Language Development Flashcards
stages of vocabulary growth
- 12mo- production of first word
- 15mo- 25 words/fragments
- 2y- about 300 words
- 5yo- 10-15,000 words and vocabulary bursts (10-20 new words a day)
- 18yo- 60,000 words
main stages in language development
babbling (4-9mo)
holophrastic/one word (9-18mo)
two-word (18-24mo)
telegraphic (24-30mo)
babbling stage
meaningless, speechlike vocalisations with simple reduplicated CV structure
becomes more language-specific over time
-phonetic content found in this stage overlaps with phonetic preferences in later meaningful speech
holophrastic stage
- consists of relevant names/objects, and nouns are easier to produce
- speech errors made at this stage (deletion and substitution)
- high frequency of demonstrative words, e.g., this, that, there… across all languages
two-word stage
different from idiomatic expressions, most often nouns and verbs
lack of grammatical markers and beginning of syntax
combines words together>expresses ideas more
telegraphic stage
three-word expressions
absence of function words( e.g. ‘the’) auxiliary verbs (e.g. are) , prepositions, and tense morphemes
-quick progression
foetuses and hearing in the womb
can hear impoverished sounds due to high frequencies being blocked by amniotic fluid
- prosody, stress, rhythm, intonation and duration heard
- phonological cues can be picked up from fetus to birth (remembering the phonology )
evidence of early speech perception
1yo using categorical perception- sensitive to speech sounds when distinguishing between sounds in other languages
- suggests we may be pre programmed to distinguish between different sounds as this skill diminishes after 1 yrs
evidence of early speech production
-crying, cooing, and laughing as involuntary responses to emotional states (Universal)
- vocal play between 4-7 months, these are speech like sounds
Babbling
the repetition of syllables
- universal sounds > deaf children babble with their hands
- we produce easy front of the mouth sounds first then learn harder sounds
fast mapping
children learn new words for objects after one experience of exposure
how do newborns contribute to communication?
- head turning to noise
- discriminate between sounds and mother’s voice (preference for mother)
how do 1-4mo contribute to communication?
- smiling, cooing, sounds
- laughter starts to occur
how do 3-9mo contribute to communication?
- different responses to different information (e.g. angry)
- vocal play and babbling
- intentional communication between 8-10mo
how do 8-12mo contribute to communication?
- interpretable reaction to some words
- showing and pointing
- recognition of around
what do CDS and motherese show?
contribution of the parent to communication
phonological differences in motherese
higher pitch, exaggerated intonation, segmented, slower
lots of repetition and diminutives (e.g. doggie) to acquire noun morphology
is CDS essential?why
- can facilitate language learning, by marking syntactic boundaries, but it is not essential
- not present in all cultures however those lacking it present little variation in linguistic skills
- not used as much as we think
language acquisition theories
- behaviourist accounts
- nativist
- constructivist/cognitive
- social accounts
behaviourist accounts (skinner)
language is used in response to stimuli and learned by children through imitation and reinforcement
Problems of the behaviorist account
-poverty of stimulus– > input is full of degenerate (dysfluencies) and insufficient meaning there are not enough instances children are exposed to underlying rules of words
- children often use ungrammatical language even when corrected/or shown showing its not a good cue for learning language
nativist accounts (chomsky, pinker)
language capacity is innate (LAD) and children learn worldwide universal grammar without explicit instruction at approx same age
constructivist and cognitive accounts (piaget)
language learning is driven by cognitive development of mental schemas
social accounts (vygotsky, bruner)
-language has a social origin; high importance of social interaction and learning
adults model concepts and culture to children
errors with word learning
overextension- all animals are called doggie/too general (more prevelent early on)
underextension- only roses are called flowers/ too specific (more prevelent later on + less common)
Invented words
mechanisms for word learning
low-level mechanisms, e.g., classical conditioning (minor role)
conceptual prerequisites, e.g., children know basic ontological categories (objects, properties)
linguistic prerequisites, e.g., children assume words have meaning and mapping is symbolic- consistent across time and speakers
predispositions
children have innate assumptions when assigning meaning to sounds
types of assumptions
- whole object
- shape bias
- mutual exclusivity
- taxonomic assumption
- basic level category assumption
- noun-category bias
whole object
