Child language acquisition

Question 1

Stages of question, negative and pronoun acquisition broadly fell into five stages.
These are?

Answer 1

0) a zero stage where language is not being used (NVC(non-verbal child) or avoidance instead):
1) a one-word stage where the ideas are expressed in holophrase;
2) a two-word ‘pivot grammar’ stage where words are combined (wh- + a word, no/not + a word + a word, me + a word);
3) a telegraphic stage where children are sorting out word order and relationship with auxiliaries, VSO elements etc;
4) an advanced stage where more rare or complex grammars are acquired (eg question-tags/ negative questions/ double negation/ reflexive pronouns with -self/ -selves, and so on)

Question 2

Definition of “first language” (L1)

Answer 2

• the language that an individual learns first
• other terms for “first language” -
  . native language
  . mother tongue

Question 3

Definition of “second language” (L2)

Answer 3

• any language other than the first language learned (in a broader sense)
• a language learned after the first language in a context where the language is used widely in the speech community (in a narrower sense)
• eg, for many people in Taiwan, their L1 is Taiwanese and L2 is Mandarin

Question 4

Definition of “foreign language” (FL)

Answer 4

• a second (or third, or fourth) language learned in a context where the language is not widely used in the speech community. This is often contrasted with second language learning in a narrower sense.
• eg, English or Japanese is a foreign language for people in Taiwan

Question 5

Definition of “Target language” (TL)

Answer 5

• a language which is being learned, where it is the first language or second, or third language.
  eg English is a target language for you now

Question 6

First language acquisition
characteristics of the language of children:
Milestones and developmental sequences?

Answer 6

• a high degree of similarity in the early language of children all over the world
• the developmental sequences in many aspects are similar
• early vocalisations of children such as crying, cooing and gurgling
• distinguishing the voice of their mothers from others and the language spoken before they were born
• identifying the differences between ‘pa’ and ‘ba’
• identifying differences if hearing more than one language

Question 7

First language acquisition
Patterns in L1 development
Characteristics of the language of children?

Answer 7

• their language development shows a high degree if similarity among children all over the world. There are predictable patters in the L1 development and related to their cognitive development (predictability)
• their language reflects the word order of the language that they are hearing. The combination of the words has a meaning relationship (learning through imitation).
• their language, also shows they are able to apply the rules of the language to more sentences which they have never heard before (creativity)

Question 8

Patterns in L1 development
what happens before first words?

Answer 8

• the earliest vocalisations
  . involuntary crying (when hungry/ uncomfortable)
• cooing and gurgling - showing satisfaction/ happiness
• “babbling”
  . babies use sounds to reflect the characteristics of the different language they are learning

Question 9

Patterns in L1 development
first word stage timing, two word stage and timing, telographic?

Answer 9

• around 12 months (“one-word” stage) :
  . babies begin to produce one or two recognizable words (esp. content words); producing single-word sentences (holophrases);
• by age of 2 (“two-word” stage):
  1) at least 50 different words
  2) “telegraphic” sentences (no function words and grammatical morphemes)
  eg
  “mommy juice,”
  “baby fell down,”
  3) reflecting the order of the language
  eg
  “kiss baby,”
  “baby kiss,”
  4) creatively combining words
  eg
  “more outside”
  “all gone cookie”

Question 10

L1 developmental sequences?

Answer 10

• acquisition of grammatical morphemes
• acquisition of negative (to deny, reject, disagree with, and refuse something)
• acquisition of questions

Question 11

The “WUG test”
Example?
What does it test?

Answer 11

eg
1) here is a wug. Now there are two of them.
There are two _________.
2) John knows how to bod. Yesterday he did the same thing. Yesterday, he ________.

-through the tests, children demonstrate that they know the rules for the formation of plural and simple past in English.
- By generalizing these patterns to words they never heard before, they show that their language is not just a list of memorized word pairs such as “book”/ “books” and “nod”/ “nodded”

Question 12

The “WUG Test” who carried it out and when?
What does it test?
What where the key findings?

Answer 12

The ‘WUG Test’ by Jean Berko, carried out in 1958. It was carefully designed to test children’s handling of morphology.

Key findings

• children easily create new words by inflection (-ed, -s), but find it much more difficult to use derivational morphology (creating words) to create novel meanings. The fact that they can handle and utter words they’ve never heard before challenges Skinner’s simple behaviourism, and supports something like Chomsky’s LAD or at least cognitive pattern-recognition

Question 13

The “WUG test”
What did Berko find?

