First Language Acquisition Flashcards
What are the features of caregiver speech?
Phonetic, Lexical/semantic, syntactic, conversational
Caregiver Speech: phonetic features
Slow, carefully articulated
Higher pitch
Exaggerated intonation and stress
Longer pauses
Caregiver Speech: lexical and semantic features
Restricted vocabulary
Concrete reference to the here and now
Caregiver Speech: syntactic features
Few incomplete sentences
Short sentences
More imperatives and questions
Caregiver Speech: conversational features
More repetitions
Few utterances per conversational turn
First language acquisition concerns…
The development of language in children
Second language acquisition concerns…
Language development in adults or older youth
The critical period hypothesis is
The period up to puberty during which a child must be exposed interactively to language if there is to be the effortless, efficient mastery of language.
Lateralization begins in childhood.
The period when the brain is most ready to receive input and learn languages.
Who is Victor d’Aveyron
Abandoned, found at 12 years old
Sicard: deaf-mute education methods, to no avail
Itard: games, social activities, but speech judged impossible
3 words only
Reading and writing successful
Mute until death
Who is Genie?
Isolated and beaten for 12+ years with no language contact
No human contact or voices
Freed at 13.5 years old
Could understand and imitate words
Poor comprehension of simple sentences
Same initial stages of child language development (longer stage duration)
Simple speech quality
Progress slowed then stopped
Who is Isabelle?
Locked up with and raised by mute mother
Escapes at 6.5 years old
Normal hearing
In less than 3 months, complete sentences/syntax
Remarkable progress
Who is Helen Keller?
Normal to 19 months old
Serious illness
Deaf and blind
Tutor began at 7 years old
Language through touch, braille
Learned to speak by touching mouth, lips, throat of speakers
Now a conference speaker
Wild Children Conditions and Causes
Abandonment
Isolation
Willful neglect
Raised by animals?
Physical abuse
Human contact at all?
What is MLU?
Mean Length of Utterance
Define MLU
The average length of the utterances a child is producing at a particular point.
An effective gauge of the level of development for children progressing from the holophrastique through the telegraphic to the mature stages of language development.
