Brainscape's Knowledge GenomeTM

Browse over 1 million classes created by top students, professors, publishers, and experts.


See full index

English Language - Child's Language Acquisition > Spoken Theories > Flashcards

Spoken Theories Flashcards

You may prefer our related Brainscape-certified flashcards:
Proverbs and Idioms flashcards
1
Q

17 week old foetus

A
  • At around 17 weeks a foetus can hear sounds in the utero
  • This is often shown when a child reacts more when they hear a certain voice or a certain piece of music
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
2
Q

Mehler et al (1988)

A
  • Found that four day old French babies increased their sucking rate on a dummy, showing interest or recognition, when they heard French as opposed to Italian or English
  • Implies that babies become accustomed to their native language before birth
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
3
Q

0-2 months - Biological noises

A
  • Involves a lot of crying
  • Child begins to gain control of their air stream
  • This is UNIVERSAL - parents of all nationalities can recognise the different types of crying, as a result this is not really a ‘language’
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
4
Q

2-5 months - Cooing and Laughing

A
  • Child begins to try and control their vocal chords, sounds are meaningless, like ‘coo’, ‘hoo’ and ‘ga’
  • Tongue control is evident when coos get strung together
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
5
Q

5-8 months - Vocal Play

A
  • Child begins to experiment with different vowel and consonant sounds
  • Child begins to play with pitch
  • There is no meaning behind these noises - they are playing
  • Parents may respond very positively to certain sounds and as a result, the child may produce these again and again
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
6
Q

6-12 months - Babbling

A
  • Babbling happens for a long time, permeating even into the holophrastic stage
  • Consonants begin to get linked to vowels (still no meaning to sounds)
  • Parents will react if ‘da’ or ‘ma’ is formed
  • Child will try as many new sounds as they can - PHONEMIC EXPANSION
  • At roughly 9/10 months, the child narrows their range to those found in their native language - PHONEMIC CONTRACTION
  • At this point, a parent can recognise a child of the same nationality
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
7
Q

Types of babbling

A
  • Reduplicated - when sound is repeated, e.g. ‘mamama’
  • Variegated - when sound is differed, e.g. ‘dabama’
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
8
Q

9-18 - Melodic utterances

A
  • Child lets out utterances containing rhythm
  • Tone is developed
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
9
Q

~1 year - Protowords

A
  • Child starts of use protowords
  • These are utterances which resemble words and are word-like, e.g. ‘dap’ for a phone
  • These protowords would not make sense outside of the context of primary caregivers
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
10
Q

Grunwell (1987)

A

Examined rates of acquisition of consonant sounds - children will generally learn these phonemes at these ages:
- 2 years: /p, b m, d, t, w, n/
- 2.6 years: /k, g, h/
- 3 years: /f, s, j, l/
- 3.6 years: /dʒ, v, z, r, tʃ, ʃ/
- 4 years: / θ, ʒ, ð/

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
11
Q

Gervain (2012)

A
  • babies at 2 and 3 days old had peaked brain activity with reduplicated syllables
  • however this does not explain why so many of the first words contain variegated syllables
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
12
Q

Crystal - ‘ma’ and ‘da’ syllables

A
  • Argues that children recognise that their parents get very excited when they say ‘ma’ and ‘da’ syllable and as a result, this increases the frequency they say this
  • But this does not constitute understanding - Crystal states that it will be many months before the child can link their production of ‘mama’ or ‘dada’ to the parental caregivers
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
13
Q

Holophrastic stage (around 9-18 months)

A
  • characterised by one-word sentences; HOLOPHRASES
  • nouns make up ~50% of vocab is nouns, ~30% is modifiers and ~20% is negatives and questions
  • in this stage children will primarily use language to contain things they want/need
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
14
Q

Two-word stage (around 18-24 months)

A
  • utterances of two words only
  • other word classes start to emerge but nouns still dominate
  • syntax is explored correctly
  • inflections are not applied to verbs
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
15
Q

Telegraphic Stage (around 24-30 months)

