language development

Question 1

What are the five main components of language?

Answer 1

Pragmatics
Phonology
Morphology
Syntax
Semantics

Question 2

What is language?

Answer 2

A symbolic rule-governed system that is both abstract and productive

Symbolic- represents meaning e.g. suffix = past tense
Rule governed- constrained by rules in each language
Productive- a finite number of unites produce an infinite number of utterances inc abstract ideas and hypotheticals

Question 3

What are pragmatics?

Answer 3

The role of context and how it contributes to meaning. allows us to communicate effectively. Essential e.g. ‘do take a seat’, without pragmatics we would take the literal meaning

Question 4

What is the difference between a morpheme and a phoneme?

Answer 4

Morpheme- basic unit of language that has meaning
Phoneme- basic units of speech (do not have meaning)

Question 5

What are the characteristics of infant directed speech?

Answer 5

Motherese/parentese, higher speech, more exaggerated pitch, more rhythmic, slower, concrete

Question 6

At what age does phonemic discrimination develop?

Answer 6

At around 12 months old- also the time when infants tend to speak their first meaningful words although they have acquired much information before this

Question 7

What does research about transnatal learning tell us?

Answer 7

Prenatal detection of speech- newborns show preferences based on sounds heard in the womb e.g. heartbeat
Language preference in early infancy- prefer their ‘mother tongue’

Question 8

What has research found about language preferences in babies?

Answer 8

May et al. 2011- found that English speaking babies presented with recordings of English and Tagalog showed a different response in the brain. Others found English babies had an innate preference for English language.

Question 9

What is the first stage of vocal production in infants and at what age does this occur?

Answer 9

Reflexive vocalisation- crying, sneezing etc, directly related to physical state. 0-2 months.

Question 10

What is the second stage of vocal production in infants and at what age does this occur?

Answer 10

Cooing and laughing- coo sounds emerge, reciprocal cooing. 2-4 months.

Question 11

What is the third stage of vocal production in infants and at what age does this occur?

Answer 11

Canonical babbling- sound combination of sound like words although there is no evidence that meaning is attached

Question 12

What is the fourth stage of vocal production in infants and at what age does this occur?

Answer 12

Modulated babbling- final period of babbling overlaps with meaningful speech and intonation- 10 months

Question 13

What is syntax?

Answer 13

The ways in which words are put together to make meaningful utterances- in English, word order is v important

Question 14

What pattern does the acquisition of syntax follow?

Answer 14

A predictable one

Question 15

What is the ‘one-word’ stage and what age does it occur?

Answer 15

Also known as the syncretic speech period- where thoughts are represented as a single word e.g. ‘doggie’, at 10-18 months

Question 16

What is the ‘two word’ stage and at what age does it occur?

Answer 16

Word order regardless of reality, salient and high meaning non random pairs, at 18-24 months

Question 17

What did Tardiff et al. find out about cross cultural differences in early word development?

Answer 17

They found English early words were people-based, object nouns, animals and sounds, but Cantonese early words were people-based verbs, rarely animals

Question 18

What are the characteristics of early speech?

Answer 18

Semantically rich but grammatically sparse

Question 19

At what age does the development of speech become more complex and meaningful?

Answer 19

24-36 months- more complex use of verb endings, more auxiliary and conjunctions.

Question 20

What are semantics?

Answer 20

Refers to words and parts of words e.g. the plural ‘s’ and past tense suffix e.g. ‘ed’ that represent meaning, referring to things other than themselves.

Question 21

What are semantic errors?

Answer 21

Incorrectly guessing meaning, under and over extension

Question 22

What is the difference between under and over extension?

Answer 22

Under- child does not use the word enough when they need to e.g. may only use ‘kitty’ in context of the family cat and not for other cats
Over- child uses the word too much e.g. uses ‘hat’ to refer to anything on the head

Question 23

What is semantic constraint?

Answer 23

Whole object constraint i.e. what a pattern allows you to do and not do- e.g. elephant refers to a whole animal and not constituent parts- mutual exclusivity an elephant is not known by other names

Question 24

What are the two main theoretical perspectives on language development?

Answer 24

Nativism and Empiricism

Question 25

What is the innateness hypothesis in nativism?

Answer 25

Innate preference to develop a language

Question 26

Describe the main features of nativism

Answer 26

A product of evolution and natural selection that is inherited and present in newborn infants, universal in all humans, entirely internal and endogenous

Question 27

Who were some early nativists that advocated for language being innate?

Answer 27

Chomskey, Pinker

Question 28

What is the second nativist stance?

Answer 28

Language development is strongly influenced by innate info processing predispositions but does not assume that children are born with an innate knowledge of language

Question 29

What do empiricists believe about language acquisition?

Answer 29

Experience with language is important and language develops through experience in a similar way that other cognitive abilities do

Question 30

What is the first stance on language acquisition in empiricism?

Answer 30

The view that children acquire language specific concepts and representations because of their experiences with language rather than because the concepts are innate

Question 31

What is the second stance on language acquisition in empiricism?

Answer 31

Children acquire aspects of language because of more general abilities that play a role in cognition e.g. ToM

Question 32

Why was Chomsky against empiricism in the context of language development?

Answer 32

He argued that there is universal grammar (s and d structure) meaning surface and deep meanings of words. He stated that language requires the ability to relate to d and s structures but the environment only contains simple structure info so d structure must be innate. Language is acquired quickly and easily.

Question 33

What are some further arguments for the nativist position on language devleopment?

Answer 33

Phonemic discrimination, over regularisations, creative overgeneralisations, rules seem to be applied here

Question 34

What is the wug test?

Answer 34

An experiment to identify the acquisition of plural formation and other grammatical rules in children

Question 35

What empirical evidence is there on language development?

Answer 35

Review of genetic environmental effects- meta-analyses of heritability estimates e.g. Andreola et al focused on neurocognitive components such as general reading, reading comprehension, spelling and language etc.

Question 36

How can the twin model be used as evidence for empirical language development?

Answer 36

Language- some genetics but specific environmental factors e.g. play, parental involvement, schooling, siblings

Question 37

What did a meta-analysis of parenting and language development find and who was it by?

Answer 37

Madigan et al (2019)- investigated if sensitive, responsive parenting and warmth affect child language? 32 studies inc. Effective size for association between sensitive responsiveness and child language was significant. Parental warmth association was also significant.
Found that language development is a fundamental building block for reading comprehension, academic achievement etc and parental behaviour can influence this language development It is a modifiable factor that can be targeted in interventions. Limitations- only observational studies were used, so the meaning of the findings is correlational. Need a review of RCTs.