An Investigation of the Development of Language and Vocabulary

The main purpose of this study is to find out the developmental as well as sex differences in the using of language and vocabulary of elementary school children. The experiment was controlled by using three highly qualified TAT pictures, and the manner of telling stories was controlled also. The sixty subjects were all from the average or above average socio-economic status and school achievement levels. The results as compared with some similar studies reflect several common characteristics, such as the increase of sentence length as the age grows older; the higher percentage of good and complex sentence structures of the older group as well as the comparable proportions of using the parts of speech of the younger group. But, nevertheless, as some experts in this field mentioned, it was very difficult to combine or classify the various studies into a harmonious standard because of the different interests, methodological and terminological bases of each investigator. The present study reflects some of its own special results which are due to its different language patterns, different grammatical rules as well as different experimental methods and samples.