Chapter 9 Development – Flashcards

- phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics

- the sounds of language - age-related changes in the tongues, mouth, and position of the larynx allow for phonological development - cooing and laughing start at 2-4 months and increase until one-word utterances begin at 10-12 months of age (remember!) * reflexive crying and vegetative sounds (0-8weeks), cooing and laughter (8-20 weeks), vocal play (between cooing and babbling with some single syllable utterances 16 to 30 weeks), replicated babble (nana, 25-50 weeks), jargon (9-18 months) - babbling sounds change with age and may be based on the language they hear, shows aced in part in reproducing what they hear - even deaf children cable with their hands around 8 months - may be a way to socially related with family members before they can appreciate language, want to get in on the interaction but cannot talk so use babbling, think they are speaking evidence for being like speech and not just motor practice: - the intonation of babbling approximates the conventions of speech - take turns, match speaker's tone of voice (high for mom, low for dad), pause between syllabus, use inflections (raise and lower at end sequence) - do not have phonemic awareness until later however

- if babbling is linguistic in nature, left hemispheric specialization should be reflected by right mouth asymmetry while babbling (should be open at right side of mouth slightly more than left, see this in adults) - if it is motoric, there should be equal mouth opening - babies were videotaped while babbling between the ages of 5 and 12 months (half from english speaking, half from french speaking families) who were doing 3 types of expressions: babbles, non babbles, and smiles - infants showed right mouth asymmetry when babbling, left when smiling and no difference when non-babbling showing that probably (babbling) linguistic in nature

- morphology: the structure of words - morpheme: the smallest unit of meaning in a language - free morpheme can stand alone (words), bound morphemes can not stand alone (s, ed) - there may be a common order of morpheme development (check table, seems that start to add verbs, then use in an on, add s, irregular past tense) - children learn word endings as many morphemes but show overregulatios - the apply rules for regular words to irregular words (occurs around 2-3 years of age) e.g. drinker, runned, feets, mices; found in a wide variety of languages

- rules for how words are combined into sentences - by understanding sentences, we can change sentences into negatives, questions, or into the passive form, change the meaning by applying grammatical rules - we may know these rules implicitly as all languages have rules of syntax but not be able to state them explicitly

- toddlers speak in one word utterances but can convey complicated meaning through these utterances such as holophrases: one words sentences (convey different meanings mommy!, mommy?) at around 18 months, known as holphrases - children move beyond two words phrases by omitting small, unnecessary words (telegraphic speech) - by age 2-4, children use longer, more complex sentences and begin to understand that word-0rder is important (2.5-3), most children use complex sentences by age 4 (almost adult-like in terms of their speech) - first sentences are with direct object or "wh", use conjuctions to connect sentences age 3, then linking main clause to subordinate (although, until, while) at 4 - negatives: during toddlerhood, children add "n" to words to the beginning or ending of positive sentences (no drink milk) - later they attach the negative term to the verb, I no do it, she no go, and eventually learn to use auxiliaries much like adults, I don't want to - Questions: children start with "wh" questions as age 3 (what, where, why, how come - answering question who, what are well answered at beginning and then later show increasing ability to handle different "wh" questions later such as when, which, how, why) - passive sentences: learn about passive sentences late in the preschool years in england so difficult for kids when young, see it earlier when the language makes greater use of them (e.g. the ball was hit by John), learn them first when they are observable the horse was kicked by the cow, then non-observable - by age 6 or 7, syntax is almost adultlike

