%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% FROM CHUCK TUCKER 931014 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
There have been times that I have been asked to not use my cam-
corder and "quit doing research" and asked "What do you plan to
do with these films?" when I am around my children and grandchildren
and friends. I have been taking films of human action since I
got my first super 8 camera in 1968. Clark and I began our
studies of "assemblages" using paper and pencil and moved quickly
to the use of film. Then I took films of my family and friends
(Clark's family was included in these) and of course have films of
trips and vacations [my wife recently asked me to stop taking photos
since it takes her weeks to put them into albums] Thus most of my
reports of observations come from a careful examination of my
films.
On most of my reports of talk I have used the TEST. In addition
to saying a sound that appears to me to be 'fish', the sound is
judged to sound that way to Sondra's mother, father, brother, Ann
McPhail, and her GrandButton. But I also use pictures of what I
consider to be a fish (a new book that I brought to her which has
for the letter F a drawing of a 'fish') and pictures of other
animals which I ask her to identify as in "Point to the fish".
She does not call a picture of a turtle a 'fish' but rather
she calls it a 'turtle' without failure (she may have mislabeled
these pictures earlier - I don't know). So I try testing her
by giving her other objects to identify and other pictures to
identify and film this action (I think filming it is very
important since memory can be faulty).
Someday I will test the suggestion of Bruce's and see how few
words may be required to get Sondra to leave her juice bottle
on the table before she goes into the living room.
One story on pronouncing words. My Grandson Mac (Sondra's brother)
mispronounced a number of words (still does) but one of the
most noticable ones was to say 'nake' instead of 'snake'. This
summer we were talking about words with him and he said "When I
was a baby I used to say 'nake' instead of 'snake'." Then he
laughed. I was astonished - how did he remember that he misused
that word? I mentioned my amazement to his father and he "Oh yes
that is one of Mac's favorite stories. He likes to be told about
that and askes to be reminded of it whenever we talk about when
he was a baby." Mac was 4 years old on August 7, 1993.
Regards, Chuck