Lecture 3 - Language Development Flashcards
Language definition (Barrett, 1999)
“A code in which spoken sound is used in order to encode meaning”
Main areas of language
Phenology, Semantics, Syntax, Pragmatics
Phenology
“Phenomes” or sound segments
Semantics
System of meaning (morphemes) eg d, o, g
Syntax
Rules by which words/phrases are arranged eg Jane hit Sue vs Sue hit Jane
Pragmatics
How language is used in different contexts
Shahidullah and Hepper (1993)
Foetuses react to sounds from 20 weeks and distinguish between male and female voices near term. They show preference for mother’s voice after birth.
Neonate speech perception studies
Voulourmanos and Werker (2007) - Prefer speech over non-speech.
Moon et al (1993) - Prefer native language
DeCasper and Fifer (1980) - Prefer mother’s sounds
Shi et al (1999) - Discriminates between content and function word types
Speech production timeline
From 1-2 months: cooing and laughing, canonical babbling around 6-10 months and modulated babbling 10+ months
Canonical babbling traits
Include more vowels and consonants
Combine these in ways that start to sound like words
Scream for attention or out of anger
Specific gestures/sounds reserved for primary caregiver or other familiar individuals
Modulated babbling traits
Add stress and intonation patterns
Overlaps with meaningful speech period
Word explosion
Roughly 20 words at 18 months – 200+ words at 24 months Mainly nouns (labels of objects and people) Some action, state, function words
Multiword speech
18 months old - 2 word utterances (telegraphic speech)
24-27 months old - 3-4 word utterances (with grammatical errors ‘mouses’, prepositions and irregular verbs and re-order words eg negative statements, wh-questions)
3 years old speech
Understandable to unfamiliar adults
Vocabulary around 1000 words
Complex sentences with relative clauses (eg my sister, who has four cats, is more of a crazy cat-lady than I am)
Still perfecting some linguistic systems
5 years old speech
Language similar to that of adult (still perfectly some tenses and constructions eg passive voice, conditional tense)
Children’s understanding of pragmatics
Adjust to different contexts (differences in communication to different listeners as young as 2 years eg informal and formal)
Take account of listener’s perspective (at 4-5 years)
Master convention of different genres (3 years old – eg once upon a time is telling a story)
How do children acquire word meaning?
Word learning biases (whole object constraint – words refer to whole objects rather than parts of object) Shape bias (generalise to other objects that are the same shape, rather than other attributes like texture, colour, material etc). Aids early noun learning.
How do children acquire language?
Word acquisition (two example models: Barrett’s multi-route model and Gleitman’s syntactic bootstrapping hypothesis) General theories of language development
Barrett’s Multi-Route Model
Two different pathways in understanding:
- Referential words - Used in a variety of contexts
- Context-bound words - Only specific context
Gleitman’s syntactic boot-strapping hypothesis
Sensitive to syntactic and semantic correspondences from early age
Extract meanings of new words from syntactic clues – # of “noun phrase” arguments or participants
Mary kicked the ball (transitive: subject + object)
Tom is sleeping (intransitive: subject, no object)
We test this by observational studies or artificial language in experiments
Other theories for why language develops
- Nativist theories (Chomsky’s “Innate Language Acquisition Device (LAD))
- Constructivist or Cognitive theories (Piaget)
- Cognitive Functional Linguistics
Chomsky’s LAD (Nativist)
- Human languages have universal features - Phonology, Syntax, “deep structures”
- Innate knowledge of basic grammar rules
- LAD perceives regularities in heard utterances - LAD generates hypotheses about regularities, hypotheses are tested against new utterances
Support for LAD
- Children learn quickly, and learning governed by rules
- Systematic mistakes (logical errors)
- Correct order early on
Constructivist or Cognitive Theories
Language development reflects stages of cognitive development:
Cognitive abilities enable understanding and use of language
Rules come from wider cognitive system not LAD
Support for cognitive theories
- First words about familiar objects and activities –Usually dynamic objects child can hold
- First words appear around same time as object permanence–Also around time symbolic play emerges
- Words about present emerge before words about future and past–Appear around the time children understand time concepts
- BUT – what about effect of social environment?
Tomasello (2000)
Children can’t generate verb combinations they haven’t heard
Cognitive-functional linguistics
No universal, innate grammar and children acquire language gradually through gradual building up of grammatical structures
McDonough et al (2011)
Toddlers find a creative use of verbs but nouns are more difficult to understand
Tomasello et al (1997)
Children taught 4 new “verbs” and “nouns” with no context. 18-23 month olds could produce plurals of nouns but not the past tense of the made up words.
Adult-child speech
Different to adult-adult speech (higher voice, greater range in pitch, simpler meaning with more nouns and concrete words that adjusts to cognitive level of the child). Babies prefer this speech.
Nelson et al (1987)
Adult-child speech acts as scaffolding for language and it helps with sentence imitation and more complex grammar
Fernald et al (2012)
Language processing and vocabulary lower in lower SES (Social Economic Status) children
Lee and Burkman (2002)
Children in the top SES (Social Economic Status) have 60% higher scores than those in the lowest quintile
Hart and Risley (1995)
Children of a lower Social Economic Status hear fewer words per hour than in higher SES. Lower SES caregivers talk to child less and use less complex sentences - and read to them less
Duursma (2015)
Fathers had an impact on child’s language development, less than mothers.
Fathers used more abstract and complex language and link events to child’s own experience. Mothers focused on details of the book.
