Draft

## Vegetative and Reflexive Sounds

The first stage of phonological production development, vegetative and reflexive sounds, starts at birth and is characterized by how a neonate’s immature vocal tract (\*proper term?) and brain (Lust, 2006) limits their ability to produce phonation.  For about a month and a half, an infant can only produce reflexive and vegetative sounds like a vocalic cry when in discomfort or vocalizations that give the impression of proto-consonants when air catches on parts of the vocal system when breathing, burping, or other basic, living sounds (Hoff, 2013, Yeni-Komshian et al., 1980).

Infants can distinguish their mother tongue from a foreign language from birth, and can discriminate between two foreign languages as well as between words and non words (Hoff, 2013).

### “Kitten”

   (Four hours)

1. "The books all say I'm supposed to talk to you," says Xiong, smoothing Fei Yen's downy hair with her thumb. "But I'm not sure what to say to someone who won't understand me." (Dictionary of Nursing, 2014)
2. Fei Yen looks up at her.
3. "Though you are listening. I suppose that's the important part."
4. Fei Yen keeps watching.
5. "Well, you won't have any siblings from me—I was almost too old for you—but you have lots of cousins..." Xiong sighs but smiles at the several dozen bouquets of flowers. "And I expect you'll pick up quite a bit more family by virtue of living here—" ~~[2, 3]~~
6. From out in the hall—
7. A string of angry Cantonese.
8. Fei Yen glances away.
9. A deep rumble of Russian. ~~[5]~~
10. Fei Yen nurses with earnest—
11. Xiong winces. "Everything's fine, my dear—"
12. Fei Yen looks back at her.
13. "—I'm not going anywhere."
14. Another, angrier string of Cantonese—
15. Fei Yen glances away, nurses more intently—
16. Xiong stifles her wince, presses the call button. "My love—"
17. Fei Yen's eyes focus on Xiong—
18. A sharp slash of Russian.
19. —for barely a moment.
20. Nurse Miyahira (18;3.3, Ryukyujin (black hair), 5’6”) knocks, slips inside, and bows. "Marshal." ~~[6]~~
21. "Would you—"
22. Fei Yen attends.
23. "—be so kind as to ask the argument to remove itself from the vicinity?"
24. Miyahira cringes. "Which argument?"
25. "The—" Xiong stifles a wince. "Chinese-Russian squabble?"
26. Miyahira frowns, but: "Consider it—"
27. Fei Yen's eyes flick away.
28. "—done." She bows—
29. More arguing.
30. Fei Yen nurses more eagerly.
31. Miyahira lights up. "It's that high-amplitude—"
32. Xiong winces.
33. "—sucking thing in action!" Sobers. "Though it's probably really uncomfortable for you. I'll take care of that argument now." Bows again, closes the door softly, listens.
34. She can hear /**Ukrainian**...
35. Miyahira shrugs off her doubt, strides from the Long Term wing into Receiving, and follows the shouting the second door of Short Term & Exams.
36. -Kaidanovskaya, Alexandra, 24 years old, 5'10" ... Kaidanvosky, Alexander, 18 years old, 7' ... Russian.- says the chart.
37. Okay, then.
38. She pushes open the door, says loudly, “Cadets, Rangers.” Inclines her head.
39. The combatants back off.
40. “You’ll be pleased to know your appointments have been rescheduled.”
41. Jin (17;0.13, Chinese (black buzzcut), 5’11) huffs.
42. Kaidanovskaya (24;10.28, bleach blonde, 5’10”) raises an eyebrow.
43. “When?” asks Kaidanovsky (18;11.6, bleach blond, 7’). ~~[8]~~
44. “I’ll let your handlers know. Bye, now!”
