PSY2004 SEMESTER 1 - WEEK 5 Flashcards
define human language
symbolic, rule-governed system that is both abstract and productive, characteristics that enable its speakers to produce and comprehend a wide range of utterances
name 5 key parts of development of the pragmatic system
- turn-taking
- imitation
- initiating interactions
- maintaining conversations
- repairing faulty conversations
outline role of turn-taking in development of pragmatic system
mother-infant interactions (proto-conversation)
dyadic interaction, only invovles child and adult but develop into triadic interactions (infant, adult, object)
include proto-imperative, proto-declarative
what is proto-imperative (mother-infant interactions)
infant point to object and alternate gaze between object and adult until receive object
what is proto-declarative in mother-infant interactions
infant uses pointing, looking to direct attention toward object
what is role of imitation in development of pragmatic system
early presence is due to mirror neuron
what is role of initiating interactions in development of pragmatic system
first attempt usually non-verbal, attempt to point to object to learn to respond to others peoples point, better direct others attention
at what age do infants start to coordination gestures, looks, vocalisations
12-18month
what is role of maintaining conversation in development of pragmatic system
waiting until speaker finished, adding relevant info to dialogue
what is role of repairing faulty conversations in development of pragmatic system
understand when and how to repair miscommunication
what are Hockett’s design features of language
properties of language that can be shared between humans and animals
name some examples of hocket’s langauge design features
- semanticity
- arbitrariness
- displacement
- productivity
- duality of patterning
- discreteness
- vocal auditory channel
- broadcast transmission
- rapid fading
- interchangeability
- total feedback
- specialisation
- traditional transition
what is arbitrariness (Hockett’s design features of language)
no necessary connection between sounds used and message being sent (eg can come up for new name/words)
what is displacement (Hockett’s design features of language)
ability to communicate about things that are currently not present (talking about future/past)
what is productivity (Hockett’s design features of language)
ability to create new utterances from previously existing utterances and sounds (saying a completely new sentence but others know what it means due to knowing what different component mean)
what is duality of patterning (Hockett’s design features of language)
meaningless phonic segments (phonemes) are combined to make meaningful words, which in turn are combined again to make sentences
name some language forms
phonological (sound ‘b’)
prosodic (rising intonation of question - going to shops can be answer/question, depend on intonation)
lexical (sound of word ‘dog’)
morphological (plural inflection, s in ‘dogs’)
syntactic (how word, part of word related to one another to produce sentence, following rule)
name some language functions
semantic
pragmatic
what is semantic language function
saying something about world eg; saying something about dogs
what is pragmatic language function
managing communicative exchange in relation to your audience and context (eg; refer to pen with pronoun, then hide, audience know what you are talking about)
name some auditory perceptual abilities present from birth
- prefer to listen to speech than music
- process speech predominantly with left side of brain
- able to distinguish some foreign languages from their own native language based on prosody (tell apart English/Italian on rhythm patterns)
what is prosody
rhythm or melody of a language
Italian rhythm sounds different to English but Dutch rhythm is similar for English
define categorical perception
process that allows us to distinguish sounds between categories (different phonemes) yet at same time makes it difficult to distinguish sounds within category (particular phoneme, eg; /ba/)
from one month, what categorical perception do infants show
shows categorical perception of speech sounds /p/ and /b/
what is VOT
from when set vocal chord vibrations, to speech sound actually coming out
how can VOT of infant be studied
high amplitude sucking procedure
playing babababa
initially sucks more, then habituate, then if changed
babapa
hear pa and distinguish diference, sucks more
what are phones
different sound in language and how we can tell they are different languages despite not knowing any words
what are phonemes
different phones changing meaning of words
(not all languages have same phonemes)
smallest segmental units of sound employed in language to form meaningful contrasts between words
explain how infants are universal listeners
born being able to perceive all sounds used in language
but 1st year experience allows tuning into specific language, phonemic contrasts
explain conditioned head turning in studying universal listeners, and phonological development
infant learn to turn head when hear sound, reward of toy
test auditory threshold, phoneme detection
play ba continuously, then da (infant can detect change but adult cant, then show rotating bunny)
infant associate bunny with change
shows universal listeners when looking for bunny when ba changes to da
how can infants maintain their universal listening
new research suggest small exposure to foreign language maintain perception of foreign phonemic contrast
but need to experience in context of social interactions, not passive
timetable of infant vocal communication - what is present from birth
crying, involuntary bodily function, sound (reflexive vocalisations)
timetable of infant vocal communication - what is present from 2-4months
cooing, laughter
timetable of infant vocal communication - what is present from 4-7month
squeals, yells, raspberries, vowels, marginal babbling. gradually increased control of larynx and oral articulatory mechanisms
timetable of infant vocal communication - what is present from 7 months
- sudden onset of reduplicated/canonical babbling dadadada, guhguhguh (canonical- sound combinations that sound like words)
- manual/gestural babbling: deaf child babbling
timetable of infant vocal communication - what is present from 10 months
babbling, reflecting frequent sound in language
variety of sound combinations, stress, intonation pattern
overlap with beginning of meaningful speech (modulated babbling)
timetable of infant vocal communication - what is present at end of 1st year
increase in rate of frequent babbbling
produce longer strings of sound, varied intonation and stress patterns
why is range of infant vocalisation limited (vocal tract development)
size, placement of tongue in vocal cavity
neuromuscular limits on tongue movement (adapted at birth for sucking and swallowing, less able to produce fine articulatory movements)
in early infancy, what is learning like?
