CLA week 9

Question 1

main premises of the Behaviourist view

Answer 1

• Language is seen as a kind of verbal behaviour
• A child is born as an intellectual ‘blank slate’
• Language is learned through imitation and reinforcement

B.F. Skinner

Question 2

Evidence against the Behaviourist view

Answer 2

Even if parents did correct more often, and children did learn from imitation and reinforcement, then what they’d be learning is a set of forms rather than a set of grammatical rules.

Children appear to internalise their own rules along the way before internalising the adult language system. They produce words and forms they have not heard adults say –e.g. goed and feets, even after correction

Question 3

nativist views

Answer 3

• Children are born with a predisposition to learn language
• Universal Grammar (UG) -an innate template, or blueprint for language; a single grammar
• The Language Acquisition Device (LAD)
• Some call this the Innateness Hypothesis

Noam Chomsky

Question 4

what is universal grammar?

Answer 4

A template containing the principles that are universal to ALL human languages
➢ prevents the child from pursuing all sorts of wrong hypotheses about how language systems might work
➢ means children have to learn the ways in which the particular language they are acquiring makes us of these principles

Question 5

The Critical Period Hypothesis

Answer 5

• The Critical Period Hypothesis: language is maturational and can only be acquired within a critical period
• Children do not require explicit language instruction BUT they do need exposure to language to develop it normally
• After the critical period, the acquisition of grammar is difficult and, for most, never fully achieved
• Lateralisation (a process by which the two sides of the brain develop specialised functions) (Lenneberg 1967)
• Studies of “feral” children (e.g. Genie) show that without exposure to a lot of language from an early age, humans will not acquire a language.

Question 6

Arguments against nativism

Answer 6

“Language is possible due to a number of cognitive and physical characteristics that are unique to humans but none of which that are unique to language.” (Dan Everett, 2012)

Question 7

The functionalist approach to language acquisition

Answer 7

At the initial stages of learning, children can do just six things:

1. Satisfy material needs (the ‘I want’ function)
2. Get others to do things (the ‘do as I tell you’ function) 3. Interact socially (the ‘me and you’ function)
3. Express their own uniqueness (the ‘here I come’ function)
4. Explore the world (the ‘tell me why’ function)
5. Use language imaginatively (the ‘let’s pretend’ function)

M.A.K Halliday

Question 8

Overgeneralisation

Answer 8

da-da to mean uncle Bill, the postie and the woman next door who has very short hair. da-da = large, male-looking big person

‘the child has a linguistic system before he or she has any words or structure at all’ (Halliday 1975, p.33)

Question 9

what did Halliday say about behaviourism?

Answer 9

Halliday rejects the role of behaviourist learning in language development. A child’s first utterance is not imitation –the sounds are nothing like adult language

Question 10

interactionist views

Answer 10

• Language is just one example of the human child’s ability to learn from experience
• Language acquisition is similar to and influenced by the acquisition of other kinds of skill and knowledge
• Language develops primarily from social interaction and represents the knowledge they have acquired through physical interaction with the environment
• Thought is internalised speech, and speech emerges in social interaction (e.g. Vygotsky 1978)

Question 11

feature of CDS

Answer 11

▪ High pitch ▪ Exaggerated intonation ▪ Repetition ▪ Short phrases ▪ Simplified words or alternative word forms (e.g. nana for banana) ▪ Sing-song rhythm ▪ Frequent questions ▪ Repetition

Question 12

CLA in the first year

Answer 12

1-4 months: babies can distinguish between voiced and voiceless sounds e.g. /k/ vs. /g/
4-6 months: babies can distinguish vowels than are phonemic in their native language
10-12 months: babies have discovered the complete finite set of sounds of the language they are surrounded by

Question 13

what is the babbling stage and why is it important?

Answer 13

• starts around 3 0r 4 months and lasts about 6 months)
  • The sequences of clicks, hums, glides, trills, hisses and smacks sound like consonants and vowels
  • 7-8 months: babble in real syllables: ba-ba-ba, neh-neh-neh, dee-dee-dee
  • By the end of the first year, babies vary their syllables: neh-nee, da-dee
  • It’s a way of learning how to move which muscles which way to produce changes in sound
  • A prerequisite to duplicating adult speech

Question 14

what are vocal gestures?

