Language and Development Flashcards
LANGUAGE COMPONENTS
PRAGMATICS
PHONOLOGY & MORPHOLOGY
SYNTAX
SEMANTICS
LANGUAGE ORIGINS
- 7000+ worldwide languages
- ROUSSEAU; emotional
- KANT; rational
- WITTENGENSTEIN; philosophy as language study
- DARWIN; music (ie. monkeys howling in harmony); continuity VS discontinuity hypotheses
HUMAN LANGUAGE FACTORS
COMMUNICATION SYSTEM
SYMBOLIC RULE-GOVERNED SYSTEM
PRODUCTIVE
COMMUNICATIOM SYSTEM
- primary
- not unique to humans (ie. bees/lions/dolphins)
SYMBOLIC RULE-GOVERNED SYSTEM
- abstract/productive
- enable speakers to produce/comprehend wide range of utterances
- parts of language represent meaning (ie. “ed” suffix implies past tense)
- “bird” = arbitrary BUT refers to avian creatures
- each language is constrained by unique rules
PRODUCTIVE
- finite units (sounds/words) produce infinite utterances
- not all possibilities are useful; some are abstract/hypotheticals (ie. “why does the amused jelly win the iron?”)
PRAGMATICS
- cognitive/social skills enabling effective communication (ie. turn taking/convo initiation/dialogue maintenance/faulty communication repair)
- essential: ie. DO TAKE A SEAT
LITERAL M: Take a chair somewhere.
LITERAL R: Remove chair.
PRAG M: Please sit down.
PRAG R: Sit on the indicated chair.
PHONOLOGY & MORPHOLOGY
- speech sounds/combinations to words/utterances
- basic units:
MORPHEME (MEANING) = language
PHONEME (NON-MEANING) - speech (“ba” “ba” = habituation; “pa” = attention)
- 1m babies discriminate; 12m discriminate own language but not others (become native listener)
- adults struggle
- babies cannot tell difference between “ba” & “ba”
FACILITATING SEGMENTATION
- infant-directed speech (motherese/parentese) from primary caregiver
- higher/exaggerated pitch
- rhythmic/slower
- short, perfectly grammatical sentences
- concrete NOT abstract
- here/now; running commentary for the present
- careful attention paid to child’s actions
FLUENT SPEECH EXTRACTION
- difficult to tell where one word ends and another begins as natives don’t include pauses
- children are language detectives
- cues include:
SOUND ORGANISATION
STATISTICAL LEARNING
SOUND ORGANISATION
- 7.5m english infants
- stressed syllables = new words (ie. candle VS intend)
- sensitive to rhyme/alliteration
STATISTICAL LEARNING
- 4.5m; pick up patterns/regularities; respond to name sound pattern opposed to other names
- 6m = mummy/daddy response
- words heard in several dif contexts recognised (ie. Jodie, Jodie’s sock, etc.)
PRESPEECH DEVELOPMENT PERIOD (B-1Y)
- 1y (some earlier; some 1.5) = 1st meaningful word
JUSCZYK (2002) - infants acquire huge knowledge about nature/organisation of native tongue well before 1st meaningful word
TRANSNATAL LEARNING
PRENATAL SPEECH DETECTION
- newborn infants show preferences based on fetal heard sounds (ie. heartbeat)
EARLY INFANCY LANGUAGE PREFERENCE
- first few days after birth infants prefer to listen to mother tongue
- MAY et al (2011)
5 STAGES OF BABBLING
- 0-2M
- reflexive vocalisations (ie. crying/sneezing/burping)
- directly related to physical state - 2-4M
- cooing/laughing
- combining sounds
- happy state
- reciprocal w/parent - 6-10M
- canonical babbling
- combos sound like words
- no evidenced meaning
- uniformity of age period/range of sounds (ROTHENGANGER (2003))
- deaf/hearing kids of deaf parents babble - +10M
- modulated babbling
- final period overlapping meaningful speech
LC: SYNTAX
- the way words are put together for meaningful utterances
- in English, word order = important grammatical component
- acquisition follows predictable pattern (10-18M = first words)