assumes the word is a label referring to the whole object rather than its parts
shape bias
extend names to objects that are similar in shape over other functions such as color
starts around 2 years and related to vocab development and children with delayed language development
mutual exclusivity assumption
an object can only have one label, assigning a novel word to objects they dont have a label for already
taxonomic assumption
novel words referring to something will also refer to similar things, leading to overextension
- relationship is taxonomically rather than thematically
-e.g. dog used for different breed but not for a dog bone
basic level category assumption
assumes a novel word refers back to the basic level (dog) , rather than superordinate (animal) or subordinate (poodle)
noun-category bias
nouns are conceptually easier to learn than other syntactic categories as theyre conceptually easier/ concrete across language in contrast to verbs
evidence of rule-based morphological development
- wug test- applying the plural rule to produce the correct phonological form
- 5.5-7rs applied plural rule and phonolical form correctly
stages of morphological development
- holophrastic- right answer, wrong reasons
- rule-based- wrong answer, right reasons (overgeneralisation of rules e.g. foots )
- rules and exceptions- right answer, right reasons
U-shaped morphological learning
instance-based
overgeneralisations
exceptions
critical age hypothesis
biological events related to language (e.g., lateralisation) can only happen during a limited period of maturation
- during this period, linguistic input is vital for normal language development
-roughly up to puberty
linguistic theory of syntax
grammar is developed by analysing grammatical and ungrammatical sentences of our language- children pick this up quickly
suggests children are born with a innate linguistic capacity
what is LAD?
provides the rules and principles to learn any language in the world
only input is needed to trigger LAD operation
tightly constrains what grammatical structures are acceptable in a certain language
chomsky believed language acquisition is guided by…
innate device called the LAD or universal grammar (UG)
UG
limited number of principles common to all languages, which provides the range of parameters (switches) to explain variation in human language
how do children use LAD?
using the input, must decide which parameter is appropriate for their language
whats a method children may use to determine the appropriate perameter
- preffered word order
- distinguish if english is a pro-drop language (subjectless sentences)
- figuring this out would have broader implications e.g. if no prodrop= we wont use dummy pronouns
evidence for language being innate
- Pidgin and creole are simplified languages that allow people from diverse linguistic backgrounds to communicate
- Nicaraguan deaf children =spontaneous sign language developed with own syntax
opposition to LAD
usage-based learning, where children use general cognitive abilities, learning mechanisms, and knowledge of social situations to deduce grammar and sound structure
clear correlations between _____ and _______ development
lexical, syntactic
first grammatical knowledge occurs when words are combined
MLU
- Mean length of utterance
- observes the mean number of morphemes to assess children syntactic and phonological development
- standardized assessment
- correlates well with other syntactic competence
- cross linguistic validity may be inconsistent with those with much more morphemes
stages of syntactic development
- beginning of word combinations
- add grammatical morphemes
- questions and negatives
- some complex sentences
- more complex sentences
pragmatics- using context
adults:
- use context (integrating discourse and syntactic information)
- semantic context biases interpretation
children fail to use discourse or semantic context in language processing and instead ‘on the napkin’ is interpreted as destination always
- children preference may be based on the frequency of ‘put x in y ‘ with y being the destination
Stages of learning how to read
1.phonemic awareness
2.phonics
3.fluency
4.vocabulary
5.text comprehension
phonemic awareness
children’s knowledge of the internal sound structure of spoken words/how theyre built up
Phonics
teaching children the relationship between the letters of the written language and the sounds of a spoken language (alphabetic principle)
- children with reading difficulties= more explicit phonics instruction
Fluency
ability to read a text accurately and quickly
- less concentration needed for decoding words more concentration on meaning of text
Vocabulary
increase in vocab= increase in academic achievement
- can learn new vocab directly or indirectly
Text comprehension
Ability to think actively when reading
-strategies include answer questions of texts they’ve just read
- the product of word recognition and language comprehension
