week 5 - THEORETICAL APPROACHES Flashcards
what is nativism
Language is innate and is acquired following a set of constraints on language and grammar → The ‘nature’ argument
- language is pre-programmed and based on knowledge that we already have.
- Generative syntax + generative phonology → pre-determined biases/constraints in language use
Universal grammar = innately-programmed set of constraints that inform generative syntax processes
Chomsky initially proposed transformational grammar as a model for language
Transformations are the relations between sentence
This later became known as generative grammar
Structures, rules and categories are assumed to be innate
what are usage based models?
Language acquisition is part of overall cognitive development and takes place through engagement with the world → The ‘nurture’ argument
what is the Poverty of the stimulus argument
Chomsky, 1959
children make generalizations about language that do not occur in the input
- children are not exposed to rich enough data within their linguistic environments to acquire every feature of their language
- the sentences children hear while learning a language do not contain the information needed to hone in on the grammar of the language
what is universal grammar?
→The assumption that certain syntactic categories are innately programmed →These categories are governed by universal principles →Grammatical (and phonological) items can be marked or unmarked →Unmarked: the default, most common form, easier to acquire →Marked: the ‘exception to the rule’; least common form, more difficult to acquire
UG proposes that children acquire unmarked forms first
what’s the difference between marked and unmarked
→Unmarked: the default, most common form, easier to acquire →Marked: the ‘exception to the rule’; least common form, more difficult to acquire
what is syllable structure like in universal grammar?
CV = unmarked syllable form
CCV, CVC, CCVCC, CVCC = marked forms
Proposition: child acquires unmarked forms first, and then acquires marked forms over time
what is syntax like in universal grammar?
SVO = unmarked ‘canonical’ word order
Everything else = marked, non-canonical forms
Proposition: child acquires unmarked form, and then resets parameters for languages that have marked form.
Child begins by producing subject-verb-object and then moves on to other syntactic structures
discuss the study that Woods (2015) conducted on bilinguals use of grammatical structures
German and English children living in the uk
- Variable: Dative alternation in German vs. English
- 25 German-English bilingual children age 4;9-8;8
- 5 German-English bilingual adults
Task 1: Act out task – children were asked to use toys to act out simple sentences
→ Bilinguals performed well for both constructions in English
→ Double-object constructions were more problematic in German than in English
→ Performance improved with ag
Task 2: Elicitation task – children were asked to describe simple Tom and Jerry cartoons
→ Bilinguals preferentially opted for the prepositional construction, favouring a more English-like grammar
→ Bilingual adults use the double-object construction more frequently in German & prepositional construction in English – no different from German/English monolingual adults
what did Woods (2015) find about how bilinguals differ from monolinguals in their use of grammatical structures?
Prepositional construction favoured in children’s speech; non-target construction when speaking German
- Woods proposed two factors that influence these patterns:
1. Syntactic task: Learner must acquire the two available structures and recognise which is the default, i.e. non-alternate, construction in each language.
2. Semantic task: Learner must acquire both the general semantic condition for alternation and the language-specific constraints to know both what is necessary and what is sufficient for each language.
→ the availability of certain syntactic constructions for different types of verbs is conditioned by semantic rules
- Both tasks suggest that bilingual children have the same syntactic knowledge as monolinguals in English as they correctly used and interpreted both structures
how does bilingual children’s semantic knowledge differ from that of a monolingual child?
Bilingual children’s semantic knowledge, which constrains combinations of verbs and syntactic structures, differs from monolingual children’s semantic knowledge:
UG stipulates that bilingual and monolingual children build their competence up from the same base
◦ same acquisition patterns → same level of syntactic knowledge in both languages
Semantic knowledge is acquired through experience of language and other cognitive processes such as increased real-world knowledge
◦ bilingual children receive half the amount of input a monolingual child would receive
◦ → more difficult for them to acquire language-specific semantic conditions
what is the usage-based theory of language acquisition
eg?
Assumes that language development is linked to the development of other cognitive skills Focuses on how language structure in the mind develops on the basis of input interacting with those cognitive skills
example: learning to walk
→Changes in: perception, spatial awareness, social understanding, emotional development
→Psychological changes on a number of levels
what is intention reading?
Necessary for infants to be able to discern the goals or intentions of adult speakers when language is used to achieve social goals
Central to language learning
Includes interactions such as joint attention
Infant segments component parts of speaker’s intention and stores them alongside meaning
The utterance or its component parts can be re-used when infant wishes to achieve the same communicative intention
goal→ language→ success
Experience of the input leads children to understand that language-use enables speakers to achieve their goals
E.g. requests, imperatives, routines
what’s a schema?
Children develop schemas which facilitate their language production
These are template-like utterances with a ‘slot’ which can be filled by various lexical items →where’s the X?
→I’m Xing it
→I want to X
→Nice X (Repeated schemas in the input)
Schemas become abstract through analogy:
→A is xing the B
→C is ying the D
This eventually becomes a completely abstract schema: SVO
what is entrenchment
Entrenchment refers to the formation of habits: if you do something successfully a certain number of times, it becomes difficult to do it any other way
Children become entrenched in certain linguistic habits
what is distribution analysis?
Functionally based
Parts of language are grouped together depending on their individual functions within an utterance
Because they function in the same way, they tend to appear in the same place within an utterance
→ their distribution is the same
These patterns are identified by children and are used to create abstract categories of linguistic units
