Week 3 - Models of Language Development

Question 1

Name some models that have been proposed to explain language development:

Answer 1

-

Question 2

Describe the basic learning principles that explain how our behaviours change as we interact witht he world and people around us:

Answer 2

Piaget:

Question 3

Cognition

Answer 3

“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)

Question 4

Piaget on the nature of intelligence:

Answer 4

Intelligence is a dynamic process - everchanging in response to our environment and biological structures:

1. Equilibrium
2. Organisation
3. Adaptation

Question 5

Piaget: 3 major cognitive principals that are fundamental to the development of intelligence:

Answer 5

1. Equilibrium: State of balance between incoming information and understanding/knowledge
2. Organisation: Children integrate particular observations into a body of coherent knowledge.
3. Adaptation: Children respond to the demands of the environment in ways that meet their own goals

Question 6

Piaget: 3 major cognitive principals that are fundamental to the development of intelligence:

Answer 6

1. Equilibrium: State of balance between incoming information and understanding/knowledge
2. Organisation: Children integrate particular observations into a body of coherent knowledge.
3. Adaptation: Children respond to the demands of the environment in ways that meet their own goals
   (McLaughlin

Question 7

Piaget on the nature of intelligence:

Answer 7

Intelligence is a dynamic process - everchanging in response to our environment and biological structures (defines our capacity):

1. Equilibrium
2. Organisation
3. Adaptation

Question 8

Schemas

Answer 8

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

Question 9

Schemas

Answer 9

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.

Question 10

3. Adaptation

Answer 10

Changing of our response to the envioronment based on the new learning which is packaged into schemas.

Question 11

What are the 4 states of development acording to Piaget?

Answer 11

1. Sensorimotor stage (Birth-2yrs)
2. Preoperational stage (2-7 yrs)
3. Concrete operational stage (7-12 yrs)
4. Formal operational stage (12 +)

Question 12

Schemas

Answer 12

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.

Question 13

Sensorimotor stage of cognitive development (Piaget)

Answer 13

birth-2

Knowledge develops through sensory and motor abilities.

Question 14

Preoperational stage of Cognitive Development (Piaget)

Answer 14

2-7 yrs

Knowledge represented by language, mental imagery and symbolic thought

Question 15

Concrete operational stage (7-12 yrs)

Answer 15

7-12 yrs

Can reason logically about concrete objects and events.

Question 16

Formal operational stage of cognitive development (Piaget)

Answer 16

12 yrs and up

thinking deeply, reason abstractly and hypothetically - not tied to the concrete

Question 17

Why is the sensorimotor period of cognitive development so important to the emergence of language skills?

Answer 17

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.

Question 18

How are cognitive development and language development linked?

Answer 18

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.

Question 19

What does a theory of language development need to have?

Answer 19

1. Descriptive Adequacy: can account for all linguistic
   and non-linguistic
   behaviours documented in the developing years.
2. Model Adequacy: can predict the course of language development
3. Theoretical adequacy: a set of principles that account for observable processes and are identifiable
   in language learning.

Question 20

What does a theory of language development need to have?

Answer 20

1. Descriptive Adequacy: can account for all linguistic
   and non-linguistic
   behaviours documented in the developing years.
2. 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)
3. 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)

Question 21

What does a theory of language development need to have?

Answer 21

1. Descriptive Adequacy: can account for all linguistic
   and non-linguistic
   behaviours documented in the developing years.
2. 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)
3. 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)

Question 22

Philosophical Spectrum - nature vs nurture

Answer 22

Nativism vs Empiricism / Structuralism (Chomsky) vs Behaviourism (Skinner) w/ Interactionism in between.

Question 23

*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?

Answer 23

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)

Question 24

Primary Verbal Operants

Answer 24

Small unit responses (ie labeling of objects ‘Tact’)

Question 25

Secondary Verbal Operants

Answer 25

Sequencing of responses - building sentences

Question 26

• Language is innate
• Language is comprised of Linguistic Universals
• Children have a LAD to ‘set’ the grammar of their linguistic environment

Answer 26

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]

Question 27

• Language is innate
• Language is comprised of Linguistic Universals
• Children have a LAD to ‘set’ the grammar of their linguistic environment

Which theory?

Answer 27

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]

Question 28

• Semantic concepts exist separately from syntax
• Words and word orders encode semantic relationships
• semantic constraints operate to determine acceptable vs unacceptable sentences

Which theory?

Answer 28

Charles Fillmore - Fillmore’s Case Grammar - (the semantic model)

Question 29

Fillmore’s Case Grammar

Answer 29

• 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.

Question 30

• 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?

Answer 30

John R. Searle - Speech Acts Theory (the Pragmatic model)

Question 31

Impact of langauge, intent of speaker, effect on speaker. Each time we utter something, we are effectively performing an action.

Answer 31

Searle’s Speech Act Theory (Pragmatic model) - intended to be complementary with syntactic and semantic approaches.