Language development Flashcards
Hocket & Charles (1960)
differences that make our language special:
arbitrariness - no connection between sound and message
displacement - talking about things not present
productivity - create new utterances
duality of patterning - meaningless phonic segments combined to make something meaningful
forms
phonology and syntax/morphology
function
semantics and pragmatics
phones
differences in sounds we use and how we use them
phonemes
if a phone changed the meaning of a word
- infants born able to hear all phonemes - becomes specific to their own language
phonological development
7 months - canonical babbling (reduplicated sounds)
10 months - babbling reflects sounds of the environment
1 year - variegated babbling (sounds like words)
gaze following
18 months
checking where people are looking when they are speaking
joint attention
9 months
2 or more people attend to something and are mutually aware of it
- predicts age of language production
pointing
9-14 months
imperative - tell someone to do something
declarative - inform someone about something
index finger - predicts vocabulary development
open handed pointing - delay
words
10-15 months - begin to produce words
slow until 50-100 words in lexicon
6 years - 10-14’000 words in lexicon
8-10 years - 12 new words per day
errors in speech
spoonerisms - changes letters of two words
malapropisms - word replaces similar sounding word
semantics
meaning of a word and how to use it
errors of scope
semantic issues
underextentions (too little detail) or overextensions (too much detail - over applying)
how children learn semantics/meaning of words
learn to make assumptions - more likely to mean the whole rather than a part of an object
associative learning - word used when the same object is present
social cues - if you have been looking for something, find it and someone says the word
linguistic cues - other words give clues about reference
mutual exclusivity - knowing what other words mean = vital
McArthur-Bates communicative development inventory (CDI)
parental reports of language development
show vast individual differences
SES and learning
large role in explaining differences in language development
less contingent talk
Contingent talk
child directed speech that focus’ infants attention semantically (what infant is attending to) and temporally (in response to infants vocalisation)
grammar
allows combination of words to convey different meanings
syntax
organisation into larger structures (sentences)
who did what to whom
novel (made up words) can be used to test, adding into a sentence to see if they respond as if it were a word
morphemes
forms of words
inflectional morphemes (morphology)
marks: tense person numer possession
Berko (1958) - WUG test
inflectional morpheme developmental trajectory
discover an inflection - errors of omission (wug not wugs)
over imply the inflection (he blewed up)
balance applying the inflections and remember exceptions
Chomsky - Universal Grammar (UG)
nativist approach - can’t learn grammar by copying what they hear around them because:
poverty of stimulus problem
no negative evidence problem
poverty of stimulus problem
can produce complex utterances without every hearing them before
no negative evidence problem
don’t have direct feedback on their wrong grammar
universal grammar (UG)
grammatical categories and principles (rules) used to generate grammatical sentences
suggested to be an innate system
issues with UG
what innate knowledge makes up this system?
constructivist approach to grammar
grammar is learnable:
imitation
analogies
generalisation
pragmatics
ability to adapt our language to the context we are in
turn taking understanding implicatures (some compared to all) talking in different registers narrative skills (things that aren't there)
Development of pragmatics
early inclination to engage in turn taking (helps develop their lexicon)
referential choice
struggle with how and when to use a word so refer to things in ambiguous ways (he/she)
feedback
respond well to request for classification - helping provide detail
repairing utterances - add detail a child needs to get their point across
scaffolding
child directed speech - motherease
following in - commenting on an object that has a child’s attention
adjust language for child
expansion - say it the correct way for them
clarification request - when they don’t understand they ask questions
atypical development
delays in language effects other things
could come from:
hearing loss (need for cochlear implant)
cleft pallet - can’t produce sounds
learning difficulties
Developmental language Disorder (DSD)
can’t be explained by any hearing loss of other developmental disorder
2/30 children affected
struggle to comprehend and produce speech
