Week Eight - Language Acquisition (Research & Theories) Flashcards
Early language acquisition
0-6 weeks = vegetative sounds 6 weeks = cooing 16 weeks = laughter 16wks - 6months = vocal play 6-12mths = babbling 10-18mths = single-word utterances 18-2 years = two-word utterances 2 years = telegraphic speech 2.5 years = full sentences
Why is it hard to test infants language acquisition?
Can’t ask what they understand, don’t listen/respond, don’t always reflect knowledge
2 types of Parental reports
diary studies and checklists
problems for experimenters in trying to gather info from children?
comprehension and production (shyness)
Benefits of using parents as experimenters?
they have a better idea of what their children understand and regular exposure to words their children say
Diary study?
Parents write down everything the child says
Cons: time-consuming and missing data (depending on context)
word TOKENS?
Number of words that the child utters overall
word TYPES?
Number of different words that a child produces
Checklists?
Checklist of frequent words produced by child, parent ticks the words their child understands
Parents are good at ___ but less good at ___?
estimating their child’s production but less good at comprehension (they overestimate it)
Reasons for observation studies?
Children don’t always say what the researcher asks, easier to observe
Longitudinal studies of children language acquisition? Benefits vs cons
Track people overtime, answers certain questions
ie high SES used more varied words, longer utterances
small samples so need to be careful with generalising
Cross-sectional studies of children language acquisition? Benefits vs cons
assess abilities in groups of children in various ages, comparing two groups.
much info in short time, more generalisable
two observational studies for language acquisition?
Naturalistic (real-life situations) and controlled (same setting for all).
Experimental studies?
Researcher controls the suitatuation to test whether that citrol results in a particular linguistic outcome from the child eg can children use novel words
Ways to study speech perception in infants? 3
Habituation
Conditioned head turn
Preferential looking
Habituation?
Gradual decrease in response to/interest in a repeated stimulus
- heart rate
- high amplitude sucking
- looking time
Novelty preference?
Human preference for anything new of different
HAS and simulu
slows and then goes faster when new stimulus
Heart rate and stimulus
slight increase when new stimulus
Looking time and stimulus
increases with new stimulus
Conditioned head-turn?
Present auditory stim repeatedly, then introduce new sound with visuals off to one side.
When a child can distinguish sound, they will learn that change in sound = change in visual display
will start to turn their heard in anticipation when change in sound is heard
Preferential looking?
play spoken word/sentence that relates to one image, present two visual images, looking time measures to both stim, longer looking to appropriate image = understanding of sentence/word
post-natal children have an immediate preference for?
their mothers voice and familiar stories, by 4 days they can discriminate speech in mothers vs foreign language
Very early on infants can discriminate?
Male vs female speech vs non-speech sounds voicing place manner of articulation
infants show early preference for?
language broken by clause boundaries and sounds which are allowed to occur together
what must theories of language account for?
rapid acquisition, milestones, mistakes and success, sequences of learning, learning despite fragmented inputs
Innatist/Nativist theories?
children learn language quickly so they must have an innate language ability
- spontaneous sign language (no exposure but still developed their own)
- creolisation (new language)
- poverty of the stimulus (couldn’t work it all out just off adults cause they make mistakes)
2 parts of the poverty of the stimulus argument
- degenerate input (adult language is poor)
2. no negative evidence (ungrammatical errors not pointed out)
language acquisition device (LAD) allows children to?
attend to language, make hypoth about how it works, derive grammar
Universal grammar (UG)?
The system of principles, conditions and rules that are elements or properties of all human language
UG believe children are… and match…
endowed with principles and parameters that they set once their hear the language around them
- some universal
- some parametric
match the language they hear with the structures they already possess and start using correct grammatical rule
- during critical period
- in modular fashion
Strengths of nativism theory?
explains rapidity of language acquisition
similar across children
brain areas specialised for language
Social Interactionist theory?
importance of interaction with others in a social context in lang acquisition.
Language is not part of general cognition
things essential for language, according to social interactionist
social interaction and joint attention, child directed speech
