Week 3 - Models of Language Development Flashcards
Name some models that have been proposed to explain language development:
-
Describe the basic learning principles that explain how our behaviours change as we interact witht he world and people around us:
Piaget:
Cognition
“Cognition, understanding our experiences through mental processes such as perception, recall, and reasoning, provides and important element for the development of language” (McLaughlin 2006, p. 92)
Piaget on the nature of intelligence:
Intelligence is a dynamic process - everchanging in response to our environment and biological structures:
- Equilibrium
- Organisation
- Adaptation
Piaget: 3 major cognitive principals that are fundamental to the development of intelligence:
- Equilibrium: State of balance between incoming information and understanding/knowledge
- Organisation: Children integrate particular observations into a body of coherent knowledge.
- Adaptation: Children respond to the demands of the environment in ways that meet their own goals
Piaget: 3 major cognitive principals that are fundamental to the development of intelligence:
- Equilibrium: State of balance between incoming information and understanding/knowledge
- Organisation: Children integrate particular observations into a body of coherent knowledge.
- Adaptation: Children respond to the demands of the environment in ways that meet their own goals
(McLaughlin
Piaget on the nature of intelligence:
Intelligence is a dynamic process - everchanging in response to our environment and biological structures (defines our capacity):
- Equilibrium
- Organisation
- Adaptation
Schemas
Patterns. Categories of knowledge that help us interpret and understand the world. Modified and refined as new learning experiences occure. ie structure of semantic categories - overextension refined to narrow ‘dog’ category and add new categories ‘horse’, ‘cat’ etc
Schemas
Patterns. Categories of knowledge that help us interpret and understand the world. Modified and refined as new learning experiences occure. ie structure of semantic categories - over-extension refined to narrow ‘dog’ category and add new categories ‘horse’, ‘cat’ etc (part of ‘Organisation’ principal of Piagetian model of intelligence.
- Adaptation
Changing of our response to the envioronment based on the new learning which is packaged into schemas.
What are the 4 states of development acording to Piaget?
- Sensorimotor stage (Birth-2yrs)
- Preoperational stage (2-7 yrs)
- Concrete operational stage (7-12 yrs)
- Formal operational stage (12 +)
Schemas
Patterns. Categories of knowledge that help us interpret and understand the world. Modified and refined as new learning experiences occur. ie structure of semantic categories - over-extension refined to narrow ‘dog’ category and add new categories ‘horse’, ‘cat’ etc (part of ‘Organisation’ principal of Piagetian model of intelligence.
Sensorimotor stage of cognitive development (Piaget)
birth-2
Knowledge develops through sensory and motor abilities.
Preoperational stage of Cognitive Development (Piaget)
2-7 yrs
Knowledge represented by language, mental imagery and symbolic thought
Concrete operational stage (7-12 yrs)
7-12 yrs
Can reason logically about concrete objects and events.
Formal operational stage of cognitive development (Piaget)
12 yrs and up
thinking deeply, reason abstractly and hypothetically - not tied to the concrete
Why is the sensorimotor period of cognitive development so important to the emergence of language skills?
Imitation, means-end (cause and effect), object permanence and symbolic function. Babies’ thinking shifts from physical responses to their place in the environment to increasing focus in symbolic thinking as they start to conceptualise the world beyond their own immediate experience.
How are cognitive development and language development linked?
n/s precsecly. Some elements of cognitive development precede the emergence of language.. Cognitive milestones must be in place before the development of certain language skills - Piaget provides a good framework of cognitive dev’mnt for this aspect of language emergence.
What does a theory of language development need to have?
- Descriptive Adequacy: can account for all linguistic
and non-linguistic
behaviours documented in the developing years. - Model Adequacy: can predict the course of language development
- Theoretical adequacy: a set of principles that account for observable processes and are identifiable
in language learning.
What does a theory of language development need to have?
- Descriptive Adequacy: can account for all linguistic
and non-linguistic
behaviours documented in the developing years. - Model Adequacy: can predict the course of language development (set of unifying factors across all of the varying accounts of data that allow for predictability - can’t just offer a description of data)
- Theoretical adequacy: a set of principles that account for observable processes and are identifiable
in language learning. (rules and principals that account for all observed data, and evidence that children actually apply these rules and principals as they develop language)
What does a theory of language development need to have?
- Descriptive Adequacy: can account for all linguistic
and non-linguistic
behaviours documented in the developing years. - Model Adequacy: can predict the course of language development (set of unifying factors across all of the varying accounts of data that allow for predictability - can’t just offer a description of data)
- Theoretical adequacy: a set of principles that account for observable processes and are identifiable
in language learning. (rules and principals that account for all observed data, and evidence that children actually apply these rules and principals as they develop language. Account for differences in child language vs adult language)
Philosophical Spectrum - nature vs nurture
Nativism vs Empiricism / Structuralism (Chomsky) vs Behaviourism (Skinner) w/ Interactionism in between.
*Language is part of human behaviour
*Verbal behaviour is reinforced through mediation of other persons
-response = an occurance of a behaviour (ie “doggy”)
-operant = a kind of behaviour (eg Tact, or label)
*Verbal behaviour is socially mediated
Which theory?
B.F. Skinner - The Operant Model
(Skinner did recognise that language is complex and likely had its origins in various causes, but he focused on Behaviour)
Primary Verbal Operants
Small unit responses (ie labeling of objects ‘Tact’)
Secondary Verbal Operants
Sequencing of responses - building sentences
- Language is innate
- Language is comprised of Linguistic Universals
- Children have a LAD to ‘set’ the grammar of their linguistic environment
Noam Chomsky - Nativism - Structuralism (Transformational Generative Grammar [linguistic universals], Language Acquisition Device [innate structure for processing language], Government-Binding theory [set of constraints on structure of language]
- Language is innate
- Language is comprised of Linguistic Universals
- Children have a LAD to ‘set’ the grammar of their linguistic environment
Which theory?
Noam Chomsky - Nativism - Structuralism (Transformational Generative Grammar [linguistic universals ie innate universal grammar - all syntactic features shared b’n all languages], Language Acquisition Device [innate structure for processing language, knowledge of universal grammar - setting switches to isolate grammar of native language], Government-Binding theory [set of constraints on structure of language]
- Semantic concepts exist separately from syntax
- Words and word orders encode semantic relationships
- semantic constraints operate to determine acceptable vs unacceptable sentences
Which theory?
Charles Fillmore - Fillmore’s Case Grammar - (the semantic model)
Fillmore’s Case Grammar
- The meanings of words and there PERMISSIBLE combinations are central to our understandings and use of langauge
- Semantics and Syntax separate entities. We can have semantically impossible sentences (unacceptable) that are syntactically well-formed. Semantic roles need to work.
- Movement back to human communication - language in interaction
- Speech Acts
- Propositional force: the literal meaning of the utterance
- Illocutionary force: the intended effect of the utterance
- Perlocutionary force: the interpretation of the speaker
Which theory?
John R. Searle - Speech Acts Theory (the Pragmatic model)
Impact of langauge, intent of speaker, effect on speaker. Each time we utter something, we are effectively performing an action.
Searle’s Speech Act Theory (Pragmatic model) - intended to be complementary with syntactic and semantic approaches.
