Spoken Theories Flashcards
Aitchinson, Stages of Vocab
‘Language has a biologically organised schedule’. Three stages were identified:
Labelling: link between sound of word and object it relates to.
Packaging: understand a words range of meaning.
Network Building: grasp the connections between words and understand relationships between words.
Argued there are no exact dates to which a child reaches a stage of language learning.
Jean Berko Gleason, Wug Test
Children shown an image and told it is a Wug, they are then prompted to use the plural form by adding a plural inflection. Test done a number of times.
Ie. Wug -> Wugs
Chomsky, Innateness/Nativism
Language Acquisition Device, LAD. Children will pick up grammar and syntax without being taught vocally. Shows an Innate knowledge for language.
Argues we are hard wired from birth and not a clean slate. In order to gain fluency children must already possess a language processing capacity.
(Lack of empirical evidence, didn’t interview children)
Skinner, Behaviourism
Language is learned from the environment and through conditioning. Children imitate their parents.
Positive reinforcement: award for good things.
Negative reinforcement: punished for undesirable behaviour.
Bandura’s Bobo Doll
Children can learn through observation. 72 children in 3 different conditions.
- Adult aggressive to doll
- Adult non-aggressive to doll
- Adult passive to doll
Children acted the same as they saw the parents.
Made a connection with language with the importance of language modelling to support then child’s own language development.
Bruner, Social Interaction
LASS: Language Acquisition Support System
Suggests that cognitive growth is impacted by social factors, not confined to distinct age stages.
Enactive, action (0-1): stored in the form of motor responses.
Iconic, image (1-6): learn new things, help to have visual aid.
Symbolic, language (7+): knowledge stored as language
Vygotsky, ZPD
Zone of proximal development. MKO: more knowledgeable other.
Outer circle is what the child cannot do, then middle circle of what can be done with guidance, centre circle being what the learner can do unaided.
Bellugi and McNeil, Questions
In the second year questions begin to appear.
- Rising intonation
- Wh- questions
- Inversion of verb and subject, are you late?
- Inversion of auxiliary and subject, can daddy come home?
Bard and Sachs, Jim
Jim was a hearing child with deaf parents. He had his language input via TV and radio, his progress was limited until he had speech therapy. Exposure to language is not enough and interaction is needed.
Tomaselllo, Usage Model
Suggested that cognitive and language development take place simultaneously and are interconnected. Children are driven by desire and need to be social.
Intention Reading: evaluates context of language, understanding meaning and intentions.
Pattern Finding: effect of specific words and pairings.
Wang and Bellugi, Williams Syndrome
Investigated the chromosomal disorder ‘Williams Syndrome’. Cognitive and linguistic development are separate. Contrasts Piaget.
William’s Syndrome manifests a highly developed linguistic ability but masks cognitive development.
Strengths in vocab, weakness in grammar and concepts.
Piaget, Cognitive Development
Proposed distinct stages through which children progress as they language and thought mature. Said that children would not develop until particular stages had been reached.
Not a gradual increase but movement through distinct discreet stages. Movement linked to physical maturation and being exposed to a range of experiences.
Seneorimotor (0-2 years): interact with environment, egocentric, understanding of object permanence.
Pre-operational (2-6/7 years): learning to speak, remains egocentric, questions frequently.
Bryant and Barrett, CDS
Intentions can be recognised in child directed speech, regardless of meaning understood. Shuar adults could tell if speech was adult or child directed regardless of the language.
Could sense if it was prohibitive, approving, comforting or providing attention.
It was clear from intonation and prosodics rather than semantics.
(However, not every culture uses such forms of CDS, in Papua New Guinea adults speak to children the same as adults)
Mark Vandam, Caregiver Talk
Female Caregiver:
- Use supportive language
- Melodic intonation
- Mitigated directions (get someone to do something, softened talk)
Male Caregiver:
- Less sing-song
- Less simplification
- More ‘adult’
- Challenging form of language
Haliday’s Functions of Language
Tends to be used in the following order:
Instrumental: need they need satisfying, ‘want juice’.
Regulatory: control actions of others, ‘go away’.
Interactional: form and develop relationships, ‘love you’.
Personal: express feelings, ‘me good girl’.
Heuristic: find out about world, ‘what tractor doing’.
Imaginative: cross boundary between reality and fantasy.
Representational: share factual information.
Lenneburg, Critical Period
Maturational age constraints on the time period in which a language can be acquired as it depends on neuroplasticity (the extent that the brain can be shaped) and must happen by puberty.
