Language Acquisition Flashcards
All (normal) human children:
- learn a language.
- can learn any language they are exposed to.
- learn all languages at basically the same rate.
- follow the same stages of language acquisition.
Language Acquisition
the process of building the ability to understand a language and using it to communicate with others.
Innateness Hypothesis
argues that our ability to acquire (human) language is innate (genetically encoded.)
Universal Grammar
refers to the “set of structural characteristics shared by all languages”
Overviews of sign language
- have gesture system
- have morphology rules
- have syntactic rules
- have semantic rules
- have dictionary of arbitrary signs
Theories of Acquisition
- Imitation
- Reinforcement
- Active Construction of a Grammar
- Connectionist Theories
Main Idea of Imitation
Children imitate what they hear
Problems with Imitation
- Children produce things not said by adults.
- Children often fail to accurately mimic adult utterances.
- Children may invent a new language in the right circumstances.
Main Idea of Reinforcement
Children learn through positive and negative reinforcement.
Problems with Reinforcement
- Ignores how children initially learn to produce utterances
- rarely occurs
- fails when it does occur
- fails to explain children’s own grammar rules and why children seem impervious to correction.
Active Construction of a Grammar
- Children invent grammar rules themselves.
- Ability to develop rules is innate.
What active construction of a grammar explains which imitation/reinforcement can’t:
- Children are expected to make mistakes
- Children are expected to follow non-random patterns
- Regression
Connectionist Theories
Claims that exposure to language develops and strengthens neural connections.
Problems with Connectionist Theories
-predicts that any pattern is learnable bu humans, but this is demonstrably false.
Imitation
Is necessary but not sufficient.
Reinforcement
Is virtually unsupported.
Active Construction of a Grammar
Nicely accounts for predictable deviations from adults grammars, and the various stages of grammar development.
Connectionist Theories
Account for frequency effects, can also account for regular deviations from adult grammars.
Basic Idea of Critical Period
There is a critical period in development during which a language can be acquired like a native speaker.
Strong Hypothesis of Critical Period
After this critical period, it is impossible to acquire a language as well as a native speaker.
Weak Hypothesis of Critical Period
There are ‘sensitive periods’ during which the ease of learning certain aspects of language decline.
Stages of Development
- Prelinguistic
- Babbling
- One-word
- Two-word stage
- Beyond 2-word stage
Prelinguistic
- Babies make noise, but not yet babbling.
- Sensitive to native and non-native sound distinctions.
Babbling
- Starts at about 6 months of age.
- Not linked to biological needs.
- Pitch and intonation resemble language spoken around them.
One-word
- Begins at age 1.
- Speaks one-word sentences.
- Usually 1-syllable words.
- Consonant clusters reduced.
- Words learned as a whole, rather than a sequence of sounds.
Two-word stage
- Starts at about 1.5-2 years of age.
- Vocabulary of +/- 50 words.
- Sentences consist of two words.
Beyond 2-word stage
- Sentences with 3+ words.
- Begins using function words.
- Have already learned some aspects of grammar.
- Grammar resembles adult grammar by about age 5.
Children’s acquisition of language occurs:
- quickly.
- without explicit instruction.
- uniformly.
What must a child learn?
- The sounds of language.
- The sounds patterns of a language.
- Rules of word formation.
- How words combine into phrases/sentences.
- How to derive meaning from a sentence.
- How to properly use language in context.
- Lexical items (words, morphemes, idioms, etc.)
Examples of living organisms having innate behaviors:
- Newly hatched sea turtles moving towards the ocean.
- Honeybees performing dances for communication.
- Birds flying.
Attempts to explain Innateness Hypothesis
- Speed of acquisition
- Ease of acquisition
- Uniformity of acquisition process
- Uniformity in adult language
- Universalities across language
The goal of theoretical linguistics:
is to discover the properties of Universal Grammar.
Acquisition process of Active Construction of a Grammar
- Listen
- Try to find patterns
- Hypothesize a rule for the pattern
- Test hypothesis
- Modify rule as necessary
Parameter
determines the ways in which language can vary.
Head parameter
specifies the position of the head in relation to its compliments within phrases for different language.
Theories of Language Acquisition
- Imitation, Nativism, or Behaviorism
- Innateness or Mentalism
- Cognition
- Motherese or Input
Imitation, Nativism, or Behaviorism
Based on the empiricist or behavioral approach
Innate or Mentalism
Based on the rationalistic or mentalist approach
Cognition
Based on the cognitive-psychological approach
Motherese or Input
Based on the maternal approach to language acquisition