- semantics: meaning, the meaning of language and terms. Includes concepts as well as words, understanding prototypes as well as exemplars and understanding categorical boundaries - Vocabulary development: - early words usually refer to family members in the first year of life - after children start speaking (10-12 months), they learn words at a rate of 8-11 per month - at 18 months, they show a spurt where they start to learn 22-37 words per month (word spurt see 50-75% increase in vocal), most of these words are nouns but after the noun-spurt will see some verbs, not all children have it, may be only 20% -during 2nd year, will look at the object after hearing a familiar word - from 12-17 months, children show increases in receptive vocabulary which probably proceeds the word spurt - children may show fast mapping (learn new words based on very little input, usually receptive words) - difference between productive vocab (the words they say) and receptive (words they hear and understanding but do not use) - children will make errors when using language, however, overextension: stretching a familiar word beyond its correct meaning (anything that is furry and has four legs is dog) - may be adaptive for feedback though however because over extensions can prompt adults to provide corrections - underextensions: restricting the use of a term (think that their cat is the only cat) - both the number of words we know and our understanding of these words changes during development, beyond the age of 5, most changes are not in syntax or phonology but in vocab growth (Semantics)

- showed 16-20 month olds sets of objects, one of which was unfamiliar - they were asked to pick out items (say 'may I have the...') and a nonsense word was used for the unfamiliar item, for example, garlic press in kitchen referred to as blif - only some children learned the new words with only a few exposures, it was those with large vocabularies (show fast mapping, already going through word spurt) - the other children later went through a word spurt and then could show fast mapping - shows that word spurt is associated with a special processing ability, reflected by fast mapping

- knowledge of how language can be used and adjusted to fit different circumstances - using language in social context, communicating clearly - children have to learn that messages need the right quantity of information, or be at the proper level of description, usually children provide too little - children must also learn that messages should be relevant, communicate for a purpose - they must also learn to take turns during conservations - toddlers learn to watch their listeners to make sure they're understood, they can clarify their speech then, if they are not understood - they know to talk louder at long distances - toddler provide non-verbal (nod) and verbal cues (respond) so the speaker knows the message is understood - they also understand rhetorical questions, learn from speaker's tone of voice

- young children's speech is egocentric and pre social so they have some issues with pragmatics - they try to communicate socially, but their egocentric view often prevents the message from getting across - they're often unaware that they're not being comprehended - pre-schoolers often talk with each other, but not to each other, or if mom says what are you wearing, child says "this"

behaviourist, nativist, an social-interactionist approach

- said language was learned the same way as an other complex behaviour, through operant and classical conditioning - focused on the role of adults as models and the provision of reinforcement (learn to speak by imitating adults, observational learning, and also get rewarded for when we speak correctly - two parts) - the behaviourist approach of language development has been largely disregarded - conditioning techniques work in the lab for language development, but parents rarely use these reinforcement techniques at home, also hear kid's say things they have never heard before (create not imitate), if parents do correct kids it is rarely for the actual form of their words but more so meaning

- children are biologically prepared to learn language and do so with special, innate learning mechanisms, not through domain general mechanisms (architectural constraints) - arose from the ideas of Noam Chomsky who believed that language was produced by the child's biology (innate ability) - said language has two structures: surface structure and deep structure - surface: is the words used in a sentence, what is soken - infants hear surface structure and can reproduce it within a few years, e.g. syntax, to be able to speak coherently at 3 years of age it cannot be just through reinforcement or without some preparedness, can't start with nothing and figure language out, it is too complex, argue this argue because they have a second structure, deep structure, which is a species-specific characteristic to understand language - deep structure: the underlying meaning of language. - Argue that humans possess an innate mental organ that is dedicated to language use (architectural innateness): language acquisition device, imposes order on incoming linguistic stimuli, allowing us to learn

- said that language is a special ability with a strong biological basis Evidence: - it's species-specific: only humans can produce it, if it was something you could pick up without some specific brain module should see it in other species - it's species uniform: all normal members will learn language, not related to culture, across many cultures all language is equally complex - it's difficult to retard - it develops in a regular sequence - there are specific structures for language (larynx, vocal cords) - there are language disabilities that are genetically based so makes that language itself has a genetic basis - this perspective places language in the realm of an important species-unifirm that skill, probably selected to survive for by human evolution

