IX. Universal and Variable Aspects of Language Acquisition

Question 1

critical period hypothesis for language acquisition

Answer 1

the idea that language is most effectively and efficiently acquired earlier in life than later, during adulthood
- evidence for critical periods in multiple domains: e.g. Wiesel and Hubel (1964) study with kittens found that visual impairment in early life will have lifelong effects on a mammal’s visual capabilities

Question 2

cases of language deprivation: Genie and Chelsea similarities

Answer 2

• both Genie and Chelsea underwent language deprivation
  —Genie: kept in isolation by her deranged father; deprived of linguistic input and production (only ate baby food and punished for speaking, therefore her vocal tract went underdeveloped)
  —Chelsea: born deaf; did not attend school for the deaf and communicated with her family via home signs; never acquired oral language until she received hearing aids at 32
• both Genie and Chelsea were incapable of reaching ideal “adult-like” language production capabilities
  —Genie never reached a level past “telegraphic utterances”
  —Chelsea demonstrated poor comprehension of English grammatical structures; she was unable to acquire rules for combining words

Question 3

cases of language deprivation: Genie and Chelsea differences

Answer 3

• Genie was deprived of both a means of communication and emotional support, whereas Chelsea’s family cared for her as best as possible and used home signs to communicate with her
• Genie underwent severe physical and emotional abuse, and lacked the experience of human touch

Question 4

Which areas of the brain (cerebral cortex) are most involved in language?

Answer 4

The frontal and temporal lobe are most involved in language comprehension and production, specifically these lobes in the left hemisphere for adults.
—Language is typically lateralized to the left hemisphere for adults
—The frontal lobe contains Broca’s Area, which is essential for language production and grammar
—The temporal lobe contains Wernicke’s Area, which is essential for language comprehension

Question 5

Broca’s Area

Answer 5

• located in the frontal lobe
• essential for grammar and language production
• those with damage to Broca’s Area have difficulty with producing fluent speech, but not with language comprehension

Question 6

Wernicke’s Area

Answer 6

• located in the temporal lobe
• essential for language comprehension
• those with damage to Wernicke’s Area have difficulty with speech comprehension, and produce fluent speech that is incomprehensible

Question 7

arcuate fasciculus

Answer 7

• connects Broca’s Area and Wernicke’s Area
• those with damage to the arcuate fasciculus may not struggle with language comprehension or production, but may have trouble with copying or repeating words

Question 8

lateralization of neural function

Answer 8

the specializations of some neural functions to the left or right hemisphere; the tendency for some neural functions to be localised to one hemisphere of the brain
- e.g. Language is typically lateralised to the left hemisphere

Question 9

How can language acquisition researchers measure brain activity in children? What are advantages and disadvantages of methods such as fMRI?

Answer 9

• EEG, fMRI, MEG, NIRS
  —EEG: electro-encephalogram, which measures electrical activation patterns across the cortex (action potentials!)
  —fMRI: functional magnetic resonance imagery, which measures oxygenated blood flow
  —MEG: magnetoencephalography, which measures changes in magnetic field across the brain
  —NIRS: near-infrared spectroscopy, which measures changes in tissue oxygenation
• Advantages of fMRI: excellent spatial resolution
• Disadvantages of fMRI: sensitive to movement, expensive, extremely loud

Question 10

How does lateralization of function (with respect to language) change as we age?

Answer 10

Lateralisation appears as early as 5 years old, however younger individuals tend to show more activation in areas of the right hemisphere which are homologous to language areas in the left hemisphere; in other words, younger individuals tend to display more relative activation during language tasks in areas of the right hemisphere which are homologous to regions of the left hemisphere involved in language.

Question 11

Liberman et al. (2017): goals, methods, findings, conclusions

Answer 11

goals: are there social benefits to multilingual language exposure in infancy? in other words, can exposure to multiple languages in infancy enhance children’s communication skills
methods: uses 14-17-mo. old infants (mean age 16 mo.)
—monolingual: exposed to only English
—multilingual: exposed to English and one additional language
- after training, experimenters used a set up where they sat across the child. they would place two toys on the table, one being shrouded by a screen between the experimenter and the child, thus blocking the experimenter’s view of the toy. The toys would be identical (e.g. two bananas) or non-identical (e.g. a banana and a phone). Experimenters would ask for the toy that they could see (e.g. “Can I have the banana?”) and children would give them the toy.
findings:
- monolingual and multilingual children showed identical performance in the different toy trials
- multilingual children has better performance in trials where the toys were the same
conclusions:
- findings support the idea that multilingual exposure facilitates 16-month old children’s ability to take the perspective of the speaker, thus benefitting children’s social and communicative abilities

