Lecture 8 - Language and Development Flashcards

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1
Q

What is language?

A

systems for representing thoughts, feelings, knowledge and communicating them to others
creative and flexible use of symbols is what sets humans apart form other animals

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2
Q

What age can children speak as well as uni 1st year

A

5…but not quite at adult like competence

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3
Q

mastering a language consists of two components

A
  • language comprehension

- language production

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4
Q

Components of language (5)

A
phonemes
morphemes 
syntax
semantics 
pragmatics
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5
Q

phoneme

A

smallest unit of sound - rake and lake differ by just one phoneme (rrr and lll)

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6
Q

morpheme

A

smallest unit of meaning (happy)

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7
Q

syntax

A

rules governing word order and resulting meaning (man bites dog vs dog bites man). govern how words from different categories e.g verbs and nouns can be combined

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8
Q

semantics

A

the meanings of words and sentences

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9
Q

generativity

A

the idea that through the finite number of words we know we can put together an infinite number of sentences and express an infinite number of ideas

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10
Q

the first stage in a babies language learning is

A

Phonological development - the mastery of the sound system of their language (which letters can go together)

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11
Q

full fledged language is only achieved by ____ if _____

A

Humans and only if they have experience with other humans.

Chimpanzees can be taught to sign but lack proper syntax

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12
Q

Which hemisphere shows specialisation for language?

A

left - and specialisation increases with age

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13
Q

Damage to which are of the brain causes difficulties with producing speech

A

broca’s - near the motor cortex

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14
Q

Damage to which are of the brain causes difficulties with meaning

A

wernicke’s - near the auditory cortex

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15
Q

What is associated with damage to Wernicke’s area

A

Difficulties with meaning

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16
Q

What is associated with damage to broca’s area?

A

Difficulties producing speech

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17
Q

Adults use Infant directed speech (IDS) when talking to children. What is different?

A
  • Warm and affectionate tone
  • high pitch
  • slower
  • extreme intonation
  • more expressive/expressions
  • kiddies prefer it to ADS
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18
Q

What happens between age 5 and puberty with regard to language?

A

As shown by genie the feral child language acquisition can become much more difficult

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19
Q

Genie

A
  • born 1957
  • severe child abuse, discovered age 13
  • very malnourished, little stimulation
  • never acquired language
  • gestures and drawings only
  • some vocab, no syntax
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20
Q

critical language theory support:

A
  • kiddywinks that suffer brain damage are much more likely to recover language abilities than adults, presumably coz other areas of the brain can take over (johnson 1998)
  • work also done in bilinguals
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21
Q

johnson 1998

A

kids recover after language impairment and adults don’t

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22
Q

bilingual learning 2nd language from different ages grammar test results

A

3-7 same as native, after this begins to decline and decline
(johnson and newport 1989)

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23
Q

johnson and newport 1989

A

bilingual learning 2nd language from different ages grammar test results

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24
Q

phonological development is

A

the aquisition of knowledge about phonemes

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25
Q

semantic development

A

learning the system for expressing meaning in a language, starting with learning morphemes

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26
Q

syntactic development

A

learning the syntax or rules for combining words - learning how to organise words to express specific meanings

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27
Q

Pragamatic development

A

aquiring knowledge of how language is used, including understanding a variety of conversational conventions
e.g in some places its very rude to address a stranger or use informal ‘you’

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28
Q

metalinguistic knowledge

A

an understanding of the properties and functions of language - e.g. adults know when they here a foreign language that it is a language made up of words etc

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29
Q

how is sign language learnt?

A

very similarly to vocal language

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30
Q

Prosody

A

the characteristic rhythm tempo cadence melody and intonational patterns within a language - fetuses respond to this

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31
Q

Beyond prosody what does speech perception consist of

A

distinguishing between speech sounds (phonemes)

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32
Q

Categorical speech perception

A
  • both adults and infants perceive sounds as belonging to discrete categories
  • with ba and pa as the vot is gradually lengthened adults don’t hear a gradual chnage they have a cut of point at whic it becomes ba or pa - discontinuous categories
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33
Q

true or false: only infants posses categorical speech perception

A

false, adults and infants

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34
Q

true or false: only adults posses categorical speech perception

A

false, adults and infants

35
Q

VOT

A

voice onset time - the time it takes between air passing through the lips and the vocal chords vibrating (b and p are formed in the same way but have different VOT’s)

36
Q

the time it takes between air passing through the lips and the vocal chords vibrating

A

VOT voice onset time

37
Q

difference in categorisation of speech sounds in adults and babies

A

babies distinguish more sounds e.g. japanese babies distinguish r and l but lose this ability at around 10-12 months

38
Q

phonemic distinction experiment

A

eimas et al 1971

39
Q

eimas et al 1971

A

phonemic distinction experiment

40
Q

How old are infants when they start producing sounds

A

6-8 weeks when producing vowel sounds and become aware that their vocalisation elicits responses from others

41
Q

what happens at around 6-8 weeks

A

infants start making vowel sounds or vowel consonant sounds

42
Q

at 6 to 10 months

A

babies begin babbling - they’re babbling becomes more refined and starts to take on sounds and intonation of their native language - this includes silent babbling for babies with deaf parents

43
Q

what age does babbling begin

A

6-10 months

44
Q

who did experiments on silent babbling?

A

petitto and marentette 1991

45
Q

petitto and marentette 1991

A

silent babbling

46
Q

concepts infants are exposed to that prepare them for speech:

A
  • Turn taking
  • Intersubjectivity (sharing of common focus of attention)
  • Joint attention (established when the baby and the parent are looking at the same thing)
  • Pointing (helps establish joint attention or direct another attention there)
47
Q

by 5 months

A

infants can pick their own name out of background conversation

48
Q

at 7- 8 months

A

infants can recognise new words and and remember them for weeks

49
Q

problem of reference

A

the associating of words with meaning. once they recognise recurrent units from speech

50
Q

what age are infants associating highly familiar words?

