prelinguistic and lexical development

Question 1

Hockett’s design features of language (1960) (13)

Answer 1

semanticity
arbitrariness
displacement
productivity
duality of patterning
discreteness
vocal auditory channel
broadcast transmission
rapid fading
interchangeability
total feedback
specialisation
traditional transition

Question 2

language forms (5)

Answer 2

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

Question 3

language functions (2)

Answer 3

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

Question 4

early comprehension of language (from birth)

Answer 4

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)

Question 5

categorical perception

Answer 5

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

Question 6

phones

Answer 6

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

Question 7

phonemes

Answer 7

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

Question 8

phonological development

Answer 8

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

Question 9

tests for phonological development

Answer 9

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

Question 10

maintaining phonemic contrasts

Answer 10

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

Question 11

infant vocal communication age ranges (6)

Answer 11

birth
2-4 months
4-7 months
7 months
10 months
1 year

Question 12

infant vocal communication stage: birth

Answer 12

crying, involuntary bodily functions

Question 13

infant vocal communication stage: 2-4 months

Answer 13

cooing
at 16 weeks = laughter

Question 14

infant vocal communication stage: 4-7 months

Answer 14

squeals, yells, raspberries, vowels, marginal babbling with increased larynx control and oral articulatory mechanisms

Question 15

infant vocal communication stage: 7 month

Answer 15

sudden reduplicated or canonical babbling e.g. mama, dada

Question 16

infant vocal communication stage: 10 months

Answer 16

babbling reflecting frequent sounds in language

Question 17

infant vocal communication stage: 1 year

Answer 17

increased variegated babbling, longer strings of sounds, varied intonation and stress patterns

Question 18

vocal tract development

Answer 18

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

Question 19

prelinguistic foundations for word use
(early infancy, 6 months, 9 months, 11 months)

Answer 19

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

Question 20

types of prelinguistic communication (2)

Answer 20

gesture - e.g. showing, giving, pointing
vocalisation - with/without gaze to caregiver

Question 21

prelinguistic communication - pointing

Answer 21

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)

Question 22

Bates et al (1975) locutionary stages (3)

Answer 22

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

Question 23

gaze co-ordination

Answer 23

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

Question 24

ontogenetic vs phylogenetic

Answer 24

ontogenetic = development from birth to death of an organism
phylogenetic = evolutionary history and relationships between organisms, from DNA etc

Question 25

what leads to language

Answer 25

gestures, gaze co-ordination, and vocalisation —> caregiver interactions —> conventional language

Question 26

predictors of language development

Answer 26

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

Question 27

ages of word learning

Answer 27

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)

Question 28

speed of word recognition

Answer 28

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

Question 29

phonology errors

Answer 29

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

Question 30

errors of scope

Answer 30

underextensions e.g. car means only one specific family car
overextensions e.g. daddy means every adult man

Question 31

Wittgenstein philosophy of language

Answer 31

language is about use in social context and the complexity of it, defined by use in daily life not the logical structure

Question 32

language learning mechanisms (4 - list)

Answer 32

simple association
social-pragmatic cues
mutual exclusivity
syntactic bootstrapping

Question 33

learning mechanism: simple association

Answer 33

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

Question 34

learning mechanism: social-pragmatic cues

Answer 34

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

Question 35

learning mechanism: mutual exclusivity

Answer 35

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

Question 36

learning mechanism: syntactic bootstrapping

Answer 36

linguistic context to help guess meanings of words
language structure to identify word meaning and guess meaning to learn new words

Question 37

mirror neurons and language

Answer 37

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

Question 38

constraints - whole object

Answer 38

assume an adult pointing and naming is referring to the whole object and not part of it