Week 5 - Language Flashcards
What is Communication?
- A signal given by organism is perceived by and influences the behavior of another organism
• Many animals communicate
Why is human communication special?
- Intention
• Sensitive to the state of the receiver
Precursors to Language
- following gaze
- pointing or other similar movements
What is Language?
Intricate system of sounds or gestured symbols that people use to communicate with each other
Generativity
Using a relatively small number of linguistic components and rules, we can create an infinite number of expressions
Natural language
- Language acquired without intentional effort
• Nearly all children acquire a language that way
Phonetics & Phonology
Learning about the sound system of a language
Semantics
Learning about expressing meaning (e.g., word learning)
Syntax
Learning the rules that determine how words go together in a sentence
Pragmatics
Learning how language is used in social context
4 Components of Language
Phonetics/Phonology, semantics, syntax, pragmatics
Drive to Create Language
When children are raised in an environment with no language, they will create their own communication
system
• Children who are deaf and who are not exposed to American sign language will create gestures to communicate with their family
Language in fetuses
- Fetuses can learn about auditory stimuli
• Play full-term fetuses recordings of their mom reading a poem or a stranger reading a poem
• Changes in heartbeat indicate that they could tell the difference
How do we know what words children can understand?
Head-turn preference procedure
Language comprehension at 5 months
Infants prefer listening to a recording of their own name than a stress-matched word
Language comprehension at 6 months
- Prefer to listen to familiar words like “baby”
- Understand the referent of common words
- -> when word mom or dad was said would turn to corresponding parent
Language comprehension at 8 months
Infants demonstrate understanding of basic phrases
Language comprehension at 10 months
Infants have a receptive vocabulary of from 11 to 154 words
Production of language from 0 to 6 months
0 to 2 months: Reflexive vocalizations
2 to 3 months: Cooing
4 to 6 months: Experimenting with their voice
Production of language 6-10 months
Babbling • Canonical babbling • Babbling with real syllables • Reduplicated babbling• (mamama) • Variegated babbling• (bamananapapa)
Gestures
8- to 12-months • First gestures • Holding something up • Pointing • Declarative • Imperative 12-months • Iconic gestures
First words
12 months • On average, babies say first word - usually first words are nouns • 18 months • Around 50 words • Holophrases • Bottle! • Hug!
First Words and Gestures
Children will combine gestures and words
• Gesture is linked to later language production
• The more a child gestures early, the more words they produce later
Putting Words Together
12 months: Speaking first words
• 18 months: Putting two or three words together
Learning the Rules of Language
Syntax: Word order • Other rules: • Plurals • Verb tenses • Children learn the rules of their language implicitly
Overregularization
Once children know the rule, they begin to apply it in novel circumstances
• Get irregular forms incorrect
ex: past tense in english
Why is Overregularization Occurring?: Dual-Mechanism Model
Interaction of rule and memory
• Blocking principal
• Retrieval of irregular form blocks application of the rule
• Retrieval failure
• To retrieve successfully, you need repeated encounters with the form
Behaviorism in language
Language develops from operant conditioning
• Input: Lots
• Domain specific: No
• Weaknesses
• Reinforcement is rare/not necessary/often ineffective
• Theory predicts that children learning multiple languages at once should be slower, and they are not
Connectionism in language
Language results from environmental input
• BUT the brain can handle many kinds of information simultaneously
• Can generate rules, even when that rule was never explicitly stated
• Input: Lots
• Domain specific: No
Early Empirical Approaches to language
- behaviorism
- connectionism
Nativist Approaches
Language Acquisition Device • Can acquire all natural languages • Does not have specific rules • Includes abstract principles that guide learning in any language • Input: Little needed • Domain-specific: Yes
Statistical Learning Approach
Children figure language out by getting lots of input and then working out the patterns
Word Segmentation
where the boundaries between words are
- can be hard to tell apart sometimes
- Some sounds are more likely to go together in a word than are others
Transitional probability
likelihood of one sound given a previous sound
- infants as young as 8 mo use statistics to figure out language
Fast mapping
The process of rapidly learning a new word through incidental exposure rather than direct teaching
- can do this from 2 yo
- Fast mapping not limited to word learning
• May be limited to linguistically presented material
Constraints on Word Meanings
Riddle of reference (How do you know what a word refers to?) Shape bias (things with same shape have same name) Whole-object bias (Prefer to label whole objects rather than their parts) Mutual exclusivity (Each object only has one label)
Children are able to learn new words with limited exposure and without direct exposure
How is this possible?
(1) Assumptions about what words mean
(2) Use of social information
Can Children Learn New Vocabulary from watching videos?
Older children can learn new vocabulary from a video
Can Children Learn to Discriminate Phonemes from Watching Videos?
No, audio/visual stimulation is not enough they need a real person to be there
Do Children Learn New Vocabulary from the Television They are Watching ?
- More time viewing Sesame Street predicted greater receptive vocabulary 2 years later, after accounting for receptive vocabulary at Time 1
• Watching other shows did not predict greater vocabulary
Do Children Learn Language Equally Well from All Speakers?
infants prefer infant directed speech (IDS)
learn better from IDS than ADS
Infant-Directed Speech (IDS)
May make word segmentation easier
• Enables learning of new words that children did not learn when they heard them in adult-directed speech (ADS)
• Younger infants remember words they heard in IDS better than those they heard in ADS
Are Children Choosy About from Whom They Learn Language?
When learning language, children prefer:
• Knowledgeable speakers to speakers who express
uncertainty
• Adults to children; however, children prefer a
reliable child to an unreliable grown up
• Older 4-year-olds prefer a speaker who uses
correct grammar (This is a cup) to one who used
incorrect grammar (That are a cup)
Critical Period for First Language Learning
Difficult to master syntax after a certain age but not clear what this critical period is
Critical period for second language learning
thought to end at around puberty (12-13 years)
• Multiple critical periods depending on the aspect of language
• For example, earlier exposure may be necessary to achieve optimal understanding of grammar