45. They communicate; Kaidanovsky rumbles in Ukrainian, Kaidanovskaya slides off the bed, they grab their shoes, and they saunter out. (~~[9]~~ del Toro, 2013 Featurette)
46. Miyahira turns to the triplets expectantly.
47. “What?” asks Cheung  (17;0.13, Chinese (black buzzcut), 5’11).
48. “I’m kicking the lot of you out.”
49. Cheung, Jin, and Hu wince.
50. “Right,” says Hu (17;0.13, Chinese (black buzzcut), 5’11).
51. “We’ll see ourselves out,” adds Cheung.
52. “Awesome.” Miyahira sorta bows. “Later!”
53. They follow her out, return to their exam room.
54. A high, reedy wail.
55. "A kitten!" beams Jin, grabbing his trousers. ~~[10]~~
56. "What would a kitten be doing in a Shatterdome?" wonders Cheung, pulling on his shirt.
57. "Shouldn’t we be leaving?” reminds Hu.
58. But Jin's out the door.
59. Cheung, now dressed, shrugs and follows.
60. Hu wanders towards the exit for exactly three steps, then turns on his heel and dashes after them.
61. He finds their brothers easily enough, glued at the hip and with lowered guard at the Marshal’s bedside.
62. Also Jin's broadcasting ‘——*omg! cute thing! come look!*' vibes. (~~[11], del Toro, 2013)~~
63. “Cadet,” greets the Marshal.
64. Hu bows.
65. Jin subtly motions him over.
66. “This is Fei Yen, my daughter.” Shifts her arms, inclines her head.
67. Cheung, Jin, and Hu shuffle closer, peers around the Marshal’s shoulder.
68. “Fei Yen, these are Cadets Wei Cheung, Wei Jin, and Wei Hu, he-him-his. I expect you’ll be seeing a lot of them.” ~~[12]~~
69. Fei Yen doesn’t look at them.  ~~[13]~~
70. “Hi,” whispers Jin.
71. Puffy, squinting dark eyes flick his way.
72. Jin swallows most of a squee, clutches Cheung’s arm.
73. For all appearances, Cheung seems to be his usual, always-watching big brother but he's hugging Jin's arm just as tightly and his mouth's gone kinda dopey.
74. Fei Yen does a... wiggly thing and scrunches her face.
75. "All done?" the Marshal asks softly.
76. Apparently so, as Fei Yen doesn't protest when the Marshal eases her—and there's Miyahira with a towel over her shoulder, scooping up Fei Yen in her blanket, and there goes Miyahira and Fei Yen.
77. "Did you see the little nose!" bursts Jin. "And the little feets!"
78. The Marshal smiles in spite of herself, adjusting her gown. "Can I help you three with something?"
79. "We heard a kitten," explains Cheung.
80. "Guessing you don't have a kitten," adds Jin.
81. “But we’re not sure what you have, either,” finishes Hu.
82. "A baby," says Marshal Xiong, eyes softening. “A brand new baby.”
83. A gurgly sound.
84. "A human baby?" asks Jin.
85. "Yes."
86. Miyahira comes back—
87. Marshal Xiong doesn't quite smile but she kinda glows.
88. —and returns a loosely-swaddled Fei Yen to the Marshal's arms.
89. "She's very, uh...." Hu schools a frown. How does one compliment newborns?
90. "Are you sure she's human?" asks Jin.
91. "Absolutely," says the Marshal, easing Fei Yen against her chest. "I'm still frozen from the surgery." ~~[14]~~
92. Now that the Marshal mentions it, Hu does see some features resembling those of a human, but—
93. "She's kinda... purple," Hu points out. ([15], Babycenter)
94. “And icky,” adds Jin. ([16], Babycenter)
95. "That's because she was born four hours ago," explains the Marshal. "The tint will fade as she gets used to breathing on her own."
96. Oooooh.
97. “May we hold her?” asks Jin.
98. “Not until tomorrow,” replies Xiong, draping the tiny blanket over Fei Yen.
99. Jin pouts—
100. “That’s not going to work, Cadet.”