Answer 14

Phonetic units which:
• are more stable in form than babbling
• seem to have some kind of meaning (albeit a vague one)
• do not have a specific reference but rather children use the phonetic units consistently in the context
• are more like a gesture than a word

Question 15

what is the one-word or holophrastic stage

Answer 15

12 months onwards)
• Single words used to express demands and feelings
• Words are often phonetically different from the words used in adult language, e.g. gog (dog); buds(birds); deer(cheers)
• Words for actions, motions and routines: up, off, down, peekaboo, eat, go
• Modifiers: hot, all gone, more, cold
• Routines used in social interaction: yes, no, want, bye-bye, look, what (is) that

Question 16

Two-word stage

Answer 16

18 months plus
Children start to put together words in semantically and syntactically coherent strings, (although without inflections for tense, person or number)
• No ‘function’ words
• Jacob at 19 months: Me go; more nana; baby waaaa; bye bye dada
• Listener’s interpretation is tied to context
• By the age of 2, a child may produce 2-400 words, but will be capable of understanding five times as many

Question 17

Telegraphic stage

Answer 17

2-3 years
• An explosion of language- Multiple word utterances, initially without function words e.g. My want this; mummy eat nana; Doe [Joe] go night-night(Jacob at 24 months)
• 2 onwards children use an increasing array of syntactic structures
Plural -s Past tense markers
Verb phrase complexity
Noun phrase complexity
Interrogative structures
• By the age of 5, children have pretty well mastered the syntax of their language

Question 18

Morphology (post-telegraphic stage)

Answer 18

Child begins to incorporate inflectional morphemes in roughly the following order:
• -ing e.g. cat sitting, mummy reading book
• Marking of regular plurals with the –s form e.g. cats, birds
• But overgeneralisation– e.g. foots, mans Houses footses, manses
• Irregular plurals – e.g. men, feet mens, feetses
• Possessive -’s –mummy’s book, Jacob’s nana
• BE –e.g. are, was • Irregular past verbs – e.g. came and went • Regular past tense forms –ed inflection –e.g. walked, played BUT goed, comed, walkeded, wented (up until around 4)
• Regular –s marker 3rd person singular verbs –e.g. comes, looks, does, has

Question 19

how are interrogatives used within syntax?

Answer 19

Stage 1- Mummy, why clouds?(Tomas aged 2: 1) ➢ Adding a ‘wh’ form to the beginning of the expression ➢ Uttering the expression with rising intonation e.g. eat cake?
Stage 2: more complex e.g. What book name? Why you laughing? You want eat? I have some?

Stage 3: Some inversion of subject and verb (in English) e.g. Will you read me? ButWhy Joe is sad?

Stage 4: more variety in the auxiliary that appears before the subject; ‘fronting’ e.g.Can penguins fly? Why roofs can’t talk? Do I can have a yoghurt?

Stage 5: both ‘wh’ and inversions are formed successfully. But problems with negative questions and ‘wh’ words in subordinate or embedded clauses are problematic e.g. Why Joe can’t talk yet? Ask him why can’t he go out
Stage 6: able to form all question types, including negatives and complex embedded questions

Question 20

how are negatives used within syntax?

Answer 20

Stage 1:no or not before expression e.g. no bed, not (a) teddy, no coat today
Stage 2: Don’t(and can’t); no and not placed before the verb e.g. He no bite you, I don’t know
Stage 3: Other auxiliary forms, such as didn’t, won’t. Stage 1 forms disappear e.g. I didn’t eat it, Tom won’t read me a book, I can’t do it

Question 21

how is turn taking used?

Answer 21

• To take turns, appropriate contributions must be made at the right moment in an exchange
• Content AND timing of turns needs to be right which takes considerable skill to learn
• Allows children to discover some general patterns

Question 22

why is turn taking hard for children?

Answer 22

a) Predict turn end boundaries with accuracy

b) Begin planning the next turn ahead of time

Question 23

what is scaffolding?

Answer 23

• Children might at first need help from other speakers to really contribute
• Adults present a scaffold of information and this way prompt the child to supply a piece of information needed at the moment

Question 24

what are the rules for communication and who created them?

Answer 24

(Hymes 1972)
Communicative Competence  
•Adaptability 
•Appropriateness 
•Effectiveness 
Structuring interaction 
•Turn-taking 
• Scaffolding 
• Interruptions 
•Speech Events