Exam 3 Flashcards
Language development similarities across cultures
All languages are made up of the same basic units (i.e. all languages have nouns and verbs)
Basic course of language development (babbling, one-word stage, etc.) consistent across languages
Language development differences among cultures
Different sounds in different languages
Early vocabulary differs across languages
Early grammar differs according to richness and regularity of morphology
Adults in different cultures talk to children differently- amount, infant directed speech, explicit instruction
Language socialization
The process of learning how language is used in one’s culture
Different cultures emphasize different values through the use of different language practices
Members of different cultural groups may use language differently to convey similar ideas (directness, negativity, challenging adult authority)
How are language and cognition related? Possibilities?
Language expresses independent cognition, language and cognition develop in tandem, language influences linguistic thought, language advances cognition, language shapes thought (Whorf hypothesis)
Possibility 1: Language expresses independent cognition
Language and thought are independent systems
Cognition develops before/independently of language
Piaget: interactions with the world are the source of cognitive development; language comes later and allows us to express our thoughts
Fodor: conceptual understandings of the world are innate and make up the “language of thought” or mentalese- the process of language acquisition involves mapping words onto pre-existing concepts
Possibility 2: Language and cognition develop in tandem
Words and concepts develop together and are mutually influential
Theory theory: the child constructs a conceptual understanding of the world based on continually changing/updating experience- as children acquire new concepts, they seek words for those concepts; as children learn new words, they seek the concepts that those words describe
Evidence for language and cognition developing in tandem
Correspondence between children’s production of words and understanding of concepts- e.g., understanding of causality related to production of “uh-oh”
Labels as invitations for category formation- children who learn a name for a novel object or animal are more likely to notice the similarity between that object and other members of the same category than children who did not learn a name
Possibility 3: Language influences linguistic thought only
Two types of thought (Slobin): Nonlinguistic cognition (like Piaget or Fodor)- innate to all humans or acquired identically by speakers of all languages Verbal thought- shaped by an individual's language
Evidence for language influencing linguistic thought only
In English, if we use a pronoun for a person, we have to specify their sex- “my friend is having a party on Friday. s/he lives on Main St.”
In Hungarian, the same pronoun is used for males and females, so you don’t have to specify sex unless you want to- hungarian speakers often have difficulty learning the distinction between he and she
In Spanish, there are two different past tense forms- one for continuous actions of longer duration (e.g., “I lived in Mexico) and another for actions that happened at a single time point (e.g., “I was born in Mexico”)
In English, we only have one version of past tense- English speakers often have difficulty learning when to use each past tense form in Spanish (and other Romance languages)
Possibility 4: Language advances cognition
Much of what we learn about the world (facts and conceptual understanding) is not learned through direct observation- history, religion and culture, chemistry and biology, geography
We have to learn from other people’s verbal testimony
Cultural differences in the information that is presented to children (and how it is presented) are related to differences in thinking about the world
Possbility 5: Language shapes thought- the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
Linguistic determinism: the language you speak determines the way you think about/view/conceptualize the world; the linguistic categories of your language determine the conceptual categories you recognize
Linguistic relativity: the language you speak affects the way you think about/view/conceptualize the world; the linguistic categories of your language influence thought
Tests of the Whorf hypothesis
Early test: color perception
Modern tests: number, grammatical gender, spacial relations
Early Whorf tests: color perception
General consensus: the number of color terms a language has does not influence speakers’ perception of color
The speaker’s ability to name the color does have some effect on their memory for a particular shade
This evidence against the influence of language on color perception was taken as initial evidence that Whorf was wrong
Modern Whorf tests: number, grammatical gender, spacial relations
Recently, researchers have questioned whether color was the best domain to test the Whorf hypothesis- perception is biologically determined
Other domains of cognition may be more readily shaped by language- numbers, analogy, autobiographical memory, noun and verb meaning, grammatical gender, spatial relations, motion
Possibility 5 1/2: Language is the medium for thought
Very similar to the traditional Whorf hypothesis
Says that some kinds of thought (i.e., higher cognition) require language to carry out
When language is used for these kinds of thought, the particular language used influences the way these thoughts are carried out
Testing the Whorf hypothesis: number words and concepts
Humans and many other animals have an intrinsic ability to track quantities of three items or fewer- infants, moneys, pigeons, etc. can easily distinguish between 2 and 3, but have difficulty distinguishing 4 and 6
Learning number words seems to be necessary for learning number concepts- many children will point and recite number words before they really know how to count
Some languages spoken by small, non-industrialized tribes do not have number words that can represent all quantities- one, two, more than two; speakers of these languages do not seem to distinguish between quantities larger than three (e.g., 4 vs. 6)
Testing the Whorf hypothesis: Grammatical gender
In many languages, nouns have grammatical gender
The grammatical gender system of a language does not seem to influence how speakers perceive nouns
Speakers provide more “feminine” adjectives to describe nouns with feminine gender and more “masculine” adjectives to describe nouns with masculine gender
Speakers rated pictures of feminine-noun objects as more similar to women, masculine-noun objects as more similar to men
Speakers assigned female voices to feminine-noun objects, male voices to masculine-noun objects
Testing the Whorf hypothesis: Spacial relations
Some languages, like English, encode relative spatial relations- positions are described relative to their self or to other objects/locations- “in front of me,” “to the left of the bookshelf”
Other languages encode absolute spatial relations- positions are described using cardinal directions- “west of me,” “north of the bookshelf”
Speakers of absolute languages are better at cardinal directions than speakers of relative languages
What conclusions do these modern studies of the Whorf hypothesis draw?
