Language and Development Flashcards

1
Q

LANGUAGE COMPONENTS

A

PRAGMATICS
PHONOLOGY & MORPHOLOGY
SYNTAX
SEMANTICS

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2
Q

LANGUAGE ORIGINS

A
  • 7000+ worldwide languages
  • ROUSSEAU; emotional
  • KANT; rational
  • WITTENGENSTEIN; philosophy as language study
  • DARWIN; music (ie. monkeys howling in harmony); continuity VS discontinuity hypotheses
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3
Q

HUMAN LANGUAGE FACTORS

A

COMMUNICATION SYSTEM
SYMBOLIC RULE-GOVERNED SYSTEM
PRODUCTIVE

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4
Q

COMMUNICATIOM SYSTEM

A
  • primary

- not unique to humans (ie. bees/lions/dolphins)

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5
Q

SYMBOLIC RULE-GOVERNED SYSTEM

A
  • 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
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6
Q

PRODUCTIVE

A
  • 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?”)

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7
Q

PRAGMATICS

A
  • 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.
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8
Q

PHONOLOGY & MORPHOLOGY

A
  • 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”
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9
Q

FACILITATING SEGMENTATION

A
  • 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
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10
Q

FLUENT SPEECH EXTRACTION

A
  • 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
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11
Q

SOUND ORGANISATION

A
  • 7.5m english infants
  • stressed syllables = new words (ie. candle VS intend)
  • sensitive to rhyme/alliteration
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12
Q

STATISTICAL LEARNING

A
  • 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.)
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13
Q

PRESPEECH DEVELOPMENT PERIOD (B-1Y)

A
  • 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
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14
Q

TRANSNATAL LEARNING

A

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)

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15
Q

5 STAGES OF BABBLING

A
  1. 0-2M
    - reflexive vocalisations (ie. crying/sneezing/burping)
    - directly related to physical state
  2. 2-4M
    - cooing/laughing
    - combining sounds
    - happy state
    - reciprocal w/parent
  3. 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
  4. +10M
    - modulated babbling
    - final period overlapping meaningful speech
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16
Q

LC: SYNTAX

A
  • the way words are put together for meaningful utterances
  • in English, word order = important grammatical component
  • acquisition follows predictable pattern (10-18M = first words)
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17
Q

THE 1-WORD STAGE

A
  • 10-18M
  • holophrastic/syncretic speech period
  • thoughts represented via one word
  • ie. “doggie” = “I want my dog”
18
Q

CULTURAL SYNTAX DIFFERENCES (EXAMPLES)

A

TARDIF et al (2008)
- early words:
ENGLISH = people based; object nouns; animals/sounds
CANTONESE = people based; verbs; rare animals

19
Q

THE 2-WORD STAGE

A
  • 18-24M
  • non-random pairs (ie. “kick” ball)
  • salient/high-meaning; verbs/adjectives
  • mixed order regardless of reality (ie. “lick doggie” = “doggie lick”)
20
Q

CHARACTERISTICS OF EARLY SPEECH

A
  • telegraphic speech = semantically rich but grammatically sparse
  • named by ROGER BROWN; early child language investigator
  • utterances express essential meaning but ignore unnecessary grammar; compared to texting?
21
Q

24-36M: WHAT’S DEVELOPED?

A
  • utterances = longer/more complex
  • use of verb endings (ie. “ed” signifying past)
  • model auxiliary (“will”)
  • conjunctions (“and”/”so”)
22
Q

OVERREGULARISATION ERRORS

A
PAST TENSE 
- "thinked" not thought
- "goed" not went
PLURAL 
- "mans"/"mouses"
23
Q

CREATIVE OVERGENERALISATIONS

A
  • nouns = verbs (ie. “why is it weathering?”)

