04_Language Development Flashcards
Language:
Nativist v Chomsky v Behaviorist
Nativist: biological mechanisms, universal patterns of language development
Chomsky: Language acquisition device
Behaviorist: imitation and reinforcment
Semantic bootstrapping
Child’s use of knowledge of meaning of words to infer syntactical/grammatical category
E.g. words that refer to objects are nouns, words that refer to actions are verbs
Syntactic bootstrapping
Child’s use of syntactical knowledge to learn the meaning of new words
Phonemes
Smallest units of sound that are understood in a language
Morphemes
Smallest units of sound that convey meaning
Stages of Language Acquisition
Crying
Cooing and babbling ~4months
Echolalia and expressive jargon
First words (~12 months)
Telegraphic speech (18-24 months)
Vocabulary growth
Grammatically correct sentences (2.5-5yo)
Metalinguistic awareness (age 6-7)
Three Distinct Patterns of Crying
Basic/hunger
Anger
Pain
Adults’ response to infant’s crying
All adults (not just parents) respond with changes in heart rate and skin conductance
Pain cry produces the strongest response
First words:
Age range, characteristics
10 to 15 months
Usually labels for objects/people/events
Holophrastic speech
Single word expresses whole phrases and sentences
Involves using gestures and indignation to turn a single word into a comment, question, or command
Telegraphic Speech
18 to 24 months
Two words, lacks prepositions or prounouns
Age which shows the fastest rate of vocabulary growth
30 to 36 months
Approximately 1000 words at 36 months
Metalinguistic Awareness
By age 6 or 7, understanding that words are different from the concepts they represent and can be used in humorous/metaphoric ways
Gender and Language
Differences reflect preferred interactions
Boys: dominance, attention, giving orders
Girls: support and attentiveness
Bilingualism:
Second language acquisition in childhood vs adolescence or adulthood
More difficult for adolescents and adults than for children
age 3-7
Children exposed are also more likely to speak the language of the native accent
Bilingualism:
Comparison of language and cognitive skills, and vocabulary
Bilingual children do as well as or better than monolingual children on tests measuring language and cognitive skills
Bilingual children initially have smaller vocabularies in each language, but total vocabulary is similar
Bilingualism:
Advantages
Increased cognitive flexibility, cognitive complexity, analytical reasoning, working memory capacity, attentional control, metalinguistic awareness
*Research does not support consistent maintenance of benefits into adulthood compared to monolingual individuals
Bilingual Education:
Main Takeaway
High-quality bilingual programs are as effective or more effective than immersion (English-Only)
Code Switching
Alternating between languages during a conversation
Used for better expression or to establish better rapport / attitude toward listener
A child who calls every fuzzy, four-legged object a kitty is exhibiting what?
overextension
Children frequently associate words with characteristics of an object without logically understanding the finer distinctions, for example the ones between kitties and doggies.
“Me want cookie” is an example of what type of speech?
telegraphic speech
A way to remember this is that the speech lacks the flourish of a written letter, but is instead barebones and only conveys necessity, like a telegraph.
This type of speech is comprised of one word that conveys the meaning of an entire sentence.
holophrastic speech
The one-word sentences are called holophrases
Do boys or girls acquire language more quickly and accurately?
girls
Are children raised in bilingual environments faster or slower to learn language?
slower
Where language acquisition was concerned, Chomsky is a _______.
nativist
He argued that the capacity to acquire language was innate, rather than learned.
What is the learning theory of language?
Learning theory proposes that we learn language through conditioning and modeling. B.F. Skinner was a learning theorist.
How does being raised bilingual (native bilingual) impact executive functioning?
People who are native bilingual have to learn to inhibit responses in whichever language they are not using at any given time
=better executive functioning than monolinguals
