Slides Week 4 Flashcards
1
Q
Language Defined
A
- A form of communication - spoken written or signed
- Based on a system of symbols
- Structured system of sound patterns
- Have socially standardised meanings and rules for varying and combining them
- Enables objects, events and processess in the environment to be catalogued
2
Q
Language as a Tool
A
- Originally beleived to be a human attribute
- Central to promoting communication
- Develops social networks
- Has implications for attachment and social bonding
3
Q
Central Debate of Language & Cognition
A
- Piaget - Cognition before language
- Problem solve before we learn language
- Vygotsky - Language before cognition
- Language facilitates learning
4
Q
Three components of language
A
- Phonology
- Semantics
- Syntax
5
Q
Phonology
A
Joining together of units of sound to form words
6
Q
Semantics
A
A system of meanings associated with words
7
Q
Syntax
A
Rules for the connection of words to form phrases and sentences
8
Q
Phonemes
A
Units of sound that can differentiate minimally different words
eg: mat, cat, rat
9
Q
Morphemes
A
- Smallest grammatical unit in a language
- Two types:
- Free - function as words eg: tree
- Bound - found as parts of words, always with a root. eg: ed (work-ed)
10
Q
Symbolic Representation
A
- Capacity to use mental categories as substitutes for physical object and events
- Develops in early second year of life
11
Q
Types of Symbolic Representation
A
- Graphic Symbols - Music
- Motoric - Recall how to tie a knot
- Gestural - Flipping the Bird
- Sensory or Iconic - Smells & Sounds associated with the past
12
Q
Gestural Communication
A
- Two purposes to gestural symbols
- Representational
- Communicative
- Gestural symbols for communication begins at around 8-10 months
13
Q
First Gestures
A
- Waving hands for hello & goodbye
- Shaking & Nodding
- Pointing to draw attention to object or person
- There are cultural differences in gestures
14
Q
Pretend Play
A
- A form of symbolic representation
- Emerges before spoken language
- by 2 years children can differentiate between pretend and reality
- Deferred imitation emerges and the end of sensorimotor stage
- Children can imitate object without being present
15
Q
Deferred Imitation
A
- The ability to reproduce a previously witnessed action or sequence of actions
- Can repeat the action when the original stimulus is no longer present
16
Q
Acquisition of Language
A
- Child language and cognition is a system unique to children
- Not a miniature version of adult language
- Language is acquired during childhood through a Universal series of stages
- Each language stage has its own unique features
17
Q
Phsyiological & Biological Basis for Language Acquisition
A
- Children in all cultural groups progress through the stages of language acquisition in the same sequence
18
Q
Driving force to Language Acquisition
A
- To understand what the people who are important to you and are around you are saying,
- Best way to teach language is to immerse yourself
- Bonobo study demonstrates that culture forms the basis of language
19
Q
Stages of Language Acquisition
A
- Prelinguistic Speech
- Crying
- Cooing
- Babbling
- Linguistic Speech
- Holophrastic Speech
- Two Word utterances
- Telegraphic Speech
20
Q
Prelinguistic Speech
A
- Established sequence of sound
- Infants progress with these before first words
- Approx 12 months of age
- Vocal play evolved to excersise and refine complex muscle movements needed for speech
- Made up of crying, cooing and babbling
21
Q
Dunston System
A
- Priscilla Dunston
- Analysed 5 particular noises that babies make when theyr are crying
- Neh Sound - When baby is hungry
- Owh Sound - baby makes and O shape; When baby is tired
- Heh Sound - burp sound; Baby has wind
- Eairh Sound - more urgent than burp sound means baby has wind pain
- Eh Sound - Baby uncomfortable may need nappy change or another need, can sound happy or like panting
- Not subjected to rigorous scientific evaluation
22
Q
Crying
A
- Earliest means of communication
- Different sounds, pitches and intensities signal different meanings
- Dunston Baby Language
23
Q
Cooing
A
- Infants make squealing and gurgling sounds that are a repetition of vowel sounds
- Sounds sustained for approximately 15-20 seconds
- Appears 6 weeks to 3 months
24
Q
- Alternating sequence of vowel an consonant sounds
- Resemble one syllable utterances
- Appears 4 months - 6 months
- All infants babble - even infants who are profoundly deaf
- Infants babble all possible sounds of all possible langueages
- This suggests physiological/biological basis for language acquisition
A
25
Q
Linguistic Speech
A
- Speech marked by the utterance of words
- Appears at approx 12 months of age
- Between 18-24 months, children experience “naming explosion”
- New words enter vocabulary very rapidly.