A
  • utterances are abbreviated, like SMS or telegrams; misses out the grammatical structures or markings that are not essential for understanding
  • wider range of word classes are acquired (particularly pronouns, followed by determiners and prepositions)
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
16
Q

Post-telegraphic stage (around 3-5 years)

A
  • period of time when a child’s language will include both content and grammatical words and more closely resemble adult speech
  • this also includes having learned time features, contracted negatives and increasingly accurate inflections
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
17
Q

Bellugi - Learning of negations

A
  • Between being Holophrastic and Two word, the child starts to front negatives e.g. ‘no like that’
  • Approaching the telegraphic stage, the child is starting to place negatives before the main verb e.g. ‘don’t like you’
  • Past this, negation is almost always correct and errors tend to be virtuous
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
18
Q

Brown - Acquisition of Grammatical Constructions

A

Brown proposes grammatical constructions are always learned in this order:
1. Present progressive e.g. I am walking
2. Prepositions e.g. by, on, at…
3. Simple plural e.g. he walks
4. Possessive e.g. Trudi’s boat
5. Uncontracted copula e.g. Stuart is acting
6. Articles e.g. the, a, an
7. Regular past tense e.g. I walked
8. 3rd person regular verbs e.g. Dave types
9. 3rd person irregular verbs e.g. Suz teaches
10. Auxiliary verbs e.g. ‘be’ - I am, he was, you are
11. Contracted copula e.g. Stuart’s acting
12. Contracted auxiliary e.g. I’m, you’re

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
19
Q

Katamba - supporting Brown

A

argues that this order is the same regardless of parental input

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
20
Q

Halliday - functions of language

A

Children will learn language so that they can achieve things.

  1. Instrumental (to show needs and desires)
  2. Regulatory (to get people to do something)
  3. Interactional (to interact with others and form relationships)
  4. Personal (explores feelings and identity)
  5. Heuristic (explore the world and environment)
  6. Imaginative (used to be imaginative)
  7. Representational (language used for facts)
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
21
Q

Rescorla - Overextension

A

Categorical - child uses one word to describe everything in a category, HYPERNYM e.g. ‘dog’ to describe all breeds of dog

Analogical - child uses a word to describe something which is physically similar or serves a similar purpose e.g. ‘van’ for a car

Relational - when the word used has some form of relation to the incorrect words e.g. ‘car’ to represent a road

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
22
Q

Skinner (Behaviourism)

A

Children learn language based on positive and negative reinforcement of ideas

Positive reinforcement: praise which encourages the child to repeat correct utterances
Negative reinforcement: behaviour which will deter a child from reusing an incorrect utterance; tone of voice and paralinguistic features will often assist this

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
23
Q

Interactionism

A

a child is born as a ‘tabula rasa’ (blank slate) and learns language based on their interaction with caregivers, often related to the nature v nurture debate

24
Q

Child Directed Speech

A

Form of speech often used in talking to babies or toddlers; also called parentese

Often includes:
- includes slow, simplified speech
- high-pitched tone
exaggerated vowel sounds
short words and sentences
- much repetition

25
Q

Snow (Interactionism - CDS)

A
  • Coined the term ‘motherese’ to describe the language used by mothers to talk to their children
  • Argues that language acquisition happens as a result of the interaction which takes place between the mother and her child
26
Q

Snarey (Interactionism - CDS)

A
  • States that Fathers interact with their children in different ways to how mothers do
  • ‘Roughhousing’ with the father teaches that biting, kicking and other forms of violence are unacceptable and how to gain self-control
  • Believes that tickling, chasing, loud volume, encouragement of competition, promotion of independence over security, less simplification of speech and challenging the child to expand their vocabulary and linguistic skills are part of the fatherese process
27
Q

Bruner (Interactionism)

A
  • Believes that a child must interact with caregivers in order to learn how to use language
  • He created a LASS (Language Acquisition Support System) - a system designed to ‘scaffold’ a child in learning language (structuring responses in order to help a child to use language more accurately)
28
Q

Bard and Sachs (Interactionism)

