Chapter 9 - Language and Communication Flashcards
How is language broadly defined?
As a system that relates sounds (or gestures) to meaning
How is language expressed?
Through speech, writing, and gestures
What distinct but interrelated elements do spoken languages usually consist of?
- Phonology: Sounds of a language
- Semantics: Study of words and their meaning
- Grammar: Rules used to describe the structure of language (most important is syntax - rules that specify how words are combined to form sentences)
- Pragmatics: Study of how people use language to communicate effectively
What is the basic building block of language?
Phonemes: Unique sounds that can be joined to create words
- Include consonant sounds along with vowel sounds
What is one of the biggest challenges for infants?
Identifying patterns of sounds - words
At what age do children hear a word repeatedly in different sentences and later pay attention to the word more than others they haven’t heard previously?
7 to 8 months
By what age do infants pay more attention to content words than to function words?
6 months
What are content words?
Nouns, verbs, etc.
What are function words
Articles, prepositions, etc.
How do infants pick out words in conversations?
- Infants pay more attention to stressed syllables than unstressed syllables
- Infants learn words more readily when they appear at the beginning and ends of sentences
How do infants statistically try to identify words?
By noticing syllables that go together frequently
What rule do 9-months-olds follow?
Identifying words through their emerging knowledge of how sounds are used in their native language because when they hear novel words embedded in continuous speech, they’re more likely to identify the novel word when the final sound in the preceding word occurs infrequently with the first sound of the novel word
Even though kids don’t yet understand the meaning of words, why are early perceptual skills important?
Because infants who are more skilled at detecting speech sound know more words as toddlers, an overall their language is more advanced at 4 to 6 years of age
What is infant-directed speech?
Speaking to infants by talking in a distinctive style in order to master language sounds
- E.g., speaking more slowly and with exaggerated changes in pitch and loudness
How is infant-directed speech helpful?
- Attracts infants’ attention
- Includes especially good examples of vowels
What are the steps to learning speech?
- 2 months: Cooing (Begin producing vowel-like sounds, such as “ooo” or “ahhh”
- 6 months: Babbling (speech-like sound with no meaning)
- 8-11 months: Babbling sounds more like real speech
- 1 year: Try to reproduce the sounds of language that others use in trying to communicate with them
What is babbling?
A precursor to real speech
What is intonation?
Pattern of rising or falling pitch
What does the appearance of intonation in babbling indicate?
A strong link between perception and production of speech: Infants’ babbling is influenced by the characteristics of the speech that they hear
What sets the stage for the infant’s first true words?
The ability to produce sounds, coupled with the 1-year old’s advanced ability to perceive speech sounds
What are first words an extension of?
Advanced babbling, consisting of a consonant-vowel pair that may be repeated (e.g., Mama and dada)
What is the typical vocabulary by age 2? By age 6?
- A few hundred words
- Over 10,000 words
What does understanding words as symbols allow for?
The child begins to understand that speech is more that just sound, but rather the sounds refer to object, actions, and properties in addition to making gestures that convey a symbol/message
How many new words do 15-month children learn?
2-3 new words a week
What is naming explosion?
At 18 months when they learn new words - particularly names of objects - much more rapidly than before (about 10 new words a week)
What is fast mapping?
A child’s ability to connect new words to their meanings so rapidly that they cannot be considering all possible meanings for the new word
How can young children learn new words so rapidly?
- Joint attention
- Constraints on word names
- Sentence cues
- Cognitive factors
How do toddlers show shape bias?
Realized that a name applies to objects that have the same shape but not to objects of the same colour or made of the same material - they used this knowledge to learn new words faster
What is underextension?
Defining a word too narrowly
What is overextension?
Defining words too broadly (1-3 years)
When do overextension errors occur more frequently?
When children are producing more words than when they are comprehending words
How do underextension and overextension disappear?
Gradually as youngsters refine meanings for words with more exposure to language
What is phonological memory?
The ability to remember speech sounds briefly
- Often measured by saying a nonsense word to children and asking them to repeat it immediately
What is the single most important factor in the growth of vocabulary?
The child’s language environment
What is referential style?
Vocabularies that mainly consist of words that name objects, persons, or actions
What is expressive style?
Vocabularies include some names but also many social phrases that are used like a single word
What kind of tool does language acts as if a child has referential emphasis? Expressive emphasis?
- Language is primarily an intellectual tool - a means of learning and talking about objects
- Language is more of a social tool - a way of enhancing interactions with others
How can parents and other adults help children learn words?
- Speaking to them frequently
- Reading with them
- Viewing television
- Expose them to new vocabulary
How do children process learning two languages simultaneously?
- Often progress somewhat slowly at first
- Mix words from the two languages
- Are less skilled at using language-specific sounds to guide word learning
- Once they separate the languages, they reach language milestones at about the same time as monolingual children
Not long after children begin to talk, what do they start to do?
Combine words to form simple sentences, which is the first step in a new area of language learning, mastering syntax
What is syntax?
A language’s rules for combining words to create sentences
At what age do children begin to combine individual words to create two-word sentences?
1 and a half
What is telegraphic speech?
It consists of only words directly relevant to meaning
When do children move to three-word and even longer sentences?
Beginning at about the second birthday
What are grammatical morphemes?
Words or endings of words that make a sentence grammatical
How do children learn grammar?
By applying rules, not learning individual words
What is overregularization?
Applying rules to words that are exceptions to the rule
By the age of 3 or 3 and a half, what do they implement into the way they talk?
Auxiliary verbs before the subject (e.g., what he eating –> what is he eating)
What do children learn to use at around the ages of 3 and 6?
Negotiation - begin to comprehend the passive voice as opposed to the active voice
How would behaviourists believe children acquire grammar?
Children imitate the grammatical forms they hear
How would linguists believe children acquire grammar?
Children born with mechanism that simplify the task of learning grammar (born with neural circuits in the brain that allow them to infer the grammar of the language that they hear)
What is the semantic bootstrapping theory?
Children are born knowing that nouns usually refer to people or objects and that verbs are actions; they use this knowledge to infer grammatical rules
How would cognitive thinkers believe children acquire grammar?
Children learn grammar through powerful cognitive skills that help them rapidly detect regularities in their environments, including patterns in the speech they hear
- Argue that infants’ impressive ability to extract regularities in the speech sounds they hear would work just as effectively to extract regularities in sentence structure
In terms of social-interaction, how do children acquire grammar?
- Takes on an emphasis of the environment
- Language learning is distinct
- Children have powerful cognitive skills they can use to master language
- Emphasizes that children master language generally and grammar specifically in the context of social interactions
What does improved communication provided to children?
An incentive for children to master language and for adults to help them
Summarize the different approaches to explaining children’s acquisition of grammar.
- Behaviourist: By imitating speech they hear
- Linguistic: With inborn mechanisms that allow children to infer the grammatical rules of their native language
- Cognitive: Using powerful cognitive mechanisms that allow children to find recurring patterns in the speech they hear
- Social interaction: In the context os social interactions with adults in which both parties want improved communication
What guidelines can be followed by adults who are eager to promote children’s language development?
1) Talk with children frequently and treat them as partners in conversation
2) Use a child’s speech to show new language forms
3) Encourage children to go beyond the minimal use of language
4) Listen
5) Make language fun
What are a few simple guidelines for effective communication?
- Taking turns
- Speaking effectively
- Listening well
