CLA Flashcards
Why do humans/adults in general use language to communicate?
- to get what we want. eg attention, food
- to persuade other people
- to entertain others eg make them laugh
- to form relationships
What helps to accelerate a child’s language development?
- support/encouragement from caregivers
- a good language model from caregivers
- regular interaction/stimulation + exposure to language
What barriers do children face when learning language?
- forming tenses + plurals
- syntax
- phonology- some words difficult to pronounce
- homonyms
- irregular verbs
What happened in the case study of Genie?
- neglected, kept in social isolation until 13
- found in 1970, LA
- initially learnt many words, but never mastered grammar
- left hemisphere of brain lost ability to use lang in adult way due to lack of contact/stimulation
Issues/questions raised about children’s lang development from Genie’s case?
- Critical age hypothesis – idea that we need exposure to language by about early puberty for our brains to be ‘activated’ – without it (as with Genie), and chance for language is lost
- Nature v nurture issue– how important actually is the initial interactions we have when learning language.
Nature vs Nurture?
- Nature- Inbuilt. Language is a human instinct that emerges regardless of the environment – humans are just built for language
- Nurture- language is learnt skill, picked up from environment and by interactions with others
- Genie case seems to support nurture stance. Environment is key factor.
Which do you think is the most significant factor in language development, and why?
- constant stimulation and exposure to language until past point of critical age period. As seen w/ Genie.
- W/o subconscious example of language to follow and engagement, left hemisphere fails.
What a child usually do by this stage: 0-2 years.
- ask for something using 1 word- holophrastic - 12-18 months
- understand concrete noun eg table
- form 2 word utterance- 2 word stage - 18-24 months
What a child can usually do by this stage: 2-6 years.
- form a full sentence in speech eg “I have got a book” & form a question eg “why did you do that?”
- understand an abstract noun eg happiness, friendship
- express something in the negative eg “I don’t want to”
What a child can usually do by this stage: 6-11 years.
- understand another person’s feelings
- analyse a situation
- understand times when it’s appropriate to be quiet
What are Halliday’s 7 functions?
RIRIHIP: Regulatory, interactional, representational, imaginative, heuristic, instrumental, personal
Instrumental function?
- language used to fulfil speaker’s need
- directly concerned w obtaining food, drink, comfort etc. eg “I want”
Personal function?
- language used to express personal preferences/the speaker’s identity
- referred to sometimes as “here I am!” function
- conveys attitudes, expresses feelings
Heuristic function?
- language used to learn and explore environment
- may be questions or the kind of running commentary that accompanies child’s play
Imaginative function?
- language used to explore imagination
- may also accompany play as kids create imaginary worlds. May arise from story telling
- also jokes, songs etc
Representational function?
- language used to communicate information
- relaying/requesting info eg “I got a new doll”
Interactional function?
- language used to develop social relationships and ease interaction
- phatic dimension of talk. eg “hello”
Regulatory function?
- language used to influence behaviour of others
- persuading/commanding/requesting other people to do as you want. eg “daddy push” (child on swing)
Pre-verbal stages of speech acquisition? : Birth- 4 weeks.
Vegetative.
- vocal practice through crying at times of hunger/pain
- at first crying is reflex action and involuntary.
- over several months babies learn their noises entail response
Pre verbal stages of speech acquisition? : 4-7 weeks.
Cooing.
- articulation of mainly vowel sounds.
- often monosyllabic
- usually monotone. lacks adult intonation.
- coo or goo.
Pre verbal stages of speech acquisition? 6-12 months.
Babbling.
- greater range of sounds. more consonants now.
- typically consonant/vowel reduplication eg “bababa”
- hearing babies start to specialise in sounds of the lang around them.
Pre verbal stages of speech acquisition? 9-12 months.
Proto-word.
- babbling starts resembling adult lang. ie word-like vocalisations leading to child’s 1st words, but may not be understandable.
- meanings start emerging, eg “mmmm” to mean “give me that”. usually only understood by child’s caregivers.
Define pragmatic development.
- learning how to use language to communicate and understand others appropriately and effectively in widening range of social contexts and activities while assuming increasingly complex social roles (Hymes, 1972).
Define phonemic expansion.
- child increases variety of sounds they’re able to produce
Define phonetic contraction.
- when number of sounds are reduced to what only the baby needs for their language.
Verbal stages of speech acquisition? 12-18 months.
Holophrastic stage.
- kids start using words ab 1 year.
- by 18 months they speak ab 50 words & understand 250.
- mostly proper/conc nouns. esp for toys/fam/animals
- 1 word can stand for full sentence.
- eg “cake”= “give me the cake please”
- ^ known as holophrases and understood via their context.
Verbal stages of speech acquisition? 18-24 months.
2 word stage.
- beginning of syntax. vital move towards being able to communicate fully.
- eg “she cold”.
- child still lacks syntactic elements necessary to make meaning explicit so listeners must have best guess.
- words same order as adult speech.
Verbal stages of speech acquisition? 24-36 months.
Telegraphic stage.
- 3 or + words combined into utterances resembling short sentences.
- eg “ daddy swing me”
- nouns, adjs, main verbs tend to be incl elements in these “sentences”
Verbal stages of speech acquisition? 36+ months.
Post-telegraphic stage.
- child’s grasp of Eng grammar becomes more sophisticated
- eg gets to grips w inflections like plurals, present/past verb endings
- virtuous errors initially present. takes long time to master.
- sentence length built up.
- function words eg pronouns, prepositions & aux verbs used.
Define virtuous error.
- mistake in child’s speech, but demonstrates understanding of grammatical rules. eg “I falled over”
- may be termed intelligent mistakes for this reason.
Define manner of articulation.
- how airflow is constricted in the vocal tract.
- eg stop sounds. complete restrict followed by release of air. (p, b, d, t) - (plosives).
Define place of articulation.
- where in the vocal tract the constriction of airflow takes place.
- eg bilabial - two lips together, point of maximum constriction. produces some plosives, eg p, b d, t.
Define voice.
- what the vocal folds are doing- whether voiced or unvoiced.
eg fricative “v”- voiced. fricative “sh” - unvoiced.
What are the first consonants a child is likely to use?
- tend to be plosives and bilabials, or at least produced at the front of the mouth.
Why are children more likely to use plosives/bilabials?
- because these consonants are produced w/o the use of teeth, which children and babies don’t always have
- they also make use of strong lip muscles formed through sucking mechanism
- plosives and other sounds made at the front of the mouth are easy for children to see produced by caregivers, so may be easier to replicate.
Jean Aitchson’s “building meanings” ?
- identified a model of 3 stages in children’s acquisition of words and their meanings.
Aitchison: Labelling?
- linking words to the objects to which they refer, understanding that things can be labelled
Aitchison: Packaging?
- exploring labels & what they apply to
- “trial and error” approach”