A
  • Studied a boy named ‘Jim’ whose parents were deaf
  • Jim was exposed to various uses of language like the TV and the radio, but he passed the critical period
  • But interactions with a speech therapist helped him to acquire language, thus proving that there is a need for interaction
29
Q

Vygotsky (Interactionism + Cognitivism)

A
  • Proposes that there exists a cognitive deficiency (gap in knowledge)
  • This ‘gap’ is the Zone of Proximal Development (knowledgeable) and a more knowledgeable other (MKO) is needed to fill the gap
30
Q

Interactionism - Strategies

A
  • Recasting and reformulation - caregiver repeats what the child said containing anything missing and needed to make a grammatically standard utterance
  • Expansion - caregiver makes the utterance more complex by expanding on what they said
  • Exaggerated prosodic cues - exaggerating intonation, varying pitch and using higher intonations
  • Expatiation - expressing what the child said giving more information
31
Q

Rhoades (Interactionism)

A

In addition to other CDS strategies, Rhoades adds that the following are also used:
- Short and simple sentences which are melodic
- Focus on what the child is doing
- Repetition of what the child and caregiver say
- Pausing between words
- Higher frequency of interrogatives and imperatives
- Slower speech

32
Q

Grice (Interactionism)

A

Conversational principles (maxims):
1. Maxim of quantity - contributions must carry enough information (yet not too much)
2. Maxim of quality - contributions must be truthful
3. Maxim of relation - contributions must be relevant and pertinent to discussion
4. Maxim of manner - contributions must be clear and limit ambiguity

33
Q

Pye (challenging Interactionism)

A
  • Research detailed that children around the world acquired language at roughly the same time and that not all cultures used CDS
  • e.g. Samoan families do not speak to the children until they are around 18 months old
  • This implies that language acquisition may be more innate
34
Q

Myzor (challenging Interactionism)

A
  • Believes that CDS helps to aid social development but does not help linguistic development
  • E.g. it may teach children turn-taking in conversation but not aid their ability to use correct forms
35
Q

Chomsky vs Bruner

A
  • Chomsky published a paper criticising Bruner’s theory
  • He questions how children produce utterances that are grammatically non-standard tot he point where no caregiver would have said them
36
Q

Nativism

A

human infants have at least some linguistically specific innate knowledge

37
Q

Chomsky - poverty of stimulus (Nativism)

A
  • Chomsky’s theory states that children cannot learn through the imitation of their caregivers because they provide a ‘poverty of stimulus’
  • This essentially states that the caregivers of children do not provide a good enough standard of language
  • He states that children must have something inbuilt within their brains to help them learn language - the LAD (language acquisition device)
38
Q

Chomsky - LAD (Nativism)

A
  • Within the LAD is a knowledge of language structures (UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR) and the knowledge becomes activated through experience
  • Chomsky also claims that around the age of 7, the LAD switches off and then it becomes difficult to learn languages
  • He states that children will often resist corrections to their mistakes - in this sense, the LAD is instructing them that their way of using language is correct and that the caregivers is wrong
39
Q

Chomsky - Universal Grammar

A
  • He also states that children have a universal grammar which states a set of rules on how to structure language
  • His theory is supported by the fact that many languages follow the SVO (subject-verb-object) syntax - Brown’s research states that 75% of languages use this syntax
40
Q

Berko - Wug test (Nativism)

A

In this, children were given a picture of a bird-like creature called a ‘wug’ and then asked to state things that two of these creatures would be called (‘wugs’)
- The test invented nouns and verbs to test pluralisation and overgeneralisation
- 76% of 4-5 year olds and 97% of 5-7 year olds could correctly use the ‘-s’ ending for wug
- The test used words that children will not have encountered before and so proves that children learn the rule and do not imitate

41
Q

Cruttenden (Nativism)

A

He defines the ‘u-shaped curve’
- Point 1: the child applies the rule and gets it right
- Point 2: the child applies the rule everywhere and gets it wrong
- Point 3: the child learns that the rule only works in certain situations

42
Q

Genie case study (Nativism)

