单选题：The Role of Parents in Promoting Language DevelopmentA．From

The Role of Parents in Promoting Language Development
A．From infancy to early childhood, one undeniable change takes place -- children learn totalk． In cultures around the world; young children's rapid language development representsa language explosion, with words and sentences bursting forth． By age 6, the average childhas a vocabulary of over 10,000 words because during these early years children leamwords at the rapid rate of 10 to 20 new words per day through a process called fast mapping．
Furthermore, even though different languages have different subject, verb, and objectplacement, young children's word placement matches the grammatical structure of theirnative language from the time they first string two words together．
B．Moreover, young children demonstrate an understanding of verb tense in their language．
An example of preschoolers' knowledge of verb tense is demonstrated in the following．
The young child who says "I played with Sally today" comprehends that ed is addedto a verb to represent past tense． When that same child says "Sally and I goed to thepark", the child is still demonstrating a basic understanding of past tense． In the secondexample, the child uses over regularisation, whereby a standard rule of past tense isapplied to the English language, which has many exceptions to the standard rules．
C．The remarkable advances in language development during the preschool years are furtherexemplified in young children's social speech． Preschool children are extraordinarilygood at producing social adaptive behaviour in their verbal communication． For example,4-year-old children speak differently to 2 olds when they see themselves in a teaching roleand when they are attempting to engage a younger child in informal play． Additionally,young children's speech reflects the social skills of turn taking and topic maintenance．
D．There is no question that the preschool stage of development is an impressive time oflanguage development． The extraordinary growth of vocabulary that occurs during thepreschool years is matched by an impressive understanding of basic grammar and sociallyadaptive language． There are, nevertheless, variations in language development and thesevariations can be traced to parent-child interactions． First of all, preschoolers need to hearnew words in order to learn them． It is, hence, beneficial for young children when theirparents continually engage them in verbal dialogues and respond to their questions andother verbal comments． Young children's language development (especially vocabularyexpansion) is further promoted when adults label new things for them．
E． Finally, whereas the language development that occurs during the preschool stage isimpressive, young children's pronunciation takes a little longer to perfect． It is importantthat parents do not attempt to correct their young children's pronunciation because thatapproach actually hampers (妨碍) their preschoolers' language development． Instead ofcalling attention to their youngsters' mispronunciation, parents should respond to theirpreschoolers' speech as if they had pronounced the words correctly． In their responses totheir young children's mispronunciations, however, it is important for parents to repeatback the words correctly, thereby modeling the correct pronunciation．
How Young Children Understand Speech
F． Even though young children's speech reflects their social understanding of turn taking,topic maintenance, and social adaptation, they are somewhat limited in comprehending thespeech of others． First, the preoperational thought of young children prevents them fromunderstanding the concept of reversibility (可逆性), which shows up in their failure toaccurately comprehend reverse-order sentences． An example of this misunderstanding can bedetected in the statement whereby the parent says to the child, "You can have a cookie afteryou wash your hands．" Because young children understand the sequence of action in the orderthat it is presented, the child believes the parent is actually saying, "You can have a cookie,then you should wash your hands．" Not only does the child think that cookie eating comesbefore hand washing in this instance, the child is less likely to have paid attention to thesecond half of the sentence． The failure to attend to the second stated action in the sentence isdue to preschoolers' egocentric ( 自我中心的) tendency to focus on one thing at a time．
G． Still another limitation of children's linguistic understanding stems from their inabilityto comprehend metaphors -- that one word or phrase can mean different things whenused in different contexts． Their inability to grasp metaphors means that young childrenare quite literal in their understanding and use of speech． As a case in point, if a fathertells a preschool child on the phone that he will be home in a little while but that he is"tied up right now," the child believes the father is literally tied up． The concerned childmight turn to the mother and ask, "How is Daddy going to get untied．"
H． The child's lack of understanding that words might mean different things in differentcontexts means their language understanding is very context bound． An illustration of thislanguage limitation is apparent in the situation where a parent has taken the child into thedeep end of the swimming pool and the child learns from that experience that deep meansover one's head． When that same parent says to the young child the following week that itis okay to step in puddles (水坑) after a rain while wearing rain boots, but not to step intodeep puddles, the child will feel free to step into any puddle that is not over the child's head．
Still another restriction of young children is their lack of ability to understand complex,multiaction sentences． For instance, a young child would have trouble making sense of the following request: "Tommy, pick up your toys, go wash your hands, and put on your jacket．"
The parent who uses a sentence such as that expects the child to attend to several differentrequests, which is very difficult for the egocentric young child．
What This Means for Professionals
I． First, parents should be certain that they speak clearly, and face-to-face, with their youngchildren so that their children have the opportunity to watch the formation of their wordsand clearly hear how sentences are formed and words are pronounced． Second, it is betterto use short, concrete sentences, state one request or idea at a time, and give the child anopportunity to think about and process each request separately． Third, it is important forparents not to use metaphors when talking to their preschool children, who rely on literalcomprehension． Fourth, parents need to understand that even though a child has learnedthe meaning of a word, the child might not understand the usage of that word in a differentcontext． Therefore, parents should be very patient with their young children and not assumethat they are misbehaving when they have not followed through with instructions． It ispossible that the child has not clearly understood the meaning of words used in a contextthat does not match the one in which the words were learned． Finally, some parents need tobe reminded of the importance of slowing down their pace when speaking to their youngchildren, thus providing sufficient pauses to encourage parent-preschooler dialogue．
Parents' correcting their young children's pronunciation is not good for their preschoolers' language development．