Speakers of absolute languages make more responses based on cardinal directions
Speakers of more relative languages make more responses based on relative position
But, Li and Gleitman found that English speakers made more absolute responses when they were outside. Their explanation: the differences found in behavior among speakers of different languages simply reflect their culture’s tendency to rely on external landmarks. It is not that the language is causing them to develop this tendency to use absolute frame of reference; it is that their way of life leads to both the use of absolute language and the tendency to use an absolute frame of reference
Simultaneous bilingualism
Exposure to two languages from birth
Two main questions:
How do children differentiate between the two languages?
How does bilingual language development compare to monolingual language development?
Sequential bilingualism
Exposure to one language from birth, then a second language is introduced later
Language differentiation
How and when do bilingual language learners begin to distinguish between the two languages they hear?
Fusion hypothesis
Children begin with one system for both languages and only later begin to separate the lexicon and the syntactic rules of each language
Differentiation with autonomous development
Each language is a separate system from the beginning and the two do not influence each other
Differentiation with interdependent development
Children differentiate between the two languages, but the two systems influence each other
Phoneme discrimination
At 6 months, both English monolingual and French-English bilingual infants can differentiate French and English phonemes
At 10 months, French-English bilinguals still discriminate phonemes in both languages, but English monolinguals can only do it for English
This suggests that the timeline for developing phonetic systems is similar for monolinguals and bilinguals
Evidence for differentiation of phonology: Language dominance
Amount of exposure to each language may also play a role
French-English 14-17 month olds differ on their ability to differentiate between phoneme contrasts in each language (Werker, Weikum, & Yoshida, 2006)
If one language is dominant, the intact may develop a perceptual system that is more sensitive to the contrasts of that language
Evidence for differentiation of lexicon: Mutual exclusivity
Multilingual 17-18 month-olds are more likely than monolinguals to accept two names for the same thing (Byers-Heinlein & Werker, 2009)
Evidence for differentiation of morphosyntax: Code-switching
The use of more than one language (or dialect or register) within the same conversation, or even within the same sentence, example “sometimes I’ll start a sentence in English y termino en español”
Code switching is not an indication of incompetence-adult bilinguals who are fully fluent in both languages often use code-switching when communicating with other proficient bilinguals
Competent code-switchers follow certain rules of combining languages- the rules of code-switching are dependent on the grammatical rules of each language involved
Code switching occurs in such a way as to avoid syntactic violations in either language
Children tend to follow these same rules
Evidence for differentiation of pragmatics: switching languages to be understood
Most children switched languages after a non-specific request (1-3)
Most did not require that the experimenter explicitly ask them to switch languages (Comeau et. al, 2007)
Effects of bilingualism
The evidence shows that bilingual children have a separate system for each language
Vocabulary size and growth in each language
Bilingual children tend to know fewer words in each language than monolingual children know in their only language
But bilingual children may know as many or more words across languages
Gramatical (morphosyntactic) development in each language
Bilingual children reach grammatical milestones at the same time as monolingual children
Early delays that have been shown in some studies disappear by age 10
Metalinguistic awareness
Refers to the knowledge of the concept of language and awareness of how it works
Bilingual children have been shown to have an advantage over monolinguals in metalinguistic tasks- syntax, phonology, pragmatics
Cognitive flexibility
Evidence suggests a benefit of bilingualism on cognitive flexibility
Symbol substitution task:
In English this is called an airplane, but in this game its name is turtle. Can the turtle fly? How does it fly?