A
  • In the 1970s, a 13-year-old girl was found by authorities
  • At first, welfare officers assumed she was autistic, but further probing discovered she could barely speak (limited to a very small number of words)
  • Her father had trapped her in a room since she was a toddler, detaining her in a straight-jacket and tying her to a chair; he growled at her if she cried or made any other noise
  • Linguists worked extensively with Genie, but because she had passed the critical period, she could not properly acquire language
  • This case study supports Chomsky. As Genie had passed the critical age, Chomsky would argue that the LAD has expired and so cannot be activated
  • This case study also supports the idea that children cannot learn language by interaction with caregivers alone
43
Q

Pinker (Nativism)

A
  • Every utterance is practically unique
  • Children produce utterances they’ve never heard before
44
Q

Further arguments supporting Nativism

A
  • Children often produce grammatically non-standard utterances, and so they cannot be copied
  • Inflectional mistakes (Berko) prove an application of a set of rules
  • Culture is not a barrier - all cultures acquire language at a similar age
  • Children notice mistakes (Berko and Brown)
  • Non-standard grammatical constructions can make sense
45
Q

Criticisms of Chomsky - Tomasello (Nativism)

A
  • Their theory is often dismissed by critics because it is based on hypothetical thinking rather than real-life children
  • Leading linguists like Tomasello have dismissed them as an ‘armchair linguist’
  • The theory is limited by not having scientific evidence to back it up
46
Q

Criticisms of Chomsky - Pinker (Nativism)

A

Nearly every utterance a child produces is a brand-new combination of words, and so he questions whether a child can learn from imitation

47
Q

Cognitivism

A
  • States that children need a cognitive understanding in order to use language
  • Children cannot linguistically articulate what they do not understand
48
Q

Piaget (Cognitivism)

A
  • States that children start life in a very egocentric way
  • Supported by the notion of object permanence
  • This is often seen when a child starts crying when a primary caregiver moves out of sight
49
Q

Piaget - Sensorimotor stage (Cognitivism)

A
  • 0-2 years
  • Child interacts with their environment, using their senses to do so
  • During this stage child remains egocentric
  • Object permanence appears
50
Q

Piaget - Preoperational stage (Cognitivism)

A
  • 2-6/7 years
  • Characterised by a child learning to speak and developing their imaginative focus
  • In play they become capable of representing the world symbolically
  • A child remains egocentric in this stage and struggles to understand things from points of view other than their own
  • They begin to question frequently and try to develop an understanding of things.
51
Q

Piaget - Concrete operational stage (Cognitivism)

A
  • 6/7-11/12 years
  • Child stops being egocentric and begins to understand the povs of others
  • They become more capable of logical thought and understand pragmatics of politeness and conservational principles
52
Q

Piaget - Formal operational stage (Cognitivism)

A
  • 11-16+ years
  • There will no longer be a problem with logical thought and thinking becomes increasingly abstract
53
Q

Social Constructionism

A
  • The belief that children learn to construct language based on gathering rules from language
  • Essentially, structure is developed from listening to the use of language
  • First developed by Wittgenstein, but built upon by Tomasello
54
Q

Tomasello (Social Constructionism)

A

This theory states that children listen to language and do two things:
1. Intention reading - children learn how to use language to achieve social ends
2. Pattern finding - children look at many utterances and develop schemas based on patterns in language

55
Q

Braine (Social Constructionism)

A
  • Proposed that children learn language in a ‘slot and frame’ manner
  • Essentially, the child develops a schema in which variables can be placed to suit the situation
    e.g. the scheme ‘I + want + a + insert item’ to form utterances like ‘I want a drink’
56
Q

Challenging Social Constructionism

A
  • Children may understand social concepts (like ‘mummy’ and ‘daddy’) before the intention reading stage starts
  • There is a fundamental lack of evidence - we cannot truly know what happens in a child’s brain

English Language - Child's Language Acquisition (4 decks)

Brainscape helps you reach your goals faster, through stronger study habits.
© 2024 Bold Learning Solutions. Terms and Conditions