### Analysis

Language perception in infants can be tested by gauging interest with regards to their rate of sucking, in this case, language discrimination. Neonates can do this from birth, however the neurons responsible begin to be cannibalized almost immediately and prosodically-similar languages, which English, Cantonese, and the East Slavic language family are not (source?), soon become indistinguishable. ([not quite sure how to pick lines for this one]; Hoff, 2013).

Infants prefer the sound of a human voice over all other sounds and will turn towards the source.  ([2, 4, 8, 12, 15, 17, 19, 22, 25, 62); Hoff, 2013). (Aside: I seem to recall babies can't move their eyes all that well and certainly not together; is there an eye reflex?)

Cats have developed a cry that mimics the sound of a crying baby to get human attention ([55, 56, 79, 80]; find a source that isn’t a TV show and that I can find.)

Additional Information/To Do

~~[1] Neonate hair~~

~~[2] Xiong is in her late 40s, one of five children of a government employee.~~

~~[3] Commanding officer of a massive quasi-military facility + new baby = lots of visitors.~~

~~[4]~~ (Aside: "An oddly-accented string of Cantonese." Cadets Wei grew up speaking a Shanghai dialect. http://shmoo92.tumblr.com/post/74458376396/actual-post-on-the-wei-triplets-no-one-is-more Find out how Cantonese and Shanghai differ.)

~~[5] Russian (Russian vs Ukrainian) (Economist map of borders based on languages?) Little worried about the effect of the point of view switch on this point—Xiong hasn’t had Ukrainian pointed out to her but has had Russian and she’s sorta familiar with it so she assumes the Russian team is speaking Russian. Miyahira (who could speak Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian at one point (she’s a polygot)), however, /can hear the difference and recognizes it.~~

~~[6] The standard accompaniment to greetings is to bow; a) this is East Asia, b) the Shatterdome promotes hands-free interaction so as to limit the spread of germs because germs there will be cramming people from all walks of life from every corner of the planet into a contained space.~~

~~[7] Miyahira Setsuko is a former linguistics student who switched career paths when the Kaiju war started; she assumed (correctly) medicine would be of more immediate use than linguistics.~~

~~[8] Miyahira has her doubts--http://confabulatrix.tumblr.com/post/91292768710/i-cant-do-it-anymore-i-cant-take-it-its-like~~

~~[9] Ghost Drifting~~

~~[10] Kittens vs babies crying [46, 47, 70, 71]~~

~~[11] ‘That twin thing’ and also the Drift~~

~~[12] No one is to assume gender~~

[13] A baby cannot see anything very well beyond 20-40 centimeters (Babycenter)

~~[14] Xiong had a c-section~~

[15] Immature circulatory system (Babycenter)

[16] Best not clean babies for 24 hours due to them needing Mom’s bacteria (Personal data)

Additional Sources

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

demigirlpartypoison​​. (2015). *This Child Pronounces Mosquito Moe-kee-toes*. Retrieved from http://demigirlpartypoison.tumblr.com/post/121147579695/this-child-pronounces-mosquito-moe-kee-toes. ("Boosters")

Hoff, Erika. (2013). *Language Development*. Wadsworth Publishing, USA.

Martin, E., McFerran, T. (2014). Lanugo. *A Dictionary of Nursing*(6th ed). Oxford University Press.

I may change all the Babycenter sources to “What to Expect When You’re Expecting

### Cut

* One of the others nurses had done a /fantastic Darth Sidious impression when they went over the schedule that morning, cackling, "And with this last appointment, the Vladivostok 'Dome will be /**fully** vaccinational!" so if no other Russian teams were in the area and Kaidanovskaya and Kaidaonvsky were speaking Ukrainian but list themselves as Russian, then that could potentially mean Chernobog Alpha, the proud bruiser of Russia, was piloted by a pair of Ukrainians.
* So either the reannexation was still a thing or the two hundred fifty foot monster who flattened San Francisco 6 months after Russia made the move on Ukraine had put a stop to that plan and this particular pair had changed their identities.