- Up to 20 new words per week
- Three stages:
- Holophrastic Speech
- Two Word Utterances
- Telegraphic Speech
26
Q
Human Speechome Project
A
- Deb Roy at MIT has collected more than 80,000 hours of video and 120,000 hours of audio recordings.
- A database of parent-child interactions has been compiled, illustrating how children learn to use language.
- The naming explosion has been modelled mathematically
27
Q
Holophrastic Speech
A
- Single word utterances
- Convey different meanings depending on context
- First words relate to child’s own actions
- Events in which child participates
- appears at 12-24 months
- eg: Ball
- There is my ball
- I want my ball
28
Q
Holophrastic Speech - Nelson 1973
A
- Most common of first 50 words spoken by children 12 months - 24 months of age:
- Names:
- General (woof-woof à dog)
- Specific (Blacky à one specific dog)
- Action words: bye bye = go, good bye
- Modifiers: Hot, cold
- Words that express feelings: NO!
- Some grammatical words: For
29
Q
Overextension - Clark (1973):
A
- Common nouns are extended to categories to which they do not apply in adult speech.
- Example:
- orange’ → orange + all fruits we can eat (e.g., apple).
30
Q
Overextension - Clark 1983, 2009
A
- Illustrates child’s active involvement in use of language as communication tool.
- Interim measure → as vocabulary develops, overextended word usage declines.
31
Q
Overextension
A
- Meanings conveyed by overextension are similar across world’s language communities.
- → indicates biological ability
- Evidence indicates that children’s early vocabulary development are more than simple copying of adult meaning by simple approximations.
32
Q
Underextension
A
- Anglin (1977):
- Common nouns are applied to more narrowly defined categories than in adult speech.
eg: ‘Dog’ → the family pet dog only, not other dogs.
33
Q
Two-Word Sentences
A
- Combination of two words to convey meaning.
- Unique linguistic system.
- Not imitation of adult speech.
- Grammatically correct (subject-verb-object).
- Appear at 18 months - 22 months of age.
- Examples:
- ‘More page’:
- Request to adult to continue reading aloud from book.
- ‘More wet’:
- Want hands washed again.
- ‘More page’:
34
Q
Two Word Sentences - Brown 1973
A
- Pivot grammar:
- All words fall into one of two classes:
- Pivot.
- More, big, gone
- Open.
- Nouns
- Pivot.
- Rule:
- Sentence = Pivot + Open.
- Example: More food, toy gone
35
Q
Pivot Grammar
A
- Simple grammar found in the early stages of language development
- Characterized by two-word utterances in which one word (the pivot word) is typically a function word
- The other (the open word) is a content word, such as a noun or verb.
36
Q
Two Word Sentences - Braine 1963
A
- Studied 11 children learning either English, Samoan, Finnish, Hebrew or Swedish as first language.
- All children used distinctive two word grammar governed by small set of rules.
- Meaning of two word sentences is context specific.
- Set of 10 positional formulae enabled expression of ten broad ideas.
- Two words enable children to convey a wide range of meanings through combination of words and contexts
37
Q
Ten Broad Ideas for Two Word Utterances
A
- Disappearance
- Negation
- Actor-action relations
- Location
- Requests
- Identification
- Description
- Possession
- Plurality
- Recurrence
38
Q
Children’s Two Word Sentences - Examples
A
39
Q
Telegraphic Speech
A
- Sentences resembling adult telegrams
- Sentences comprised primarily of:
- Nouns
- Verbs
- NO use of Prepositions, Conjunctions, Articles, Auxiliary verbs
- Appears at approximately 24 months.
eg: ‘Jenny want that’, ‘Put truck table’,
40
Q
Over-Regulisation
A
- Feature of telegraphic speech.
- Children apply general rule for forming a plural (add -s)
OR
- Past tense (add -ed) to irregular nouns or verbs.