Question 12

What is a “violation of expectation” study? (Choi, Song & Luo 2018; Liberman et al., 2017)

Answer 12

A “violation of expectation” study is one which requires subjects to take the perspective of the experimenter, where the experimenter can see certain objects and is unable to see other objects.
- Used to study determiners (the vs. a) and communicative abilities
- Choi, Song & Luo (2018): found that 19-month old infants have the ability to understand that the definite determiner, the, is associated with the presupposition that all speakers are aware of the item being referred to (e.g. “the ball” –> speakers are aware of what ball is being discussed)

Question 13

two kinds of multilingual acquisition

Answer 13

1. simultaneous
2. sequential (successive)

Question 14

simultaneous acquisition

Answer 14

when two or more languages are acquired at the same time, and speakers can identify with more than one language as their mother tongue/native language

Question 15

sequential (successive) acquisition

Answer 15

when an individual begins acquiring another language after they’ve already begun the process of acquiring a first
- e.g. family immigration; international adoption

Question 16

Pearson et al. (1993)

Answer 16

goal: does lexical development for Spanish-English bilingual children from 16-27 months match that of English monolingual children?
methods: longitudinal study using children in Miami
—measured English production for bilingual and monolingual children, and additionally Spanish production for Spanish and English dominant bilingual children, and total/conceptual total English+Spanish production
findings: total production (just English for monolingual children, but including English and Spanish for bilingual children) was equal between mono and bi lingual children, or in some cases greater for bilingual children.
conclusions: bilingualism does not hinder lexical development, and in fact bilingual children demonstrate some advancement in lexical development (when measured correctly)

Question 17

What is a heritage language? What are common features of heritage language?

Answer 17

A heritage language is one that a speaker acquires from a home or familial context, but is not the dominant or majority language of a political or geographical area
—majority language: associated with political power, educational/social/economic opportunity
—minority language: the home language that is not the majority language
- heritage language differs across contexts: in Japan, a minority language is Spanish, whereas in Spain, a minority language is Japanese
- speakers of heritage languages may:
—be able to understand but not produce utterances in that language; be able to read but not speak or write
—have native-like accent but basic knowledge of grammar
—have vocabulary specific to a certain domain (e.g. cooking or religion)
—experience language attrition: confidence weakens, vocabulary decreases, struggle with complex syntactic structures

Question 18

What might speakers of heritage languages do to prevent language attrition or recover heritage language at later stages of life?

Answer 18

1. heritage language speakers have a better ability to recover language later-on because of exposure during the critical period
   —early exposure = easier to recover loss
2. bilingual immersion programs in primary and secondary education
3. after-school programs with cultural or linguistic groups
4. robust (frequent and varied) use of the minority language at home

Question 19

quantity of linguistic input

Answer 19

the amount of linguistic input received overall; the amount of words a child hears or the amount of different words a child hears

Question 20

quality of linguistic input

Answer 20

the distribution of linguistic input
- measured through different aspects
—e.g. joint attention (interaction), diversity of words and syntactic structures, conceptual features such as talking about past & future

Question 21

How is quantity of linguistic input related to different kinds of linguistic developmental outcomes?

Answer 21

Hart & Risley (1995) found that higher SES background is associated with increased quantity of linguistic input for children; differences in linguistic input related to differences in vocabulary size
- Linguistic input is related to vocabulary size at 3 years old, vocab size in 3rd grade, productive language in 3rd grade, reading comprehension in 3rd grade, and even mathematical achievement in 10th grade

Question 22

Hart & Risley (1995): goals, methods, findings, conclusions

Answer 22

goals: how does SES background relate to quantity of linguistic input and vocabulary size of children from 10-36 months old?
methods: longitudinal study tracking 42 families
- recorded children’s vocabulary and the linguistic input that the child received (input that was addressed to the child)
findings:
- by the time children are 3 years old, children from higher SES backgrounds might know about 600 more words than children from low SES backgrounds
- projected that, by 3 years old, children from high SES backgrounds might hear some 30 million words more than children from low SES backgrounds
conclusions: quantity of linguistic input from 1-3 years has lasting effects on vocabulary size at 3 years old

Question 23

What is the origin of the “30 million word gap” and why is it misleading?

Answer 23

The “30 million word gap” is the idea that children from high SES backgrounds (“professional class”) might hear about 30 million more words than children from low SES backgrounds by the time that both groups of children turn 3.
- The 30 million word gap highlights a difference in quantity of linguistic input, but does not discuss quality
- Quantity of input matters, however there are variable factors as to why children may get more or less linguistic input

Question 24

How is socioeconomic status (SES) related to language development?

