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Anthropology (Linguistics) > Module 10 > Flashcards

Module 10 Flashcards

1
Q

Languages Acquisition

A

-Is process by which humans acquire language
~It is common to differentiate between learning languages and acquiring language
*Learning involves active efforts, acquiring happens naturally

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2
Q

Domains of development

A

-Perceptual development
-Vocal and manual babbling
-Phonological development
-Lexical development
-Grammatical development
-Comprehension preceded production
~Notation: L1 = first language; L2 = Second language

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3
Q

Perceptual development

A

-Begins when the auditory system is mature, around 6 months gestational age
~Auditory cortices become functional around 25 weeks
~Before they are born, fetuses react to external sounds (jump at loud noises)
-The audio is likely very muffled in the womb
-Aside from very loud and/or very close noises, fetuses are only able to hear the prosody of language, particularly the mother’s language
~Tone and intonation (the rise and fall of the voice)
~Stress patterns
~Timing patterns

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4
Q

Two types of sounds that patterns in spoken language

A
  • Prosody

- Phonemes

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5
Q

Prosody (intonation/ rhythm)

A

-Pitch, stress, tone, vowel length, timing
-We use prosody to group words together
~Utterances: “Are you sleepy?” “don’t touch”
~Clauses: “That’s your blanket, ## but we still have to wash it”
~Constituents: “THE THIRD PIG built his house of bricks”
~Words: lexical stress- consider “address” (noun) ve “address” (verb)

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6
Q

Phonemes (consonants/ vowels)

A

-Consonants differ in terms of voicing, as well as placing and manner of articulation
-Vowels differ in terms of tongue height and blackness, as well as lip rounding
~Nasality and vowel ‘tenseness’ also contribute to vocalic distinctions in some languages

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7
Q

Prosodic development

A

-Newborns babies use prosody to
~Differentiate between speech and non-speech sounds
~Differentiate between the sounds of their mother’s native tongue and other languages
~Differentiate between familiar and unfamiliar speakers
~They show a preference for the mother’s voice and familiar passages (Pomes or stories read while the fetus is in utero)
-How do newborns show they recognize something?
`habituation/dishabituation
*Changes in sucking rate
*Changes in heart rate
*Looking duration

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8
Q

Development of prosody perception in the first year

A
  • At birth: Can use prosody to identify mother’s voice, familiar passage, ‘rhythmic class’ of L1
  • At 4 months: can use prosody to identify clause boundaries
  • At 9 months: can use prosody to identify constituent boundaries
  • At 11 months: use prosody and word-knowledge to identify words
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9
Q

Phonemic development

A
  • Newborn babies are born with prosodic knowledge due to exposure in utero
    -Perceptual development of phonemes (specific sounds, rather than intonation) doesn’t happen after birth
    -Babies with functioning auditory systems can differentiate all phonemes at birth
    ~”universal phoneme perception”
    *Consonants cannot be perceived in utero
    *Phoneme perception at birth reflects the sensitivity of the auditory system rather than experience with language
  • By 6 months, vowels perception is “adult like”
  • By 10 months, consonants perception is “adult like”
    ~What is “adult like”
    *Retain L1 vowels and consonants
    *Assimilate non-native vowels and consonants that overlap with L1 (lump [d] and [ɖ] for /d/)
    *Rtain non-native sounds that do not overlap with L1
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10
Q

Phoneme Perception

A

-Keep in mind that speech perception is languages-specific
~Speakers are sensitive to sound differences that are meaningful in our native language- sounds that change the meaning
*We pay attention to sounds that are phonemic in our language
-Consider the sounds [d] and [ɖ]
~In some languages, like Hindi, these sounds are separate phonemes- if you play these sounds for a Hindi speaker, they will say two different speech sounds
~Engliah speakers might acknowledge that they sound a little different, but will lump them together as /d/

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11
Q

Language acquistion

A

-Infants are born with prosodic knowledge about language
~Infants learn everything else about language after they are born
~More infants are exposed to language after birth
*Input
-Newborn babies make noises (cries, whimpers, coos) and move their hands
-Earliest cries, whimpers, cooing, etc. are not typically considered early language- they are more like involuntary, instinctive responses to basic animal experiences (hunger, thirsty, discomfort)

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12
Q

Input

A

-Language samples provided by the people around you
-Language input is not only by hearing language but being actively engaged in it
-Children don’t learn a language as well from a TV as they do from real, one-on-one interaction with other humans
-Young babies and children are often exposed to infant-directed, or “caregiver speech”
~Simplified speech style
*Exaggerated intonation, extra loudness, slower tempo, cutesy words (tummy, mama, dada, potty), simple sentence structures, a lot of repetition and paraphrasing
*Child is often treated like they are contributing to the conversation even if they are babbling incoherently
*Babies prefer infant-directed speech

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13
Q

Infant-directed language

A 
-Is also common
~Larger movements
~Slower movements
~More repetition
~Moving signs to infant's field of view
~Signing on infant
~Babies also prefer infant-directed sign (whether acquiring a sign language or not)
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14
Q