- eg: ‘Mouses’ or ‘mices’ cf mice, ‘I goed’ cf ‘I went’
41
Q
Over-Regulisation - Berko 1958
A
- Developed set of nonsense words, for which children had to supply plural, past tense, and possessive inflections.
- eg: Wug, heaf, quirk
- Children extended standard grammatical rules to nonsense words.
- Implication - By over-regularizing, children were learning rules of grammar not imitating what is heard around them.
- Child language is a unique not imitative system of language.
- Supports argument that children biologically predisposed to acquire language
42
Q
Transformational Grammar
A
- Rules that allow simple declarative statements to be modified to convey a range of more complex meanings
- Appears at age 2-4 years
eg:
- Questions. - Is mum helping Louise?
- Negations. - Mum is not helping Louise.
- Passives. - Louise is being helping Mum
- Conjunctive Assertions. - Mum is helping Louise, and Dot is watching her
- Embedded Sentences. - Louise said that Mum was watching her
43
Q
Negation
A
- Bloom (1970):
- Children use negative words (i.e., no, not, can’t, don’t) to indicate three types of negative meaning:
- Non-existence.
- Rejection.
- Denial/implied or previously spoken statement not true.
44
Q
Questioning
A
- The rules needed to convert an affirmative sentence into a question are acquired sequentially.
- Holophrastic -Tone of voice eg: rising intonation
- Two Word and Telegraphic Speech - Tone of Voice
- Question Words - Who, what, where & Declarative sentence
- Question Proper - Inversion of sentence subject and ausillary verb
45
Q
Complex Sentences
A
- Emerge at 2 years to 4 years.
- Feature → Embedding:
- Appears at 3 years to 5 years.
- Syntax allows children to talk about cognitive states, false beliefs and false statements.
- Necessary prerequisite for mastery of theory of mind.
46
Q
Embedding
A
- Co-ordinate simpler sentences into more complicated meanings.
- Inserts embedded clause under umbrella of larger phrase structure.
- eg: Do you mind if Mum puts the toothpaste away?
47
Q
Theories of Language Acquisition
A
- Revisit the nature-nurture debate
- Central to explanations of language acquisition in childhood.
- Understood that language acquisition is the result of complex interplay of environmental and physiological/neurological factors
48
Q
Biological Perspectives (5)
A
- Universal sequence (discussed earlier).
- Early responses to language.
- Physiological evidence.
- Critical period for language acquisition.
- Over-regularization of grammatical rules (discussed earlier).
49
Q
Early Responses to Language
A
- Foetuses and newborn infants respond to language in highly sophisticated ways.
- DeCasper & Fife (1980):
- New born babies prefer the voice of their mothers over those of other women (and even their fathers).
50
Q
Critical Period for Language Acquisition
A
- Lenneberg (1967):
- Language is learned more readily in childhood than in adolescence.
- Once brain lateralization has occurred at puberty, ability to acquire primary language is severely comprised.
- Example: Secret of the Wild Child (Genie Wiley).
51
Q
Environmental Perspective
A
- THREE pieces of evidence:
- Imitation - Children learn to speak the language heard around them.
- Parentese.
- Necessity of social interaction for language acquisition (e.g., Genie).
52
Q
Parentese
A
- Simplified language that adults use with young children
- Nine primary features
53
Q
Features of Parentese
A
- Simple, short sentences
- Repetition
- Exaggerated intonation contours
- Long pauses between sentences
- Emphasis of most important words
- Echoing (Repeating)
- Prompting (Rephrasing if child not understood)
- Expansion (Restating)
- Recasting (Rephrasing in different way while maintaining original meaning)
54
Q
Parentese - Toni Cross 1976
A
- When primary caregivers used parentese children progressed significantly faster in acquisition of language
- Important features:
- Expansions, Repetitions, Recasts, Shorter sentences.
55
Q
Language Acquisition Summary
A
- Children whose primary caregivers used parentese progressed significantly faster in acquisition of language
- Important features: Expansions, Repetitions, Recasts, Shorter sentences.
- Cognition and language enable the infant and child to develop socially in sophisticated ways.
- Cognition enables the child to understand that he/she has their own identity separate from others.
- This establishes the basis for the development of the self-concept.
- Development of a sophisticated set of symbols (language) enables the child to communicate in their social world.
- This establishes the basis for the development of relationships and social cognitions and perceptions
