prelinguistic and lexical development Flashcards
Hockett’s design features of language (1960) (13)
semanticity
arbitrariness
displacement
productivity
duality of patterning
discreteness
vocal auditory channel
broadcast transmission
rapid fading
interchangeability
total feedback
specialisation
traditional transition
language forms (5)
phonological = letter sounds
lexical = word sounds
prosodic = intonation and rhythms
morphological = word structure - rules e.g. plural inflection of the letter ‘s’
syntactic = phrase/sentence structure - word order
language functions (2)
semantic = say something about the world, meaning
pragmatic = communicative exchange in relation to the audience and context - attribution of meaning to “this” or “that” in different situations
early comprehension of language (from birth)
auditory perceptual ability shaped by experience - in womb
preference for speech over music and for mothers voice
speech is processed in left side of brain
distinguish own language from foreign based on prosody (rhythm/melody of language)
categorical perception
from 1 months old - categorical perception of speech sounds e.g. /p/ and /b/ are differentiated by voice onset time
use sucking tests - faster sucking with new stimuli - chain of /ba/ sounds becomes habituated and then changes to /pa/ sound so sucking speed increases
phones
different sounds in language
e.g. p in pin and spin are different - aspirated vs unaspirated
languages differ in what sounds are used and how they’re combined - how you are able to distinguish between them without being able to speak them
phonemes
smallest segmental unit (phones) of sounds which differentiates the meaning of words
e.g. /p/ and /b/ in the words pin and bin
different phonemes in different languages
e.g. Cantonese tonal phonemes - the word fan has multiple meaning with different tones
phonological development
at birth can perceive all sounds - 600 consonants and 200 vowels plus tones
in first year of life, tune into phonemic contrasts in native language and tune out unused ones
e.g. Japanese 8 month olds can distinguish /ra/ and /la/ but 1 year olds cannot
tests for phonological development
conditioned head turning tests
infants learns to turn head when they hear a specific sound to be rewarded with moving toy
can therefore find threshold for phoneme detection
maintaining phonemic contrasts
small exposure to foreign language maintains perception of contrasts
this must be in social interactions and not passively - e.g. in person not by video
infant vocal communication age ranges (6)
birth
2-4 months
4-7 months
7 months
10 months
1 year
infant vocal communication stage: birth
crying, involuntary bodily functions
infant vocal communication stage: 2-4 months
cooing
at 16 weeks = laughter
infant vocal communication stage: 4-7 months
squeals, yells, raspberries, vowels, marginal babbling with increased larynx control and oral articulatory mechanisms
infant vocal communication stage: 7 month
sudden reduplicated or canonical babbling e.g. mama, dada
infant vocal communication stage: 10 months
babbling reflecting frequent sounds in language
infant vocal communication stage: 1 year
increased variegated babbling, longer strings of sounds, varied intonation and stress patterns
vocal tract development
infant vocalisations are limited by size and placement of tongue in relation to vocal cavity
neuromuscular limits on movements of tongue (adapted at birth for sucking and swallowing - not for fine articulatory movements
prelinguistic foundations for word use
(early infancy, 6 months, 9 months, 11 months)
early infancy:
learn about people - dyadic communication (face-to-face with caregiver, bidirectional communication, react to each other), sharing emotion
learn about the world
6 months = weave together info about people and the world
9 months = joint attention (triadic communication starts - both communicate about a 3rd thing) - mutual awareness, time spent in joint attention predicts later word learning
11 months = pointing and babbling, eye contact, gaze checking
types of prelinguistic communication (2)
gesture - e.g. showing, giving, pointing
vocalisation - with/without gaze to caregiver
prelinguistic communication - pointing
9-14 months
types of pointing: imperatively (tell to do something), declaratively (inform), interrogatively (request info)
index finger pointing as predictor of later vocab learning (also from other gestures e.g. showing)
Bates et al (1975) locutionary stages (3)
perlocutionary stage = systematic effect on listener without intentional control over the effect
illocutionary sage (around 11 months) = intentional use of non-verbal signals to convey requests and direct attention to objects and events
locutionary stage = constructs propositions and speech sounds in performative sequences
perlocution = reception of communication on listener
illocution = intention of speaker
locution = semantic or literal meaning of speech
gaze co-ordination
11 months - coordinating vocalisations and gestures with gaze
emerging intentional control over use of vocalisations and gesture to communicate - direct attention
gaze co-ordinated acts are more likely to get response from caregiver
child shapes own learning environments
ontogenetic vs phylogenetic
ontogenetic = development from birth to death of an organism
phylogenetic = evolutionary history and relationships between organisms, from DNA etc
what leads to language
gestures, gaze co-ordination, and vocalisation —> caregiver interactions —> conventional language
predictors of language development
intentional pre-linguistic communication (e.g. pointing)
intentional vocalisations which are responded to by caregivers
practice with pre-linguistic intentional communication helps the transition to symbol use
ages of word learning
10-15 months = first words
slow word learning until 50-100 words are learnt
age 6 = 10-14,000 words in lexicon (varies massively person to person)
speed of word recognition
2 years old = fast at recognising spoken words
studied by how quick children look at correct stimuli when it is said e.g. have 2 different toys and one is named
faster with age and larger productive vocab
almost instant reaction
phonology errors
errors in production of target words is more common for many early years
in adults = spoonerisms and malapropisms
children can perceive but not produce some sounds e.g. rabbit and wabbit, they know rabbit is correct but can’t say it
errors of scope
underextensions e.g. car means only one specific family car
overextensions e.g. daddy means every adult man
Wittgenstein philosophy of language
language is about use in social context and the complexity of it, defined by use in daily life not the logical structure
language learning mechanisms (4 - list)
simple association
social-pragmatic cues
mutual exclusivity
syntactic bootstrapping
learning mechanism: simple association
exposure to situations in which words appear more frequently than others - statistical learning through probability of word-referent mapping with more info
this doesn’t explain how abstract words are acquired
learning mechanism: social-pragmatic cues
word learning is easy as life is routine and engaging in joint attention and intention reading helps
intention reading = learning words function by figuring out what other person is trying to communicate e.g. pointing at something as it is said
learning mechanism: mutual exclusivity
constraint to learning
know “dog” so assume they can’t have any other name
struggle when an object is called by a different name than the one they know it by
prior knowledge limits ability
learning mechanism: syntactic bootstrapping
linguistic context to help guess meanings of words
language structure to identify word meaning and guess meaning to learn new words
mirror neurons and language
turn-taking in conversations and imitation
initiating conversations and maintaining them - young children interrupt and disrupt flow so need to learn how to recover after miscommunications
constraints - whole object
assume an adult pointing and naming is referring to the whole object and not part of it
