Child Language Acquisition

Question 1

Why is it easier to acquire a language when younger?

Answer 1

Lenneberg
Brain is at its most elastic
Critical period to learn a language up until age 7
After it becomes harder

Question 2

Hockett (1963)

Answer 2

Language has 16 defining characteristics
Looked at what made human communication different
Said creativity is one of the features unique to human language
Linguistics creativity involves creating new sentences for effect, accent and dialect- giving the same message using different phrasing, when a child says a ‘novel utterance’ (one not copied from parents)

Question 3

Kellog (1933)

Answer 3

Chimpanzees couldn’t learn language because they don’t have the appropriate articulatory to produce the same speech sounds as humans

Question 4

Gardener et al (1969)

Answer 4

Chimpanzees can learn up to 85 signs (sign language)

Question 5

Raffaele (2006)

Answer 5

Chimpanzees can communicate via lexigrams, when a keyboard is pressed and a computer says the corresponding word, 348 symbols learned

Question 6

Raffaele (2006)

Answer 6

Chimpanzees can communicate via lexigrams, when a keyboard is pressed and a computer says the corresponding word, 348 symbols learned

Question 7

Is a chimpanzee’s ability to learn language due to nature or nurture?

Answer 7

Nature- vast number of signs learned suggests there is some innate contribution
Nurture- they are simply copying someone else
-chimps were taught how to recognise sounds and symbols

Question 8

Describe a limitation of chimpanzees being able to learn language

Answer 8

It is a lengthy and laborious process
Only learned nouns- struggled with more abstract concepts
When they successfully learned words they were rewarded through food and play- positive reinforcement
Therefore their desire to talk is for rewards and not to communicate

Question 9

Language development before birth

Answer 9

Ear develops in third trimester (7 months)
Foetus can differentiate between sounds and begins to recognise distinctive properties of their native language
Brain responses of newborn infants differ when they here foreign languages

Question 10

DeCasper and Spence (1986)

Answer 10

Babies sucked on dummies more when mothers read a story they had read in last 6 months of pregnancy

Question 11

Fitzpatrick (2002)

Answer 11

Heartbeats of unborn babies slowed when they heard their mothers voices

Question 12

Evaluate Fitzpatrick (2002)

Answer 12

Slowing of heartbeats perhaps due to connection with parents rather than use of language

Question 13

Katherine Nelson (1973)

Answer 13

Placed early words of children into 4 categories: naming, action, social and modifying (description)
Found 60% of a child’s first 50 words were nouns