L10 (language) Flashcards
4 components of language
- phonology: sounds
- morphology/semantics: meaning
- syntax: grammar
- pragmatics: how to use language to communicate within one’s culture
must distinguish between language production and language comprehension
Phonemes vs morphemes
- smallest units of sound
- smallest units of meaning
- “I” is a phoneme and a morpheme
- “bin” has 3 phonemes and 1 morpheme
- “bins” has 4 phonemes and 2 morphemes (one meaning container and the other meaning plural)
Critical period in language learning
best to experience input before age 5 to achieve fluency
- newborns are speechless but 5-year-olds are about as good as or even better at language than adults
- smaller vocabularies and simpler expression but grammar etc. is present
Lateralization of language
lateralized to the left hemisphere
* even in newborns and deaf individuals
* mild at first and increases over development
Broca’s vs Wernicke’s aphasia
- difficulty producing speech but comprehension is intact
- difficulty understanding and producing understandable speech
not specific to modality so deaf (signing) individuals can have the same aphasias
Cues from bilingual brains that suggest a critical period
Comparing groups with equal proficiency
* earlier exposed to 2nd language (before age 3) = more lateralized (left)
* learned later = more bilateral activation
with early exposure, the brain treats the 2nd language like the first
“Less is more” hypothesis
Newport’s hypothesis for critical period
- perceptual and memory limitations lead young children to extract smaller bits of language than adults do
- allows them to ignore complexity and extract regularities
adult brain is distracted by detail and trying to learn too much, resulting in poor syntax
When do babies begin perceiving language?
- hearing infants begin perceiving their native language(s) in the womb
- hear adult speech and infant directed speech after birth
Infant directed speech (IDS)
- slower, simpler, louder, higher-pitched, repetitive
- very grammatical
- accentuates word boundaries and noun phrases
- recasts child’s utterances
there’s also IDsign!
How does IDS influence language development?
- infants prefer IDS to ADS even in an unfamiliar language and especially in their native language (ManyBabies project)
- infants (and adults) learn new words better when offered using IDS
but not universal as some cultures don’t speak to infants at all or use IDS
* still show preference for IDS but not required for language-learning
Is speech experience driving preference for speech?
preference continues over infancy!
- hearing babies with no ASL experience prefer ASL over other gestures (e.g. pantomime) only before 10 months (due to perceptual narrowing)
- non-auditory modality but babies still show a preference for the linguistic stimulus
Krentz & Corrina
Is speech preference of infants specific to human speech?
- not at first but becomes specific by 3 months
- newborns prefer monkey calls just as much as human speech
Prosody
- characteristic rhythm, tempo, cadence, melody, and intonational patterns with which language is spoken
- allows newborns to distinguish between languages based on rhythmic properties
e.g. British vs. American accents
Speech sounds
phonemic differences that make up a language
e.g. bat vs. pat vs. cat
Perceptual narrowing
young babies can learn any language but once they know what they’re learning, they focus efforts only on that language (like synaptic pruning)
- but loss isn’t equal: 7-month-olds who did worse on discrimination of foreign speech sounds performed better on vocabulary and grammar tests between 14-30 months
- attunement theory: babies start with broad capacity to learn any language and eventually abilities specific to native language are facilitated and others are lost
How do infants know what’s a word and what isn’t a word?
- distributional probabilities: the likelihood that a second syllable Y follows a first syllable X
- extracted through statistical learning
pauses between words are not reliable indicators (because there are pauses within words!)
6 stages of language production
- reflexive sounds (crying, grunting) at birth
- social sounds (cooing, laughter) at 6 weeks
- intentional vocal play (babbling) at 6-10 months (avg 7)
- first words at 10-15 months (avg 13)
- vocabulary spurt at 14-25 months (avg 19)
- simple sentences at 18-32 months (avg 24)
early vowel sounds at 6-8 weeks
Reduplicated vs variegated babbling
- repeat same speech sound (“ba-ba-ba”) by 6-10 months
- combine multiple speech sounds (“ba-goo-ba-goo”) by 11 months
- variegated babbling sounds more and more like native language
- deaf infants babble but limited and delayed
- infants exposed to ASL babble in sign
What are babies’ typical first words?
10-15 months
- nouns (usually basic level categories)
- requests (e.g. more)
- actions (e.g. up)
- routines (e.g. hi, bye bye)
Babies first words are never…
- closed-class words (e.g. the, of, in)
- quantifiers (e.g. most, some, 3)
- abstract concepts (e.g. justice, mortgage)
- psychological terms (e.g. like, know, think)
What does it mean to be bilingual?
gradient of definitions
- ability to speak without accent in 2 languages
- ability to communicate in 2 languages
- ability to understand 2 languages
Bilingual first language acquisition (BFLA)
i.e. crib bilinguals or simultaneous bilinguals
- the learning of 2 languages simultaneously from birth
- usually consider minimum 25% exposure to each language from multiple sources
dominant language: language of higher proficiency
How are bilingual and monolingual development similar?
- similar milestones (e.g. babbling, first word, first two-word utterances)
- both groups have the same goal: to become communicators
Why do bilingual infants mix their languages?
produce utterances with words from both languages
- they don’t know the right word in the other language
- people around them mix the languages
