion characteristic of the “prelinguistic schema” (Clark, 2009) stage of development. She uses consistent vocalizations and gestures in highly constrained ways (the 'constrained’ aspect is not as obvious):
* “[h]!” + waving ([5]): “Hello!”
** The voiced glottal glide [h] is one of the consonants which appears quite frequently in infants’ repertoires as they near the onset of their first words. The liquid [l], however, is not, and Fei Yen deletes it as well as the vowels. She made this gesture watching people try to get someone’s attention from a distance as she cannot yet bow.
* “[ɛ]?” she asks, patting, at hip level, the air beside her ([8]): “May I stay, please?”
** Fei Yen cannot yet manage the stop cluster [st] so she deletes it, leaving [ɛ] (McLeod, Van Doorn, & Reed, 2001). She learned this gesture from people asking variations of, “would you like to sit (here)” and patting the seat beside them.
* Fei Yen beams, “[dæŋ]!”, and kisses the air in [x]’s direction ([12, 53, 63]): “Thank you!”
** Fei Yen reduces two syllables to only the one, simplifies [θ] to [t] and voices it to [d], and reduces the [ŋk] cluster to [n]. She created this one by watching her parents at the breakfast/supper table; one would get something for the other who would thank them and kiss their cheek.
* “[ækə]” ([16]): Proto-version of “All clear!” which, to Fei Yen, means everything from “Let’s go!” to “as you were”, “that’s okay”, and “we’re good”, among other uses.
** This is an example of a segmentation error, as Fei Yen perceives this two word phrase as one word, "allclear". She reduces it to a VC-V syllable, one of the new consonant-vowel combinations found in infant's variegated babbling (Stark, 1980).
The liquid [l] is not yet present in her repertoire; as her articulatory and cognitive prowess develops, she will coalesce the [ɒl] of "all" into [ɔ], but for now, such a sound is too complicated in this more complex environment for her brain to manage. The liquid [r] will not appear for some time and by deleting it she both removes an unpronounceable sound from the utterance and creates an easier, open syllable from a more difficult, closed syllable.
* “[bæ]!” waves Fei Yen ([20]): “Goodbye!”
** The stop, [b], is a voiced front sound, two features which make it a very straightforward sound to produce, unlike the diphthong [aɪ̯] so Fei Yen has coalesced the two vowels into [æ].
* Fei Yen snores, giggles, and grins ([55]): How Fei Yen says “I slept well” which she picked up from roleplaying games and books as both denote sleeping deeply with snores. She finds the sound of snoring funny.
** She does not yet know the word “snore” but she does know the sound.
* “[mmm].” ([51, 116, 122]): making a request
** An attempt to communicate “to me!”, possibly failing due to the cognitive load of attaching meaning to an utterance (Werker, Fennell, Corcoran, & Stager, 2002).
* Fei Yen makes a sing-song-y sound ([67]): “You’re welcome”
** This is the intonation contour of “you’re welcome”
* Fei Yen replies with a high, nasaly sound and a happy face ([69]): "I like you!”, happy sounds
** She does not yet have words to describe affectionate and happy feelings so she just uses a collection of sounds in a major key.
* Fei Yen hums a sigh ([73]): sad sounds
** An attempt at an adult’s sympathetic sigh (though she only understands the basic, ‘sad’ element) around a sippy cup.
Fei Yen will continue refining these schemas well after she has begun speaking, like her dietic gesture in dialogue four, when she is thirteen months old:
: 2. "Which one shall we learn today?" asks Hermann.
: 3. Fei Yen points to a symbol on the chalkboard. "Da."
The importance of these gestures will continue up until the time around Fei Yen’s second birthday (Clark, 2009), so in dialogue six, (22 months), Fei Yen continues to make use of them:
: 29. “What’s up, Feiby?”
: 30. “Duck!” Fei Yen waves Mister Soap at Ducky.
She also displays two transitioning representational-symbolic gestures (Morgan, 2014) in [55]
and [59]:
: 54. “That is some /incredible learn-age there, kid.” Miyahira holds out her fist. “Awesome fistbump of smartness.”
: 55. "Yosh!" Fei Yen gleefully throws forth her own.
And,
: 58. “That’s my cue,” apologizes Miyahira. “Gotta jet.”
: 59. “Byebye,” waves Fei Yen.
==Sources==
alighterwithlove​, miikkaa_xx. (2013). Fighting for Air. Retrieved fromhttp://archiveofourown.org/works/1073436. 
Clark, Eve. (2003, 2009). First Language Acquisition. Cambridge University Press.
del Toro, G. (Producer), & Beachman, T. (Director). (2013). Pacific Rim [Motion picture]. United States: Legendary Pictures.
del Toro, G. (Producer), & Beachman, T. (Director). (2013). Pacific Rim: The Drift [Featurette]. United States: Legendary Pictures.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rGVxfP8n4U
duvallon. (2015). We dont live for the fame, we live for the journey. Retrieved from http://duvallon.tumblr.com/post/117066041078/we-dont-live-for-the-fame-we-live-for-the
duvallon. (2015). Also their ears are super cute, they’re like cup handles. Retrieved from http://duvallon.tumblr.com/post/117067107088/also-their-ears-are-super-cute-theyre-like-cup
Hoff, Erika. (2013). Language Development. Wadsworth Publishing, USA.
Stilwell-Peccei, Jean (2006). Child Language: A Resource Book for Students. Psychology Press, 2006
Tokyo Otaku Mode. (2015). Kamoji-kun Mug. Retrieved fromhttps://otakumode.com/shop/52d7ba11d924a3767e00002a/Kaomoji-kun-Mugs
Category:Fei Yenian storyline
Category:Ficlet
Category:Ficlets in need of language stuff
Category:Pages in need of tags