Productive

A

-Automatic responses to stimuli

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15
Q

Culturally-transmitted

A

-All babies around the world make similar baby noises

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16
Q

Babbling

A

-Is the bridge between non-linguistic sounds and gestures and linguistic ones
-Meaningless sequences of language-like syllables
~Children acquiring spoken and signed languages babble
Vocal babble:
**Consonants and vowels:
**‘bababa’ or ‘gagagoo’
Manual babble:
**Handshapes and movements
**tapping palm with finger
-Caregivers often treat babbling as language, reinforcing the behavior
~Babbling is gradually replaced by meaningful communicative gestures and vocalization
* 3-4 months-old baby babbles:
**Highly varied and instructed noises(like shrieks and grunts) and hand movements
*10-12 month-old baby babbles:
**Primarily L1 sounds in phonologically appropriate syllables (“baba” “gaga”), or structured and repetitive hand movements (handshapes coordinated with movements)
-All infants produce both vocal and manual babble
-Rate of babbling increases with language exposure
-Babbling gradually becomes more linguistic in nature
~Babbling inventory is influenced by language exposure
*Deaf children stop producing vocal babble early on
*Hearing children who are not acquiring a sign language do not go on the produce language-like manual babbles or signs

17
Q

One-word stage

A

-Babies tend to produce their first words or signs when they are around one year old
~What is a word/sign?
*Recognizable form
*Predictable use
*Meaning may be broader or narrower than an adult’s
*context independence
-First words overlap with babble in form
-First signs are motorically earlier than first words around 10-12 months
*Signs involve more gross motor control, sounds involve more fine motor control
*Parents can position and shape hands, parents cannot position and shape tongues, vocal folds, etc.
*Context-independent use signs and words occurs around 14 months
-First words have high functional value
~People, animals, and important objects
~Eating and sleeping
~Play
-First words have a broader or narrower meaning than in adult usage
~Overextension (broader meaning)
*Child might say “dog” to mean dogs and cats and elephants
*Child might say “ball” to mean anything round (melons, lightbulbs, someone’s head, etc.)
~Underextension (narrower meaning)
*Child might use “dog” to refer to the family dog only
~Use of first words as ‘gap-fillers’ (child doesn’t have all the words)

18
Q

Learning words

A

-Average for 20 y.o. native English speaker: 23,000 words
-Equivalent to 3 words/day
-Children learn words really fast-by some estimates, they can learn a new word every two hours
-Children who are exposed to more language, especially child-directed speech, have larger vocabularies and faster word comprehension
~(Weisleder and Fernald 2013)
-Children receive a lot of input full od audio and/or visual language
-They have to learn which combinations of sounds or gestures are meaningful, as well as what they mean
~When someone says “pretty bad,” is “ettyba” a words, or is “baby” a word?
-Imangine you are somewhere you do not speak the common language. A rabbit runs by, and a native speaker of the local language says “zoxil”
~Zoxil = rabbit + running + gone + dinner
-Children have to learn which combinations of sounds or gestures are meaningful, as well as what they mean in variety of different context
~They learn some words through ‘point-and-say’
~Parentes point at something and say the word
*But there are many words that cannot be pointed at
-To learn words, children pay attention to
~Phonological cues
~Social cues
~Context cues
-What they already know about language
~Mutual exclusivity- they tend to assign one object or concept one name
-Syntactic boootstrapping- they pay attention to what order/ syntactic constructions words are occurring in to determine things like ‘is it a noun’ or ‘is it a verb’

19
Q

Phonological cues

A

-Prosody
~Important words stand out due to stress, intonation, vowels lengthening, pitch
*English words tend to have first-syllable stress
-Segmentation
~Some words are in isolation, or there are pauses between words

20
Q

Social cues

A
  • They gauge the relibility of the speaker- learn words from adults rather than other children
  • Eye-gaze- they pay attention to what you are looking at when you say a word
21
Q

Context cues

A

-They deduce the meaning of a word from multiple exposures

22
Q

Two -word stage

A

-By 18-24 months, toddlers vocabulary expands rapidly (50-300 words) and they begin to combine words into phrases in ways that are meaningful
~”The two-word stage”
Mnemonic: 1 year = 1 word; 2 years = 2 words
**Intermediate steps
**Gesture + word combo: “mine” + grabbing gesture
***Holophrases: “go-night-night” or “what’s-that”

