Language and Thought L3 Flashcards
What is the nativist view of language?
-Children are biologically predisposed to learn
language
-They don’t start with nothing, they have universal knowledge which then only requires a bit of input to refine to their own language (comes with maturity)
What is the language bioprogram hypothesis, who thought of it?
- Part of the nativist view of language
- Children are innately predisposed to acquire the syntax of language
- Derek Bickerton (1984)
What did Noam Chomsky support in terms of the learning of language?
- A Nativist view (believed it was innate)
- Came up with the idea of the Language Acquisition Device (LAD) which claims infant is instinctively able to produce+ acquire language
What supports a nativist view of language?
- Children acquire language rapidly (3 years)
- Children acquire language effortlessly
- Children acquire language without being taught
How do children respond to feedback/being taught language?
Resistant to feedback, they are interested in communication (a tune to meaning) but not the explicit teaching of syntax by parents
What is evidence for the bioprogram hypothesis (part of nativist theory)?
Creoles and Pidgins
How do Creoles and Pidgins support a nativist view of language?
- A Pidgin language is an Invented language drawing on words and grammar from a group of languages (common where there are groups of immigrants working together)
- Creoles occur when the Pidgin language is acquired by children as a native language and is grammatically more complex i.e. the children add syntax to the language
- Therefore, this supports a nativist few as how is it possible for children to improve the language if they do not have some innate knowledge?
Is there a critical period for language development?
- No, instead there is a sensitive period
- The sensitive period is = the ideal time for acquiring certain parts of language → harder afterwards (maturational constraints= difficult after puberty)
Why is it harder to acquire language after puberty?
Lateralisation occurs, language becomes focused to the left hemisphere and therefore becomes harder to acquire more knowledge, specifically on syntax
What are two pieces of evidence for language having a sensitive period?
- Isolated children
- Deaf signers
How do isolated children support the idea of a sensitive period in language, what is a famous case?
- Famous case= Genie (severely isolated child)
- When found had no language
- Over years intensive training meant she learnt meaning/ made developments in acquiring words but it was a lot harder for her to learn syntax suggesting a sensitive period
How do deaf signers support the idea of the sensitive period in language, who did this research?
- Research done by Newport in 1990
- Showed that the later in life deaf person was exposed to sign language the more grammatical errors they made
- In addition, young children who were exposed took a relatively rudimental sign language and developed it into something far more complex adding syntax
What is an alternative view to nativist accounts of language?
-Children do not innately know language/ grammar instead they have increased capacity to learn it via highly developed pattern recognition
systems
What is statistical learning and what is it useful for in terms of learning language?
- Statistical learning is demonstrated when coloured symbols or syllables organized in a specific pattern (a grammar) are presented to children
- In less than 2 minutes children will pick up the different probabilities in the combinations of syllables/symbols that appear (can even play while sleeping)
- They infer that those which follow each other 100% of the time are ‘words’, while those with lower probabilities are not
- If you then present either familiar words/pairings or novel words/pairings they will look longer at the novel one
- This mechanism of statistical learning is useful for figuring out what individual words are as we do not speak with gaps to indicate this
Who did the study involving the syllables and statistical learning?
Saffran et al. (1996)
What is important for children to learn language by pattern recognition?
Need a language rich environment so can extract information out
What are frequent frames?
-Looked at transcripts of parent speech to kids found there was specific combinations of words that framed classes
You something it word class=verb
The something and word class=noun
The something is word class= Noun
There are about 42 frequent phrases, children can extract the word classes (get grammatical information) without needing preexisting knowledge
What is the role of the parent in kids learning language
-Parents often Simplify speech and Exaggerate intonation, also let child’s behaviour guide their talk
-Its important that the parent socially responds to the infants’ language attempts
-Children’s vocabularies are strongly associated with
the amount of language parents use with their
children
-Parents help reinforce attention that language is referring to other things, gaze +objects are connected
What will a child do a lot of in the first stages of learning language?
Imitate their parents
What are early words influenced by?
The social routine, child needs opportunities to hear the same phrases in structured social environments (watching tv, eating dinner etc.)
What culture are most language ideas constructed
on?
- Western culture
- Therefore, may not be representative have to keep the huge variety in mind when developing ideas about language learning
What is an independent culture?
- Internal attributes most salient
- Self concept separate from group
- Personal goals will take priority over group goals
What is an interdependent culture?
- Social role most salient (important for sense of who you are)
- Self concept is part of the group
- Group goals take priority
- Relationships crucial also less control over who you spend time with
What type of talk to children is common in independent culture?
- Child centered talk
- Adapt to child’s level, that is where the focus is
What type of talk to children is common in interdependent culture?
- Situation centered talk
- Child learns to adapt to situation, encouraged to listen, attend, observe, talk is less child orientated