separate learning of
people (dyadic communication and sharing emotion)
learning about world
at 6 months, what is learning like?
start to connect learning about people+world
joint attention, opens way to triadic communication (9month)
define joint attention
2 or more people attending to something and mutually aware that they are attending to it together
what can time in joint attention predict
later word learning
name 2 types of prelinguistic communication
gesture, vocalisation
name examples for gesture
showing, giving, pointing
name examples for vocalisation
with/without consonant
with/without gaze to caregiver
at 10-14months, infants start to point. what 3 types, what are they
- imperatively (to tell someone to do something)
- declaratively (to inform someone else about something)
- interrogatively (to request info for something)
what is a good predictor for later language skills in gaze
vocalising and looking to caregiver within 1sec
name 3 stages of gaze coordination (Bates Camaioni Volterra)
- perlocutionary stage
- Illocutionary stage
- Locutionary stage
in Gaze coordination, outline stage 1- perlocutionary
child has systematic effect on listener without having intention controls over effect
crying, dont intend effect but caregiver will resopnd
in Gaze coordination, outline stage 2- illocutionary stage
child intentionally uses non-verbal signals to convey requests and to direct adult attention to objects/events
babbling, gestures
in Gaze coordination, outline stage 3- locutionary stage
child constructs propositions and utters speech sounds within same performative sequences that they previously expressed nonverbally
using word/sentence in language
when are first words produced
10-15months
around 1st birthday
by age 6, how many words are there in lexicon
10,000-14,000 but huge individual differences
define 1 word period
10-18month
people-based (mommy), then object noun
represent complex multi-word sentence
saying doggie, mean theres my doggie
define 2 word period
don’t consistently use word order to mark semantic relation
doggie lick/lick doggie has completely different meanings but child uses interchangeably
how can word recognition during 2nd year be studied
tell child to “look at baby” and present with 2 pictures
time them
children look at correct image even when only hearing part of word
explain errors of phonology
spoonerisms and malapropisms
occur for many year (elefant, hicupotomous)
may be able to perceive but not produce speech sound (tell difference between Rabbit and Wabbit but cannot say them)
explain learning of semantics (including underextensions, overextensions)
difficult to study
assume word learning is from converging on conventional use of word
make scope error, shows obstacles
underextention= car means family care
overextention= daddy to any man
define overregulation error
applies rule to exception to rule eg; thinked, not thought
define creative overgeneralisations
create new verbs by treating noun as if it were a verb
eg; I’m ballerinerring
what do creative overgeneralisations suggest
children do not simply just reproduce forms they’ve heard, but create new form based on language regularities they hear
name 3 learning mechanism
- simple association
- social-pragmatic cues
- syntactic bootstrappin
outline simple association as learning mechanism
exposed to situation where words might map to referent
learn label via statistical learning (adjust probability of word-referent/word-functino mapping as gets more info)
hear ball when see ball and bat, hear ball when see dog and ball, use process of elimination
give limitation of simple association learning mechanism theory
lack explanation of how abstract word acquired
not all words labels for an object
outline social-pragmatic cues as learning mechanism
world is routine and engage in joint attention, intention readings
narrow down possible word meaning as related to what we are trying/currently doing
include intention reading, mutual exclusivity constraint, whole object constraint
what is intention reading (social-pragmatic cues as learning mechanism)
child learns how words function by figuring out what others intending to communicate
what is mutual exclusivity constraint (social-pragmatic cues as learning mechanism)
eg; I know what that is, so it must be this
knowing words for some things means can use it to work out other word (18month)
children believe there is one-to-one correspondence between words and meanings
if know dog is dog, don’t refer to cat as that
what is whole object constraint (social-pragmatic cues as learning mechanism)
children believe that words refer to whole object not part of objects
eg; if adult point to elephant, assume adult means whole elephant, not one part
outline learning mechanism of syntactic bootstrapping
using language structure to identify what word means
sentence context helps to guess meaning of word
implies if noun/adjective etc
evaluate in general theories of word learning
1.notion of constraints simplifies task child faces when constructing semantic systems - lack support that is involved in word meaning acquisition
2.many constraints actually make word meaning acqusition more difficult. constraint not actually language-specific, but more general relating to attention, learning mechanism