## Cooing and Laughter

Infants begin to vocalize contentment as early as 6 weeks (Yeni-Komshian et al., 1980), and they do so usually with a “coo” (Hoff, 2013). This is a more musical vocalization (Gillen, 2003), initially with only one, long vowel-like sound; in fact, the only recognizable speech sounds at this point are vowel-like. As the infant’s vocal system develops and she begins to learn how it works, she begins to produce her first consonantal sounds, typically at the back of her mouth and reminiscent of /k/ and /g/ (Hoff, 2013), and combines them with vocalic sounds into a consonant-vowel-like early syllable (Lust, 2006).

## Vocal Play

The discovery that sounds can be combined leads way to the “vocal play” stage, also known as the “expansion stage” (Yeni-Komshian et al., 1980). Infants mix together a variety of sounds and do not limit themselves to “isolated” consonantal and vocalic vocalizations (Goodluck, 2001) but play with friction noises (Hoff, 2013), nasal murmurs, and behaviours such as squeaking or yelling (Yeni-Komshian et al., 1980). Although the infant produces vocalizations with consonant and vowel-like features, syllables of this ilk remain as of yet undeveloped in terms of their temporal characteristics and production values, such as syllable-timing fundamental frequency, or prosody (Lust, 2006). Infants develop more of a sense of their proper timing and articulation, however (MacNeilage, 1980), as they produce longer and more complicated series of sounds (Hoff, 2013) and eventually progress into “marginal babbling” (Yeni-Komshian et al., 1980).

### Making a Note

Potential dialogue; (6 months) – Miyahira describes Fei Yen’s sound production, including such gems as,

“14:37 –  high back, vocalic — (Yeni-Komshian et al., 1980)

14:42 – *experimenter note:* *subject’s* *diaper changed*.

14:43 – velars. More velars. Glottal stop-ish, kinda muffled— (Goodluck, 2001)

14:43a – subject vocalizing around foot.”

and

"14:37 didn’t hear any fricatives--can’t say I blame her, they /suck. (Goodluck, 2001)"

She also cites data from previous observation sessions, difficulty transcribing (nonreduplicated babbling, alas), and mentions Fei Yen’s dinosaur teething toys.

(“Making a Note” is also related to “This is a Triumph” which would be a recording left on Miyahira’s server of a newly 5 year old Fei Yen asking her mom why Rangers Lin Chao and Feng didn’t come to her birthday party and being told it was because the stars needed their help, however “No Use Crying” (Fei Yen vs AGNIS the Artificial Intelligence) would have to be a thing but it’s made redundant by “Kitten” and babies turning their heads towards human voices. This has been a ramble.)

## Reduplicated Babbling

The onset of reduplicated babbling typically occurs when the infant is about 6 months old. (Stark, 1980). The hallmark of this stage is a long string of nigh-uniform consonant-vowel syllables whose timing bears a much greater resemblance to adult speech than the infant`s productions thus far (Stark, 1980). Her use of velar stops has decreased considerably—they may disappear from her production repitoire completely for some time--and she produces consonant-like sounds at the front of her mouth, such as /m, n, p, or /d/ (Hoff, 2013). Her vocalizations show the first signs of language-specific characteristics, though at this point, the effect is only obvious to phoneticians as only vowels and suprasegmental factors are affected, though by the time an infant is 8 months, a typical adult may be able to distinguish two infants babbling in different target languages (Goodluck, 2001).

### Peek-a-Boo

Potential dialogue; (8 months) – Stacker finds himself on babysitting duty while the Marshal and her husband are exiled from the Shatterdome out on a date. Nang gives him a specific set of instructions, and after being interrogated by the `Dome AI, makes up the sofa-bed in the Marshal`s quarters (as per Nang's orders) and attempts to read to Fei Yen. After one page, she takes the book away and gives him another. He reads a page of it, she replaces it. One of the triplets shows up. Stacker gets through the first page of the third book and Fei Yen gives him back the first book. A second triplet wanders in. Stacker reads the second page, Fei Yen offers the first book, and Miss Mori and Max ask to join them. Stacker reads from the first book, Fei Yen gives him the third book, and a third triplet appears. Stacker picks up from where he left off in the third book , Fei Yen gives him the second book, and Ducky storms in but Max won`t leave so Ducky grudgingly makes himself comfortable. Stacker and Fei Yen’s ‘game’ continues until two of the books are finished at which point it’s time for Fei Yen’s bottle which Stacker was going to prepare but Cheung’s already got it perfect. Tamsin appears. Stacker reads the third book while Fei Yen’s feeding and then she falls asleep and he doesn’t want to wake her by moving, and then he realizes pretty much everyone’s fallen asleep.

