Week 10-language acquisition

Question 1

Describe Usage-based learning theory and how it influencing child’s learning

Answer 1

-children aren’t born with innate linguistic knowledge but acquire language through experience and general cognitive processes
-influenced by behaviourism
-Key mechanisms; analogy, imitation, and reinforcement.
-Children learn language by receiving environmental cues that facilitate behaviour.

Question 2

What are the learning mechanisms of Usage-based theory

Answer 2

cognition
Imitations
reinforcement and correction
analogy
infant directed speech (baby talk)

Question 3

Define cognition aids children

Answer 3

children learn language via the cognitive skills they have at their disposal:
-Memory
-Attention
-Problem Solving

Question 4

Define how imitations aid children

Answer 4

-Children acquire whole constructions by imitating what they hear, building up an inventory
-Learning is via imitation and practise within the environment
slow and difficult process

Question 5

Define how reinforcement and correction aids children

Answer 5

-Children learn to produce correct (grammatical) sentences.
-Say something ‘right’= positive reinforcement
-Say something incorrect = no/negative reinforcement or correction.

Question 6

Define how analogy aids children

Answer 6

-Some structural pattern identified in a source is transferred to a target = face shape (visual analogy)
-Word, sentence and sound “patterns” are identified and used as a model to form new sentences.

Question 7

Define how infant direct speech aids children

Answer 7

-Speech is slower, more clearly exaggerated in intonation and generally spoken in grammatical sentences, range of sentence types
-Thought to assist in language development – providing a rich linguistic environment

Question 8

Describe universal grammar nativist theory

Answer 8

children equipped with innate template or blueprint for language – Universal Grammar (UG).
-aids the child in task of constructing a grammar for their language.
-Referred to as the innateness hypothesis.

Question 9

Describe constraints and they’re function as a mechanism of UGT

Answer 9

-Constraints = all languages have a common structural basis/set of rules = Universal Grammar.
-They prevent language learners from making certain types of errors-makes learning fast

Question 10

Describe parameters and they’re function as a mechanism of UGT

Answer 10

-designed to reduce child’s grammatical options to a small, well-defined set – usually yes/no based on the language input
-Make learning the language easier and quicker.

Question 11

List problems with the usage-based theory

Answer 11

-Adult oral speech is a poor model – full of mistakes
-Children not only exposed to parent:child speech.
-Infant-Directed Speech not always useful, not relevant
-Parents only reinforce a small number of utterances.

Question 12

Arguments for usage based theory

Answer 12

-Explains how infants make sense of a chaotic speech signal – parents help them
-Shows the close relationship bwn cognition and language
-Highlights importance of social interaction

Question 13

revise Locke’s model of neurolinguistic development (in onenote)