In this game, the way we say I is to say macaroni. How do we say, “I am warm?”
To be successful on this task, child must realize that words can be substituted for each other and be able to temporarily abandon the rules of English and substitute the rules of the game language
Bilingualism and executive function
Carlson & Melzoff
Compared native bilingual and monolingual kindergarteners on EF tasks- including DCCS, Simon Says, Gift delay
Controlling for SES, verbal ability, and age, bilingual children performed significantly better on EF tasks involving conflict- no advantage for delay tasks
This advantage has since been shown as early as 24 months
Bilingual brain development
In native bilinguals, the same areas of the brain are used for processing both languages
Bilinguals use the same brain areas for language as do monolinguals
The two language systems are not represented in distinct physical areas
However, individuals who acquire their second language later in childhood show differences from native bilinguals in processing syntax
Sequential bilingualism
It is commonly believed that children can acquire a second language as quickly and easily as they acquire their first language
In fact, second language acquisition is often quite different from first language acquisition- different input conditions, one linguistic system already in place
Influences on second language development
Sociocultural environment
Child characteristics
Age of acquisition
Sociocultural environment
Acceptance of social groups that speak different languages
Learner’s motivation to acquire a second language- instrumental (e.g., for work or school), integrative (to feel like part of the community)
Child characteristics
Phonological memory, sociability, age of acquisition
Age of acquisition
The age at which a child begins to learn a second language can effect immediate and long-term outcomes
Older children initially learn more quickly than younger children
Children who start learning L2 at an earlier age eventually master the language more fully than children who began learning at an older age- phonology, syntax
Earlier acquisition is related to long-term mastery of the grammar and phonology of L2
Though younger children may lag behind older children when they first begin to acquire a new language
Early exposure to a language may prepare an individual to produce the sounds (but not the grammar) of that language
Age of acquisition influence on grammatical development
Participants listened to sentences of English and judged whether they were grammatical or ungrammatical, example “The farmer bought two pigs at the market” vs. “The farmer bought two pig at the market”
Earlier acquisition was associated with better judgements of grammaticality
Individuals who began learning between 3 and 7 performed as well as native English monolinguals
There was a steady decline in performance as age of acquisition increased
Age of acquisition influence on phonology
Earlier age of acquisition is also associated with better mastery of the phonology of L2
Adults who began learning their second language in early childhood may sound like native speakers, while those who began learning later are likely to have a noticeable non-native accent
Early exposure to a language can benefit later phonological mastery of the language even if the language is not spoken in childhood
Age of acquisition benefits of “childhood overhearing”
Childhood overhearing does NOT benefit later morphosyntax
Childhood overhearing DOES benefit later pronunciation
An example of the phonological benefit of overhearing in childhood: childhood overhearers demonstrated voice onset times for stop consonants that were no different from native pronunciations, while late L2 learners pronounced the consonants more like English consonants
Bilingual education
Involves instruction in more than one language- e.g., science class taught in Spanish and English
Not equivalent to standard language instruction- e.g., Spanish class where language is explicitly taught
Different goals of bilingual instruction:
Teach the majority language to a minority group
Give the children the benefits of a second language
Bilingual school
Instruction in more than one language
Immersion school
Earlier immersion –> better proficiency
Immersion students performed equally well in math and science
Standard language instruction
Class where one language is explicitly taught
Phonology in the school years
By kindergarten, most children can produce most of the phonemes of their language- some more difficult sounds take a few more years to master
But phonological skills continue to develop- phonological awareness, phonological memory, phonological representations and comprehension in a noisy environment
Phonological skills are important because they are related to reading skill
Accent and dialect
Young children acquire the accent/dialect they hear most commonly in the input (i.e., their caregiver’s accent)
When children get to school and start spending more time with peers, they may begin to sound more like their peers than their parents- regional dialect differences if the family has moved to a different area
Sociolect of the child/adolescent’s group of friends- valley girl speech emerged among teenagers
Older children and teenagers may choose to use different dialects/sociolects in different situations- may use a particular accent to demonstrate group membership
Phonological awareness in preschoolers
Can recognize words that start with the same sound
Identify rhyming words
Identify the sound that beans with a word (more difficulty with consonant cluster onsets)
