Task 6: Development of Language

Question 1

Generativity

Answer 1

Idea that through the use of finite set of words and morphemes in humans’ vocabulary, we can put together an infinite number of sentences and express an infinite number of ideas.

Question 2

Phonemes

Answer 2

Elementary units of meaningful sound used to produce languages. A change in phoneme changes the meaning of a word.

Question 3

Morphemes

Answer 3

Smallest units of meaning in a language, composed of one or more phonemes e.g. ban and pan

Question 4

Syntax

Answer 4

Rules in language that specify how words from different categories can be combined e.g. man is not mans it is mens

Question 5

Name the 4 types of development

Answer 5

1. phonological
2. semantic
3. syntactic
4. pragmatic

Question 6

Phonological development

Answer 6

First step in language learning, characterized by the acquisition of knowledge about the sound system of a language.

Question 7

Semantic development

Answer 7

Second component of language acquisition, characterized by learning about expressing meaning.

Question 8

Syntactic development

Answer 8

Third component in language learning, characterized by learning rules for combining words.

Question 9

Pragmatic development

Answer 9

Acquisition of knowledge about how language is used

Question 10

Metalinguistic knowledge

Answer 10

Understanding of properties and function of language – that is, understanding of language as language.

Question 11

Discuss the behaviourist approach to language development

Answer 11

believes that development is a function of learning through reinforcement and punishment of overt behavior.

Skinner – Parents teach children to speak by means of same kinds of reinforcement techniques that are used to train animals.

Question 12

Discuss the nativist approach to language development

Answer 12

Suggests that language is an innate faculty, so we are born with a universal grammar in our brain.

Chomsky – Countered Skinner by pointing that we can understand and produce sentences that we have never heard before (= generativity).

Question 13

Universal grammar

Answer 13

Proposed set of highly abstract, unconscious rules that are common to all language.

Question 14

Name the 3 steps of the development of the phonological system

Answer 14

1. speech perception
2. speech production
3. articulation

Question 15

Speech segmentation

Answer 15

To learn relevant sounds of their language, infants must separate speech streams (= undifferentiated series of speech sounds) into individual sounds and combinations. This is facilitated by IDT (infant-directed speech). By age of 7 months, they are able to recognize familiar words in speech stream.

Question 16

Categorical perception of speech sounds

- when?

Answer 16

Phonemes are sound categories in human speech and depending on the language, we use and discriminate different sets of phonemes. The process that allows us to discriminate different phonemes while making it difficult to discriminate phonemes within same category is called categorical perception

• 0 to 4 months

Question 17

Becoming a native listener

Answer 17

Between 6 – 12 months, infants lose ability to discriminate sounds from non-native languages, while becoming experts at distinguishing sounds from native language (perceptual narrowing). This ability depends on experience.

Question 18

Name the 5 steps of speech production

Answer 18

1. reflexive vocalizations (birth to 2 months)
2. cooing and laughing (2-4 months)
3. babbling and vocal play (4-6 months)
4. canonical babbling (6-10 months)
5. modulated babbling (10 months +)

Question 19

1. reflexive vocalizations (birth to 2 months)

Answer 19

characterized by cries, coughs, burps and sneezes. Infant has different types of cries, which suggests that each has a different meaning.

Question 20

2. cooing and laughing (2-4 months)

Answer 20

Infants begins laughing and combining sounds with one another. Reciprocal cooing between infant and parent helps infant to learn that communication involves taking turns.

Question 21

3. babbling and vocal play (4-6 months)

Answer 21

Infants gain control over vocal cords, lips, tongue and mouth, and produce wide range of sounds and combinations, called babbling

Question 22

4. canonical babbling (6-10 months)

Answer 22

Sound combinations produced that sound like words. There is no evidence that infants understand it. Neither hearing human speech or having others respond to infant vocalizations is necessary for early babbling to occur, evidence of this lies on fact that deaf (parents) children also babble. Beyond age of 6 months, hearing speech plays role in continuation of babbling (deaf infants stop babbling).

Question 23

5. modulated babbling (10 months +)

Answer 23

Infants produce variety of sound combinations, stress and intonation patterns. They also begin to have meaningful speech. Modulated babbling plays role in acquisition of intonation patterns.

Question 24

Development of articulation

Answer 24

Children know when they pronounce something wrong and thus, are more likely to use words that they can pronounce. As they learn to produce pronunciations, they make phonological distinctions that sometimes adults cannot perceive. This is done by saying the same word slightly different (‘gwass’ for grass and glass).

Question 25

Syntax

Answer 25

a set of rules dealing with the manner in which words and parts of words are related to one another to produce grammatical sentences.

Question 26

Surface structure (s-structure)

Answer 26

Level of syntax that corresponds to spoken sentences, like noun – verb - adjective. It can have more than one meaning

Question 27

Deep structure (d-structure)

Answer 27

Level of syntax that is a more abstract representation of a sentence and determines its meaning.