Answer 24

SES is associated with amount of linguistic input a child receives, which is therefore associated with a child’s vocabulary size at 3 years old.
- Linguistic input is related to vocabulary size at 3 years old, vocab size in 3rd grade, productive language in 3rd grade, reading comprehension in 3rd grade, and even mathematical achievement in 10th grade

Question 25

What aspects of linguistic input are related to the quality of linguistic input?

Answer 25

1) parental responsiveness: interaction between the parent and the child
—joint attention
—following in: talking about what the child is already talking about
—parental responsiveness between 12-36 months of a child’s life can predict a child’s receptive and productive skills
2) variability of syntactic structures: syntactic frames hold information about the verbs that occur in them; experiencing words in a range of frames is more informative of those words’ meanings than hearing them repeatedly in a singular frame
—syntactic bootstrapping theory
—linguistic input from fathers is directly related to a child’s vocabulary at 24mo. and reasoning at 36mo.: Wh-questions facilitate skills

overall:
- linguistic features: e.g. word or syntax diversity
- interactive features
- conceptual features

Question 26

What can practices/factors positively influence bilingual language acquisition?

Answer 26

1. use of the language at home
2. use of the language by older siblings
3. use of language outside of the home and peer interaction (not just with teachers)
4. input from native speakers
5. input from a variety of speakers
6. exposure and socialisation with individuals of similar/identical linguistic backgrounds, even if communication is not in the second language

Question 27

What are some key differences between blind and sighted children in terms of linguistic development (Bigelow 1987 and Nelson et al. 1971)?

Answer 27

Bigelow et al. (1987) recorded the first 50 vocabulary words of blind children (until about ~2 years of age) and compared these inventories to findings of the first 50 words of sighted children.
1) blind children know more:
—specific nouns (mommy, daddy)
—action words
2) blind and sighted children are almost equal in: general nouns
3) blind children acquire less: modifiers, personal/social words, and function words
—blind children acquire no function words as part of their first 50 words

Question 28

Why are function words rare in blind children’s speech?

Answer 28

Parents of blind children are unlikely to ask their children questions that require visual awareness: e.g. “What’s that?” “What are you holding?” “Is that a doggie?”
—Consequently, these questions often use function words
—This doesn’t mean that blind children/adults never acquire function words, but that they might acquire them later on

Question 29

How do blind children learn sight verbs?

Answer 29

Blind children learn about visual perception in relation to their own perceptual capabilities and methods: instead of seeing with their eyes, blind children “see” with their hands.
- When instructed to “look” at something, blind children will extend their hands out to that thing in order to feel it
- When instructed to “touch but don’t look” at something, blind children may use the backs of their hands to feel the object, but not touch the object with their fingers

Question 30

echolalia

Answer 30

repeating back specific words or phrases
- present in typically developing children, but in later ages children with ASD tend to exhibit echolalia at a higher frequency
- echolalia is also prevalent in blind children

Question 31

Could echolalia be related to blindness? Why or why not?

Answer 31

Echolalia is prevalent in blind children.
1) Some hypothesise that this is due to auditory memory playing a larger role in a blind child’s experience than in a sighted child’s experience
—sighted children can form visual memories in addition to auditory memories, while blind children rely on auditory memory
2) A large proportion (~70%) of blind children are also on the spectrum

Question 32

autism spectrum disorder (ASD)

Answer 32

a neuropsychological disorder characterised by atypical social interaction and communication, certain behavioural patterns, and low or high sensory sensitivity
- occurs in about 2% of children
- more common in boys: due to genetics and also mischaracterisations of ASD diagnoses in girls

Question 33

linguistic characteristics of children with ASD

Answer 33

1. echolalia and/or idiosyncratic speech
2. delayed onset of speech or nonverbal
3. language-specific impacts on communication:
   —difficulty with pragmatic/conversational/contextual skills: theory of mind, referential intention, joint attention
4. potentially causes some children to adopt more complex syntactic structures than the norm

Question 34

developmental language disorder (DLD)

Answer 34

a disorder which displays significant impacts in language, but no impacts in other domains
- aka specific language impairment (SLI)
- language impairment can be caused by different sources
- characterised by dissociations between levels of linguistic representation:
—e.g. speech production vs. perception
- characterised by struggles in certain linguistic areas:
—e.g. grammatical features and function words
- occurs in about 7% of children

Question 35

specific language impairment (SLI)

Answer 35

another name for developmental language disorder (DLD)

Question 36

How might DLD be related to genetics responsible for language?