1 - prelinguistic and lexical development Flashcards
what are Hockett’s Design Features of Language?
describe the ways in which human communication differs from other animals
give 4 examples of Hockett’s design features of language
Arbitrariness - no necessary connection between sounds and messages
displacement - communicate about things not currently present
productivity - create new utterances from previously existing sounds
duality of patterning - meaningless phonemes combined to make meaningful words and sentences
what are the types of language functions?
semantic and pragmatic
what is the semantic function of language?
saying something about the world
e.g. saying something about dogs
what is the pragmatic function of language?
managing communicative exchange in relation to your audience and context
e.g. can you pass me that (gesturing at a pen)
what are the forms of language?
phonological
prosodic
lexical
morphological
syntactic
what is a phonological language form?
the sound ‘b’
what is prosodic language form?
the rising intonation of a question
what is lexical language form?
the sound of the word ‘dog’ which we understand to mean dog
what is morphological language form?
the plural inflection ‘-s’ in ‘dogs’
what is syntactic language form?
the structured combination of words ‘my dog chased the cat’ the order provides information different meaning to ‘the cat chased my dog’
what are infants early comprehension of language from birth?
- prefer to listen to speech rather than music, prefer their own mother’s voice
- speech predominantly processed with left side of the brain
- able to distinguish some foreign language from their own native language based on prosody
what is prosody?
the rhythm or melody of language
when to infants develop categorical perception?
from one month they demonstrate categorical perception of sound /b/ and /p/
how was infants categorical perception researched?
pacifier hooked up to recorder that measures how hard they are sucking, a peak in interest is indicated by harder sucking
when the sound changed from /ba/ to /pa/ they sucked harder
what are phones?
the different sounds in language
the p in ‘pin’ and ‘spin’ are different phones (but if they are interchanged, it wouldn’t change the meaning)
what are phonemes?
phones that change the meanings of words /p/ and /b/ are phonemes in English
they are the smallest segmental units of sound that form meaningful contrasts between words
what is an example of tonal phonemes?
in cantonese the same word [fan[ can have many different meanings, depending on different intonations
how does phonological development occur in infants?
infants are born being able to perceive all the sounds used in all languages
experience with a language over first year of life allows them to tune into phonemic contrasts used in their language and tune out those that are not
we lose abilities to perceive sounds and language as we develop
what limits the range of infant vocalisations?
size and placement of tongue in relation to vocal cavity
neuromuscular limits on the movements of the tongue which is not able to produce fine articulatory movements
when do children develop joint attention?
from around 9 months
weave together dyadic communication and knowledge about the world from early infancy
what is joint attention?
when two or more people are attending to somethings and they are mutually aware that they are attending to it together
when do infants begin to point?
between 9 and 14 months
why do infants point?
imperatively - to tell someone to do something
declaratively - to inform someone else about something
interrogatively - to request information about something
what are Volterra’s 3 stage?
perlocutionary stage - child has effect on listener without intentional control
illocutionary stage - child intentionally uses non-verbal signals to convey requests
locutionary stage - child utters speech sounds in same way previously expressed non-verbally
how can children’s intentions to communicate be measured?
gaze co-ordination
11-months-old above chance in gaze-coordination suggests intentional control over use of vocalisation and gesture for communication
gaze coordinated acts more likely to elicit response from caregiver
when do babies tend to produce first words?
12 months
what is most important predictor of children’s language development?
intentional vocalisations that were responded to by a caregiver
how many words do children have in their lexicon at 6 years old?
10-14,000 words
when do children become faster at recognising spoken words?
during 2nd year of life
errors in word learning: phonology
children make errors in production of target word (e.g. efelant)
children may be able to perceive but not produce certain speech sounds (e.g. wabbit)
errors in word learning: semantics
children make ‘errors of scope’
under extensions (e.g. ‘car’ only to mean family car)
overextensions (e.g. ‘daddy’ to mean any adult male)
how do children learn words through simple association?
children learn labels through statistical learning - adjusting the probability of the word-referent mapping as they get more information
how do children learn words through social-pragmatic cues?
their world is very routine
they engage in joint attention and intention reading
how do children learn words through intention reading?
children learn how words function by figuring out what the other person is intending to communicate e.g. perceiving joint attention
how do children learn words through mutual exclusivity?
when presented with two objects, if they can label one, they assume that the other one is the novel word
what are word learning mechanisms?
simple associations
social-pragmatic cues
mutual exclusivity
syntactic bootstrapping
how do children learn words though syntactic bootstrapping?
linguistic context can help us guess the meanings of words
using language structure to identify what a word means