23
Q

Language acquisition

A

-After age 2, children rapidly start creating more complex phrases and developing grammatical and syntactic rules
-But how are they doing it?
~Do children simply memorize everything they hear around them, and reproduce it?
*There is more to ti than that. They don’t seem to just memorize all the sounds, words, and phrases in some giant mental dictionary, and then regurgitate them
**How do we know children don’t just memorize and reproduce what they hear?
-Children produce forms that they’ve never heard before:
~A child will say “hitted,” even if they’ve never heard anybody say that
~Like adults, children can combine words to make new, innovated sentences
*Remember, language is productive
-Additionally, children are often unable to produce forms they do hear:
~”He doesn’t go to work” - adult
~”He no go work” - child
~Even when they can make all the necessary sounds
*The child will say “I hitted my brother” even though he or she can just as easily produce “I hit my brother”
-Instead of memorizing children recognize patterns and form phonological, morphological, grammatical, syntactic, and semantic rules based on what they’ve heard and tried themselves
~No one explicitly teaches then these rules, they develop them on their own
*Eventually, they coincide with the “rules” accepted by the community
-Example: Negation in English
~Negator starts outside a phrase and gradually moves closer to the target location
*Time 1: single words: “uh-uh,” “no”
Time 2: utterance initial: “no like that” “no go bed”
Time 3: utterance medial: “I no like that” “Ino go bed
-Time 4: between auxiliary and main verb: “I do not like that” or “I will not go to bed

24
Q

U-shaped development

A

-On the other hand, many aspects of language development are “U-shaped”
-Example: Past tense in English
~Time 1: correct use of irregular verrb: “i are”
~Time 2: Overgeneralization errors: “I eated” or “Iated”
~Time 3: Correct use of both regular and irragular verbs: “I ate” and “I wated”
-Children start by memorizing words and phrases:
~Memorize “I ate” as a unit
-Children eventually start to recognize patterns in the input
~Hmm…certain types of verbs end with -ed
-Regular verbs have the strongest pattern, and the pattern gets overgeneralized at all verbs
~All past tense verbs mush end with -ed! I’‘l say “I eated” and “He ranned”
-Increased exposure allows children to recognize the nuances of irregular verbs and produce the right form again
~Can say “I ate” and “I ran” as well as “I waited” and “I landed”
-All humans seem to be capable of developing languae
~Language develops in all communities across the world
*Hence the theory of language “innateness” or language gene
**But we also need the right conditions
-We need to be physically capable of producing/processing languae
~Deaf babies stop making babbling noises after about 6 months and must be exposed to sign language to acquire language successfully
~Babies who can hear but have vocal tract impairment can acquire and understand spoken language but needed a manual mode to production like sign language
-Additionally, all humans need language exposure and input in order to acquire languae
~Children figure out language based on what is said to and around them
Often characterized by trying constructions and seeing if they work or not
~children are very creative with language- they use many innovate forms and structers

25
Q

Genie

A

-In 1970, Genie, age 13 was rescued from an abusive, neglectful home, where she had been tied to a chair alone in a small, closed, room
~Virtually NO exposure to language in 13 years, not even a radio or television, and was not allowed to make a sound
~Was unable to produce language when she was resued
~Developed a sizeable vocabulary and mastered simple syntax
~Never developed advanced grammar
*Genie did not receive language input as a child, so was never able to learn language completely
-Cases like Genie’s have limitations in what they can tell us
~The nature of the circumstances make her case hard to compare to normal development in children
*Factors besides lack of input (such as emotional and physical abuse and neglect) could have caused or exacerbated her language problems

26
Q

Deaf children and languae acquisition

A

-In many cases, deaf children are not exposed to ASL (or any other sign language) until they go to school (although this seems to be changing in modern times)
-Studies have shown that, as seem with Genie,language production and comprehension for deaf children decreases as age of exposure inreases
~Deaf children who are oldern when they are exposed to sign language have less-developed language skills than those who are exposed to sign language from birth
-Some parents of deaf children choose not to expose their children to sign language: many of these children fail to learn a spoken language
~These children are loved and cared for but do not receive language exposure
*They use gestures to communicate, call homesign

27
Q

Homesign

A

-The gestural communication of individuals who have never been exposed to sign language and cannot hear enough to acquire a spoken language
~Homesign is ubiquitous
~Homesign shares similarities with signed and spoken language
*Gestures have meanings, are produced in predictable orders
-Homesign also deffers from signed and spoken language
~Homesign is expressive rather than receptive
*The homesign user uses the homesign to communicate with others, but others do not use the homesign to communicate back
~Low rate of production
~Slow great of development
~Restricted range of topics
-Children who aren’t exposed to language develop their own structure communication system
~That is not equivalent to language

28
Q

Can homesigners learn languages?

A

-People who are exposed to language for the first time in adolescent or adulthood do not fully acquire language
~Homesigners who are exposed to language as adolescents do learn some aspects of language
*But, they struggle with complex grammatical structures, and do poorly compared to native language users on a variety of linguistic tasks, such as word-picture anming tasks and grammatically judgment tasks

29
Q

Critical period

A

-These cases shows that there is a critical period for language learning
-A span of years during childhood when the human brain is most ready to receive input and acquire language (from birth till puberty)
~The older we are, the harder it becomes to acquire language
-Humans who do not learn language during critical period find it nearly impossible to learn language completely later in life

30
Q

Second language learning

A

-Learning a second language as an adult is also hard
-But learning a second language as an adult is possible
~L2 learners can grain near-native levels of proficiency
*Early exposure to language is essential for both L1 and L2 learning

Anthropology (Linguistics) (15 decks)

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