The Effect of Young Mothers’ Social Classes on First Language Acquisition

The purpose of this study is to investigate the significant relationship between different young mothers’ social classes and children’s language learning. According to this research goal, this study is eager to answer the two major research questions: (a) Is there any significant difference between middle-class and working-class mothers’ speech? (b) Is there any significant relationship between different social class mothers’ input and their children’s language acquisition? All of the subjects were selected from a kindergarten. The researcher chose 2-6 year-old children as subjects. They were eight boys and two girls. At each age, she chose two children. One was from a middle class family and the other was from a working class one. The criteria for classifying were the degree of education, career and income. About middle-class family, the parents were graduated from college. Also their careers were professionals, managers or owners. On the contrary, about working class family, their educational background was under college and their careers were like clerk, skilled manual workers or labors. The researcher used T-test to examine the difference among different social class mothers. In addition, Pearson Correlation Coefficient was used to examine the significant relationship between young mothers and children.