- used w/novel words; follow known rules strictly

24
Q

SEMANTICS

A
  • words/aspects of them represent meanings

- these units are symbolic as they refer to things other than themselves

25
Q

COMPREHENSION

A
  • meaning is attached to words early on
    TICOFF & JUSZCZYK (1999)
  • 6ms given video of parents; looked more at correct parent depending on word heard (ie. “mummy” = mother)
26
Q

SEMANTIC ERRORS

A

KUCZAJ (2003)
- due to huge possible interpretations that children may make of a word’s meaning, it’s unsurprising that some initial guesses are incorrect
- can be:
OVEREXTENSION = bird/plane/kites/falling leaves
UNDEREXTENTION = ONLY rubber ducks, no others

27
Q

VOCAB DEVELOPMENT SPEED

A
  • kids construct vocab of 14k words by 6y despite its complexity, meaning aprox. 9 words p/d
28
Q

SEMANTIC CONSTRAINT

A
  • whole object constraint
  • “elephant” = whole animal, not parts
  • mutual exclusivity; nothing else is an elephant/elephant is not known as anything else
29
Q

FOUR THEORETICAL STANCES

A

BARRETT (1999)

  • NATIVISIM (NATURE)
  • innateness hypothesis
  • innate info processing dispositions
  • EMPIRICISIM (NURTURE)
  • learned language
  • develops much as other cognitive abilities do
30
Q

NATIVISIM (NATURE)

A

MARATOS (1999)

  • product of evolution/natural selection and pure endogenous processes internal to organism
  • species-specific; universal in humans
  • inherited from parents; present in newborns
  • results from genome/typical species environment interaction
31
Q

NATIVIST 1

A
  • some aspects of development are dependent on innate capacities/knowledge (ie. CHOMSKY/PINKER)
  • most extreme nativism; info processing skills specific to language acquisition and knowledge of language aspects are generational via genes
32
Q

NATIVIST 2

A
  • language development is strongly influenced by innate info processing dispositions (KUCZAJ) BUT doesn’t assume birth w/innate language knowledge (ie. innate discrimination of phenomes specific to learned language)
  • rather, a number of innate processing dispositions/abilities (also applicable for non-linguistic development) = important to acquisition
33
Q

EMPIRICISM (NURTURE)

A
  1. language experience is vital

2. development via experience in similar cognitive ability fashion; nothing special about language

34
Q

EMPIRICIAL 1

A
  • children acquire language specific concepts/representations due to language experience rather than innate specification
35
Q

EMPIRICAL 2

A
  • children acquire language due to general abilities that play role in general cognitive development (ie. ToM)
    CHOMSKY
  • universal grammar; s/d structures
  • language needs to relate s/d structures
  • environment = only s, so d = innate
  • kids hear complex/ungrammatical sentences (poverty of stimulus/Plato’s problem) w/little grammatical feedback yet acquisition is quick/easy
36
Q

NATIVISM: +

A
  • phonemic discrimination
  • over-regularisations
  • creative over-regularisations
  • applied rules
37
Q

MODI EXPERIMENT

A

AKHTAR, CARPENTER & TOMASELLO (1996)

  • objects given to kids but not named; experimenter leaves; objects in box and one added; experimenter returns and acts excited about a “modi”
  • when asked to hand over the modi, kids are more likely to give the new item
  • kids guess people’s intentions to understand the meaning of a new word; you need a ToM
38
Q

MODI EXPERIMENT (EXPLAINED)

A
  • in order to see new item = modi, kids must know:
  • the experimenter was referring to it
  • people get excited about new things
  • modi = new item despite none of the other items being named
  • OVERALL, guess experimenter’s intentions
39
Q

META-ANALYSIS OF HERITABILITY ESTIMATES

A

ANDREOLA et al (2020)

  • focussed on neurocognitive components: general reading (comprehension); letter-word knowledge; rapid automatized naming; phonological decoding/awareness; spelling/language
  • 49 articles; 23 cohorts; 38, 670 pps; 15, 990 MZ; 22, 680 DZ; 4.1y-18.5y
  • genetic/non-shared environmental factors explained most variance in domains
40
Q

THE TWIN MODEL

A
  • MZ/DZ twins used; difs used to parse phenotypic trait variance into genetic/environmental components
  • genetic influences implied if MZ correlation > DZ
41
Q

META-ANALYSIS OF PARENTING/LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT

A

MADIGAN et al (2019)

  • does sensitive-responsive parenting/warmth affect child language?
  • 32 studies; sample size 9-1026; median = 142; 33.5m (range = 12-71m); mean boys = 51.1%
  • parental warmth/sensitive responsiveness to child language association = STATSIG
  • language development is fundamental for school readiness/comprehension/academic achievement/occupational outcomes
  • parental behaviour influences child language development; modifiable factor targeted for interventions
  • limits = observational only, so findings = correlational only; needs controls (RCTs)