Question 28

One word period (syntactic development)

Answer 28

Acquisition of syntax follow predictable pattern during first two years of life.

• > 10 to 18 mts
• > produce single word utterances

Question 29

Two word period (syntactic development)

Answer 29

Between 18- and 24-months age, most children begin to produce two words at a time.

-> agent and action e.g. mummy go

Question 30

Later syntactic development

Answer 30

After two-word period, children’s syntactic knowledge increases dramatically.

-> Skills between 24 and 36-month-old child are very different. At 36 months they can use past forms and language exceptions.

Question 31

Overregularization errors

Answer 31

Occur when children apply a rule to an exception to the rule. These mistakes are understandable because they do not know yet about certain exceptions to the rules they are learning.

Question 32

How do children make overregularization errors in relation to

a) plurals
b) past tense

Answer 32

a) Plurals – Infants are unlikely to attach ‘-s’ to mass nouns (= cannot be counted) but they do so for count nouns (= can be counted).
b) Past tense – Overregularize use of suffix ‘-ed’ for many years.

Question 33

Creative overregularization

Answer 33

occurs when children generalize rules they are learning to produce novel words they have never heard of. They basically create new forms of words based on regularities in language they hear.

Question 34

Overextension

Answer 34

using words in a broader context than they should be e.g. a cow is a dog because it has 4 legs

Question 35

Mutual exclusivity

Answer 35

a word learning constraint that involves the tendency to assign one label/name, and in turn avoid assigning a second label, to a single object.

Question 36

Bootstrapping

Answer 36

Using existing knowledge to facilitate the acquisition of novel abilities.

Question 37

Syntactic bootstrapping

Answer 37

using the context of a word to understand its meaning

Question 38

What tunes neonatal auditory perception

Answer 38

prenatal auditory experiences hence mother’s voice preference

Question 39

Initial biases in infants

Answer 39

Preference for speech over acoustically matched non-speech, discrimination of lexical versus grammatical words and sensitivity to phonetic cues that indicate word boundaries.

Question 40

Neural organisation

- when is it further refined with adult-likee hemisphere dominance for speech

Answer 40

It has some specificity for speech signals but requires further experience to establish adult-like organization.
- 10 to 12 months

Question 41

Functional reorganization

Answer 41

Term referring to changes in perceptual sensitivity occurring in first year of life. It describes developing patterns of discrimination in accordance with functional categories in native language.

Question 42

Transitional probability

Answer 42

Infants are sensitive to fact that syllables within one word are more

Question 43

Categorical perception

Answer 43

Characterized by the enhanced capacity to perceive exemplars belonging to different categories and difficulty in perception of different tokens belonging to same category.

Question 44

Fast-mapping

Answer 44

child’s ability to learn a new word or concept with minimal exposure to it

Question 45

Name the 3 stages of the development of the syntactic system

Answer 45

1. one-word period
2. two-word period
3. later syntactic development

Question 46

Fact: native language input further refines perceptual sensitivities for speech, eventually helping infants attend to, segment and remember words. Discuss this in relation to the following 3 times frames:

a) beginnning of life
b) 6 to 12 months
c) 9 to 10 months

Answer 46

a) beginnning of life
- > discriminate native and non-native phonetic contrasts

b) 6 to 12 months
- > decline in discrimination of many non-native distinctions + enhancement of sensitivity to native ones

c) 9 to 10 months
- > preference to well-formed words that correspond to frequent patterns of input

Question 47

Name the 3 steps of the perceptual basis of word learning

Answer 47

1. word segmentation
2. word forms
3. pairing words and objects

Question 48

Discuss the 2nd step of the perceptual basis of word learning i.e. word forms

Answer 48

• > by 9-10 months infants show an increasing preference for word forms conforming to phonological characteristics of native language
• > by 10-11 months infants recognize word forms across indexical and syllabic stress changes

Question 49

Discuss the 3rd step of the perceptual basis of word learning i.e. pairing words and objects

Answer 49

• > by 6 months infants associate highly frequent words like “mummy” and their referents
• > 6-14 months= development of cognitive + perceptual abilities that allow learning of new associations more quickly and increasingly unconstrained situations
• > 8 months: infants link new words to new object only after a few repetitions
• > 14 months: when phonetically similar words are linked to objects infants how confusion but not when not linked

Question 50

When do infants lose perceptual sensitivity to non-native sounds?

Answer 50

declines sometime between 6-12 months

Question 51

Discuss the head turn procedure and its results in relation to categorical perception

Answer 51

Japanese infants: at 6-8 months turn heads 50% of time toward novel stimuli, at 10-12 months decreased discrimination

American infants: at 6-8 months turn heads 50% of the time toward novel stimuli, at 10-12 months increased discrimination

Question 52

Evidence supporting hypothesis of head turn procedure x2

Answer 52

1. there are important developmental changes in maturation of central auditory system in first 2 years of life
2. infants were asked to look at attractive toy and this attentional network matures during this period (10-12 months)