The Marshal and her husband return an hour later to find two adults, one infant, one dog, two preteens, and one triplet asleep on the sofa bed and another two triplets asleep in the easy chairs.

“This is our life now,” sighs Xiong.

Mr Xiong squeezes her hand. “At least they’re cute,” he offers, going in search of blankets.

Xiong concedes.

They each tuck in a triplet, and then Xiong gathers Fei Yen, Mr Xiong floats a blanket down on the sofa bed, and then they head to bed.

Between seven and eight months, children begin to grasp the concept of a dialogue by playing “games of exchange” (Clark, 2009); an infant will give an object to a playmate and then replace it with another.)

## 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. 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 (Yeni-Komshian et al., 1980: 75), 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).

## Gestures

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. Such utterances constitute “proto-words” but fail to capture an important distinction of early word development; at this stage, gestures are as much a part of their lexicon as words (Clark, 2009). A combination gesture-vocalization constitutes a meaningful utterance at this stage.

## Babbling and First Words

Some infants go through a silent period around the same they begin to walk, which led some researchers to believe that babbling and early word production were two entirely different, unrelated systems. This may be an issue of cognitive load, however, such as [describe the study]. Research has also found that an infant's preferences when babbling "predicts quite accurately" their first words and probable deformations (Yeni-Komshian et al., 1980).

"You wanted to see me?"

"Yes, have a seat."

"Thank you."

"Fei Yen's been rather quiet as of late; the pediatrician says it's typical at this stage--"

"But you want an opinion from someone who you're not paying or isn't potentially a 'yes person'?"

Xiong gives her a Look.

Miyahira winces. "Permission to speak freely?"

"And you interrupted me."

"Oh. Sorry."

## First Words

A child’s first meaningful words are typically spoken any time between 9 and 14 months (Lust, 2006).

### "Cup.2"

- Miyahira's surprised because Fei Yen was more of an "intonation baby"--so she practiced sounds and prosody kind of babbling instead of trying to learn words which would describe a "word baby".

- get the doctor to check out the bite

## Single Word

The single word period is not a true stage like babbling or cooing, but a \_\_ (Clark, 2009).

The biggest difference between adult words and a child’s in the first half of the single word period and the second is the number and shape of the syllables. A child’s words tend to be only one, open syllable.

“Laundry”

\*should “awkia” have a schwa?

Fei Yen exhibits a child’s difficulty segmenting the speech stream (“awkia”) and the trend of deleting final consonants, especially late-developing sounds like liquids.

She also has difficulty segmenting her world—what makes something move, what parts of her world attach, what action makes what sound, and so on.