A

6 months

51
Q

US children have a vocab of how many words at how many months

A

10 months

11-154 words

52
Q

what age do most infants produce their first words?

-typically include….

A

10-15 months

…names, objects, events from everyday life

53
Q

holophrastic period

A

the period of one word utterances when a child expresses whole phrases with one word such as ‘up’ or ‘juice’

54
Q

the time of one word utterances when a child expresses whole phrases with one word such as ‘up’ or ‘juice’

A

holophrastic period

55
Q

overextension

A

when what children want to express outstrips their vocabulary e.g. using ‘dog’ for any 4 legged animal

56
Q

when what children want to express outstrips their vocabulary e.g. using ‘dog’ for any 4 legged animal

A

Overextension

57
Q

On average children say their first word at

A

13 months (though much variability)

58
Q

on average children have a vocab spurt at

A

19 months (though much variability)

59
Q

on average children form their first sentences at

A

24 months (though much variability)

60
Q

Adult influences on word learning:

A
  • quantity of talk, repetition
  • place stress on the objects name
  • name the object as the last word of the sentence
  • name objects that are already the focus of attention to reduce confusion
  • playing naming games e.g. wheres you’re tummy
61
Q

Childrens contribution to word learning:

A
fast mapping 
whole object assumption
mutual exclusivity  
pragamatic cues 
  -social context
  -intentionality
linguistic context
62
Q

fast mapping

A

‘the process of learning a new word through the contrastive use of a familiar and unfamiliar word’ get me the chromium tray,
well theres a blue tray and a mystery colour tray so that must be chromium

63
Q

whole object assumption

A

children assume a new word refers to a novel object rather than a part of that object or action of it
e.g. will assume bunny refers to the animal not the tail or the nose twitching

64
Q

mutual exclusivity

A

if they see an object they know and one they don’t and are presented with a word they don’t know they will assume the unknown word refers to the unknown object because how could an object be two things? (but could be e.g. chair/furniture)

65
Q

pragmatic cues

A
  • learning words from context e.g. what an adult is looking at when they say the name
  • if the adult says they are going to dax the doll and then performs one ‘accidental’ action and one ‘purposeful’ action the child will thin purposeful = dax
66
Q

linguistic context

A

children use the words place in the sentence to figure out what they mean
using grammatical context of a word:
this is a dax - refers ti the object
this is a dax one - refers to the colour – tend to have a shape bias over colour or material
grammatical structure of whole sentence:
-syntactic bootstrapping

67
Q

syntactic bootstrapping

A

children use the grammatical structure of a sentence to infer the meaning
2-year olds hear an adult describe the scene as “The duck is kradding the rabbit,” or “the duck and the rabbit are kradding”.

68
Q

telegraphic speech

A

two word sentences missing non essential elements e.g. read me

69
Q

at around 2.5 years….

A

children producing 4 word sentences start using more than one clause e.g. i’ll do that when we get home

70
Q

when do children start using more than one clause

A

2.5 years

71
Q

evidence that children understand grammar

A
  • word endings

- overregularisation

72
Q

overregularisation

A

applying regular grammar rules to irregular concepts

e.g. my foots/feets growed/grewed

73
Q

how do children learn - nativist view:

A
  • chomsky claims that humansare born with an innate lingustic knowledge
  • a set of highly abstract, unconscious rules common to all languages
  • believe there is a specific language ‘module’in the brain
74
Q

modularity hypothesis

A

-the brain contains an innate self-contained language module that is separate from other aspects of cognitive functioning

75
Q

Evidence for the nativist view on learning language:

A
  • deaf children imposed grammatical rules similar to the norms into their sign language with no adult influence-utterances are not generally corrected grammatically, more for factuality
  • children won’t hear every structure of their target language (generativity)
  • universals and species specific nature of language
76
Q

critiques of the nativist view:

A
  • the idea of universal grammar

- focuses on syntax and ignore communicative role of language

77
Q

how do children learn - interactionist view:

A

-virtually everything about language is influenced by its communicative function
-children are motivated to communicate their wants/desires/goals
-babbling rate is influenced by parental reinforcement
-knowledge of the formal properties of language (that chomsky thought where innate) are learned through interacting with other people
-

78
Q

evidence for the interactionist view

A
  • remarkable sensitivity of young children for pragmatic cues
  • ability to use even quite subtle aspects of social context to interpret utterances
79
Q

Evidence for the nativist view on learning language:

A
  • deaf children imposed grammatical rules similar to the norms into their sign language with no adult influence-utterances are not generally corrected grammatically, more for factuality
  • children won’t hear every structure of their target language (generativity)
  • universals and species specific nature of language
80
Q

critiques of the nativist view:

A
  • the idea of universal grammar

- focuses on syntax and ignore communicative role of language

81
Q

how do children learn - interactionist view:

A

-virtually everything about language is influenced by its communicative function
-children are motivated to communicate their wants/desires/goals
-babbling rate is influenced by parental reinforcement
-knowledge of the formal properties of language (that chomsky thought where innate) are learned through interacting with other people
-

82
Q

evidence for the interactionist view

A
  • remarkable sensitivity of young children for pragmatic cues
  • ability to use even quite subtle aspects of social context to interpret utterances
  • children just as readily accept gestures and signs as labels for objects as words
83
Q

evidence agaisnt

A
  • even after diligent concentration to a language could never reveal its complex grammatical principles
  • criticised for ignoring syntactic development