Lecture 5 - Language development

Question 1

What is the nativist perspective on language (Chomsky)?

Answer 1

• humans are biologically programmed to acquire language
• children are born with a ‘language acquisition device’ = an innate brain module that enables children to acquire language
• humans are born prepared for a universal grammar = an abstract set of rules common to all languages
• infants are born with some ‘core knowledge’ - Spelke

Question 2

Support for the nativist approach?

Answer 2

• children master language quickly and easily despite little explicit training and difficulty of the task
• children can invent new languages without any exposure
• new borns are sensitive to language = they prefer speech and discriminate the phonemes of all the worlds languages
• evidence for ‘sensitive periods’

Question 3

What is a sensitive period?

Answer 3

• a critical period when language readily develops after which acquisition is more difficult
• linguistic competence is predicted by age of acquisition not length of exposure
• peak linguistic proficiency is in youngest learners

Question 4

What did Newport look at and find?

Answer 4

• looked at the relationship between age of exposure and proficiency
• she studied second language learners in the US
• found that if you learn a second language before the age of 6 you will be equivalent to the native speakers

Question 5

What are some limitations of the nativist approach?

Answer 5

• ‘universal grammar’ has not been identified
• nativism often focuses on aspects like word learning and syntax but neglects other socio-cognitive aspects
• overlooks how gene expression is influenced by the environment

Question 6

What is the learning/empiricist perspective on language (Skinner/ Bruner)?

Answer 6

• argues language is acquired through learning
• language learning depends on domain-general cognitive abilities
• children learn to construct the world through their own actions

Question 7

What is the interactionist perspective (Vygotsky)?

Answer 7

• children are biologically prepared to acquire language but the environment influences its development
• there is plasticity in language acquisition
• takes a developmental systems approach =. focuses on interaction between genes and the environment
• children are sensitive to clues to language but need social interaction to acquire it

Question 8

Speech development?

Answer 8

• infants are sensitive to speech
• new borns can discriminate all the worlds speech sounds
• humans are very vocal compared to other species
• they communicate their core needs to stimulate social interaction

Question 9

What are the building blocks of speech?

Answer 9

1. 2 months = cooing (vowel sounds)
2. 3-4 months = photo-phones (early speech sounds)
3. 4-6 months = babbling begins:
   -> this is meaningless speech-like sounds
   -> extended syllable repetition e.g. ma-ma-ma
   -> is culturally specific

Question 10

How do care-givers support language development?

Answer 10

1. infant- directed speech
   - short, simple sentences
   - exaggerated and slow
   - often combined with pointing
2. exaggerated facial expressions
   - helps stimulate communication and learning
   - is culturally specific

Question 11

What is vocabulary explosion?

Answer 11

• after learning around 50 words an infants vocabulary rapidly increases to about 50-100 words per month
• the more speech addressed to a toddler the more rapidly they will learn new words

Question 11

Gesture development?

Answer 11

• children gesture before they can speak
• children begin using symbolic gestures around 10-12 months
• gesture development predicts spoken language development
• the age a child starts pointing predicts spoken vocab size
• children can invent language from scratch = Nicaraguan sign language

Question 12

What are the 2 main forms of pointing?

Answer 12

1. imperative = pointing to request something
2. declarative = pointing to share information + direct attention

Question 13

What did Behne, Carpenter & Tomasello do?

Answer 13

• experimenter hid a toy in 1 of 2 opaque containers
• they then pointed to the correct container
• infants then chose the correct container
• showed that infants understand that pointing can be used to inform = declarative pointing

Question 14

What did Liszkowski, Carpenter, Striano & Tomasello do?

Answer 14

• experimenter does an action with an object
• then hides the object and produces a distractor object
• experimenter looks around
• infant points to inform them about the location of the object
• shows that from 12 months infants will use declarative points to inform