## Two-Word Utterances

### Duck

1. Charlie, balancing Fei Yen on her knee, Mister Soap, and Ducky sit at a refectory table, eating lunch.
2. Charlie (20;6.30 Black (Indigenous) Australian, 5’10”) turns a page in her textbook.
3. Mister Soap (0;4.6, yellow rubber duck, 2 ¼“) sits on the table contently.
4. “Yum yum yum,” hums Fei Yen (1;9.9, Chinese, 2’6”), arranging gummies for Mister Soap.
5. Ducky (13;3.1, White (1st gen Irish) Australian, 5′4″) glowers.
6. Charlie ponders a cannon diagram.
7. “Tarding. Kairo.”
8. Mister Soap faces the first gummy.
9. “Duck.”
10. Mister Soap comes down hard on a blue monster--
11. “BOOM!”
12. Ducky hunches over his mashed potatoes.
13. Mister Soap’s shadow looms over another gummy.
14. “Have any highlighters, Ducky?”
15. “Duck—”
16. Ducky yanks a handful of markers from his backpack, dumps them on the table, returns to his lunch.
17. “Thanks,” says Charlie.
18. Fei Yen studies Mister Soap.
19. Ducky grunts.
20. Fei Yen says, “Duck.”
21. Mister Soap falls on a gummy.
22. “/Duck.”
23. Mister Soap lies on a gummy.
24. “/Duck!”
25. “What?” snaps Ducky.
26. “Duck!” Fei Yen grabs Mister Soap. “Duck!”
27. Ducky grumbles, returns to his lunch.
28. Fei Yen fumes, twists in Charlie’s lap. “Duck.”
29. “What’s up, Feiby?”
30. “Duck!” Fei Yen waves Mister Soap at Ducky.
31. “I don’t quite understand what you’re trying to say,” Charlie says slowly. “One sec?”
32. “All kia!”
33. “I’ll be quick.” She leans back, scans the refectory. “Oi! Miyahira!”
34. From the other side of the hall, ““Yea?””
35. “C’mere!”
36. “”Coming~!””
37. Charlie smiles at Fei Yen. “Duck is coming?”
38. Fei Yen grumbles, throws down Mister Soap. “Duck.”
39. Ducky scowls.
40. Miyahira (19:1.3, Ryukyujin, 5′6″) skids, skips, and lands beside Charlie. “What’s—hey, Fei Yen! How’s life?”
41. Fei Yen gives two thumbs up.
42. “Awe-some,” replies Miyahira. Addresses Charlie: “What’s up?”
43. “You,” Charlie squeezes Fei Yen, “keep saying ‘Duck’ and I can’t figure it out.”
44. “Duck?” asks Miyahira.
45. Fei Yen, picking up Mister Soap. “Duck.” Points him at Ducky. “Duck.”
46. Ducky uses a little more force than necessary hacking at his meatloaf.
47. “Are they both ducks?”
48. Fei Yen bounces. “Duck! Duck duck!”
49. Charlie winces.
50. “Are you trying to say they both have ‘duck’ labels?”
51. Lost Fei Yen on that one.
52. “You can call both ‘duck’ and you’ll be correct.”
53. Fei Yen nods.
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.
56. The loudspeaker crackles.
57. “That’s my cue,” apologizes Miyahira. “Gotta jet.”
58. “Thanks,” says Charlie.
59. “Byebye,” waves Fei Yen.
60. Ducky grunts.
61. “Later folks.” Miyahira heaves herself to her feet, jogs from the refectory.
62. “I’m not a duck,” grumbles Ducky.
63. “You follow me everywhere.”
64. “I—” He stabs his potatoes.
65. “Finish up or you won’t grow up enough to be my co-pilot.” Charlie poofs Fei Yen’s hair. “Same to you, kiddo.”
66. “Big duck.”

### Analysis

Once children speak their first words, their language acquisition seems to grind to a halt, spending almost an entire year using only holophrastic utterances for no physiological, cognitive, or vocabulary reason (Lust, 2006).

Fei Yen has just learned the arbitrary nature of language and has shortly moved on to two (and later, three) word utterances (though probably not this quickly; Gillen, Julia. 2003.)

She can now produce /L/ but /r/ in the word-final position is a bit beyond her still (Hoff, 2013), as is the /kl/ consonant cluster (McLeod et al, 2001).

tʃɑrdʒɪŋ

Up until a child is two, gestures play as big a roll in their lexicon as spoken words; Fei Yen displays a dietic gesture in [29], and a transitioning representational-symbolic gesture in [55] and [59] (Gullberg & De Bot, 2010).

I imagine that, in 2017, they have more food than what we saw in the movie, but this is an excuse to have another source XD

Entity + Attribute ("Boosters")