- aside from LAD (architectural innateness) infants have primitive knowledge about the structure of syntax of language (representational innateness) - the fact that there is universal grammar (the grammatical rules that typify all languages) makes it even easier to learn language, do not have to learn all the rules of the language, just have to examine language around them and then see how it fits with their universal grammer and then adjust to match those around them - don't "know" language but may have a set of parameters - all languages have vocabularies divided into categories that include nouns and verbs - all languages have prefixes and suffixes - children from around the word acquire grammatical forms in the same way and at the same rate, explained by both architectural and representational innateness - infants have a set of principles and parameters that guide their perception - one study looked at different languages, found that in certain languages like english the subjects is in the sentence but in other languages like spanish you don't have it like that, early english speaking children's first sentences often resemble those of a language that don't require an explicit subject; evidence for universal grammar

- children are superior to adults in acquiring both first and second languages - thus there seems to be a critical period or sensitive period during which children should be exposed to language in order to master it - with age, the nervous system loses its flexibility, so that by puberty, the organization of the brain is fixed making language learning difficult (best to learn language when brain is flexible) - Locke points out that there are 4 pieces of evidence for the critical/sensitive period - children who are socially isolated have a tenuous mastery of language, in terms of syntax usually do not get beyond 2 utterances - proficiency in a foreign language is related to the age of first exposure (earlier the better for exposure) not the number of years they had been learning the second language (usually around 3-7), see the same thing with deaf children and their age of exposure to sign language - grammatical proficiency in sign language is related to first exposure to sign language (better off to learn sign language syntax if exposed early in life) - plasticity in response to left brain injury decreases with age (when young, if damage occurs, then another part of brain and take it over so can recover a lot better because so may extra synapses, changes with age) - when a second language is developed early, it is under the control of the same area of the brain responsible for their first language, this is not the case for people who learn their second language later in life

- tend to agree with nativism, and say humans are specially prepared to speak language, there is a universal grammar and critical period - but they see the social environment as playing a more important role - bruner believes that language is presented to the children by people around them who select compatible with their abilities,: social-pragmatic view of language that says the content/pragmatics of how we speak is dependent on who we speak to - adults select content that's best for child's current abilities, and presentation is executed to give them the best possible chance of learning, dumb it down

- mothers speak motherese to their babies, simple, redundant, involves lots of questions, relies on high-pitched tones, and simplified version of adult words, done spontaneously around the world - it was found to later be used by fathers and 4 year old children, not just mothers so name changed - child-directed speech, infant directed speech - social interactionists say that we do this because of some type of mechanism - say adults have a device in their brains that cause them to respond to infants by automatically altering their speech to a more understandable form - Language acquisition support system (LASS) - ID speech also allows infants to discriminate between words, adaptive/beneficial - child-dirceted speech appears to play a role in the development of language and also important in forming an emotional relationship between caregiver and child * use repition questions that aid in syntactic development, also learn in terms of vocab * ID speech regulates infants' emotions, important for attachment, so mother can convay emotions (approval or prohibition) and soothes if crying - child directed speech is tailored to infants limited cognitive abilities, is simple in form at first and then gets more complicated as they get older and able to handle more

- prosody or the ups and tones of the tones and rhythms of the sounds we make - ID speech involves higher tones of voice, more high and low tones in general, and more tones that move from low to high (range is bigger and more transitions to high tones) - this appears somewhat universal across latvian, comanche, act - infants appear to prefer being spoken to in this way, can learn if they turn their heads one way get ID speech and the other AD, will selectively turn their heads towards ID speech

phonology

phonemic awareness

morphology

morpheme

free morpheme

bound morpheme

mean length of utterance MLU

holophrases

semantics

receptive vocabulary

productive vocabulary

fast mapping

overextension

underextension

pragmatics

speech registers

communicative competence

nativist theory

social-interactionist theory

surface structure

deep structure

LAD (language acquisition device)

universal grammar