Intelligence Language Flashcards
Language learning starts early
- Begins even before birth because the fetus can hear muffled versions of speaking from outside the womb.
- Two-day-old babies can be aware of the patterns of their native language.
- Language is more generative than it is imitative.
Language production
1-6 months
- Baby coos and gurgles
6-12 months
- Babies begin to babble. Babblings sounds like “dada” or “da do”
12-18 months
- Baby’s first words appear!
18-24 months
- Toddles begins to join two words together. Lots of new words are being learned.
“More tea”
2-3 years
Child begins using little 3-5 word sentences.
“Daddy fix it”
Practicing speech sounds
By the time babies are 6-8 weeks old, they star making vowel sounds (ooohh, aaahh, goo).
Receptive language
Infants are practicing their speaking skills by babbling by about 6 months, they are also learning to better understand sounds and eventually the words of language.
One of the first words that children understand is their name. Followed by commonly used words like “bottle” “mama” etc.
First Words
- By the age of 1 year
- There are a lot of errors in early language
- First words are usually nouns
- Between the ages of 18 months and five years children learn up to 10 new words every day.
Overextensions
Because language involves the active categorization of sounds and words into higher level units, children make some mistakes in interpreting what words mean and how to use them. In particular, they often make overextensions of concepts, which means they use a given word in a broader context than appropriate. A child might at first call all adult men “daddy” or all animals “doggie.”
Theories of Language acquisition
- Psychological theories of language learning differ in terms of the importance they place on nature vs. nurture.
- Parts of language learning is straight behaviorism.
The most straightforward explanation of language
development is that it occurs through principles of learning, including association, reinforcement, and the observation of others. (Skinner)
Children modify their language through imitation, reinforcement, and shaping, as would be predicted by learning theories.
Noam Chomsky
The linguist Noam Chomsky is a believer in the nature approach to language, arguing that human brains contain a language acquisition
device that includes a universal grammar that underlies all human language.
- There are between 6,000 and 8,000 language in the world.
Chomsky’s account proposes that children are born with a knowledge of general
rules of syntax that determine how sentences are constructed.
Bilingualism
- Becoming more and more frequent in the modern world.
- Nearly one-half of the worlds population, including 17% of Canadian citizens, grows up bilingual.
Australia, the UK, Australia, the US are strongly monolingual.
- US in part based on the idea
that speaking two languages may interfere with cognitive
development.
There is an abundance of research saying that being bilingual gives you a cognitive advantage and increases cognitive abilities.
Washoe (1965-2007) -Chimpanzee
○ Was taken form the wild when she was one year old to be a research subject for the US military.
○ Learned at least 250 words and could make simple requests and sentences.
- Used simple noun verb sentences to make requests. Ex. Please tickle
○ He was compassionate; Had emotional attachments with researchers (Reacted to the loss of his researchers miscarriage)
Kanzi - A bonobo
○ Is the best primate for learning human speech -3000 sign language
- The most proficient nonhuman language speaker.
- Kanzi has a propensity for language that is in many ways similar to humans.
- He learned faster when he was younger than when he got older.
- Learned by observation, and he can use symbols to comment on social interactions ex. Learned sign language by watching a gorilla using sign language
○ He is also a good tool user
- Researchers taught him to make a stone tools to cut with such as early humans used.
- Famous for saying Marshmallow and fire.
He was able to collect sticks, made a fire and roasted marshmallow.
And yet even Kanzi does not have a true language in the same way that humans do.
- His language focused primarily on food and pleasure and rarely on social relationships.
Koko - Gorillas
- Won the hearts of people when in 1985 a picture of her and the kitten that she adopted was the cover of National Geographic. -She called it “all ball”.
- A higher-level language learner
- She knew over 1000 words in American Sign Language
- She used language at a deeper level than other examples of primate language: Taking about gorillas that were not present, including her own baby when it had been taken away.
Similarities
They all learned languages through long-term relationships with trainers who cared for them and raised the, in a natural environment.
Linguistic Relativity
The idea that language and its structures influence and limit human thought.
Benjamin Lee Worf
Hypothesizes that the language that people use determines their thoughts.