Answer 13

WUG TEST → Jean Berko (1950s)
→ children find plurals easy
→ siblings help children learn pronouns faster

What did Berko find?
→ irregular formation, children struggles with ‘heaves’ they said ‘heafs’
→ children struggle with compounds

Question 14

How is a copula verb different to an auxiliary verb?

Answer 14

Copula = verb in SVC sentence → no other verb
eg this is hot
s v c

Auxiliaries = need another verb (they help other verbs → verbs in tense forms)
→ eg she’s running
s v

Question 15

What does a singular countable noun need?

Answer 15

• neds a determiner (default = article) or pluralise

a dog (countable with article)
I like dog (uncountable)
I like dogs (plural countable)
I like the dog (countable with article)
I’d like dog (uncountable)
I’d like a dog (countable with article)

Question 16

what is overregularization?

Answer 16

Overregularize → add ‘ed’

eg “I boughted you a cookie, but I eated it”

Question 17

Tomasello- Constructing grammar
what did he discover?

Answer 17

Pivot schema - “where ___ ___”
“daddy _______”
→ refers to a linguistic structure where children rely on a key word or phrase (the “pivot”) to construct different sentences

Question 18

How do children acquire question form?

Answer 18

Bellugi (1966) one of a number of linguists to learn the process by which children learn to ask questions. Believed that children learn questioning skills in the given way:
1. Use of rising intonation of single, then multiple words within an utterance (e.g. ‘Bedtime?’)
2. inversion of auxiliary verbs (e.g. Are you coming in?)
3. Formulaic ‘wh-‘ questions (e.g. what that?) might come earlier, but more original use of ‘wh-‘ constructions takes longer to evolve, especially when with auxiliary inversion. Presence of a ‘wh-‘ word + auxiliary verb inversion = most grammatically complex question (e.g. ‘where are you going?’)
4. Use of tag questions
→ so late as often used to help conversation and children less likely to offer this support

Question 19

What is a morpheme?
What are lexical (content) morphemes examples?
Grammatical (functional) morphemes examples?
What do the examples denote?

Answer 19

Morpheme = a word used to describe the smallest unit of language that has meaning (a word can be made of one or more morphemes)

• lexical (content) morphemes e.g. “boat,” “sail,” “jacket,”
• grammatical (functional) morphemes
  e.g.
  “a” (an article)
  “-s” (denotes plural)
  “-ing” (denotes present progressive verb tense)
  “-s” (denotes possession)
  “a-“ (changes verb to adjective)

Preverbal
1-word/ holophrasic → 1 year
2- word stage → 2 years

Question 20

Roger Brown
What did he find?
What did this lead to?

Answer 20

Roger Brown = “Browns stages” in 1973
→Research-based expectations of a typical child’s development of morphemes

. according to Brown’s stages a child will begin to use grammatical morphemes around 27-30 months

Using
MLU = mean/ median length utterance
→ average number of morphemes (not words) in a child’s phrase or sentence

came up with Brown’s stages how many morphemes are acquired at what age (Brown’s morpheme running order)

Question 21

Browns stages
what is the average MLU and morpheme range at:
12-26 months
27-30 months
31-34 months
35-40 months
41-46+ months

27-30 months. The earliest-developing grammatical morphemes.

Answer 21

. 12-26 months average mlu is 1.75 morphemes, with a range from 1.00-2.00
. 27-30 months average mlu is 2.25 morphemes, with a range from 2.00-2.5
. 31-34 months average mlu is 2.75 morphemes, with a range from 2.5-3.00
- 35-40 months average mlu is 3.5 morphemes, with a range from 3.00 to 3.75
- 41-46+ months average mlu is 4.0 morphemes, with a range from 3.75-4.5 (overregularise (eg “boughted”)

Question 22

Telegraphic stage
Brown’s morpheme running order
13 units
(study found out that children who has mastered the grammatical morphemes at the bottom of the list had also mastered those at the top, but the reverse was not the case → this was taken as an evidence for a developmental sequence or order of acquisition)

Answer 22

• progressive verb-ending -ing (I’m going)
• prepositions in and on (In bed)
• Plural noun ending -s (two cats)
• irregular past tense verb (broke, fell) (surprisingly high up→ due to them being so common)
• possessive -s (Toby’s book)
• uncontractable copula verb be (This is hot)
• articles a and the (The car)
• Regular past tense verb ending -ed (I cooked it)
• 3 rd person singular irregular present tense (he sees me)
• 3 rd person singular irregular present tense (he has some (not halves))
• uncontractable auxiliary verb be (she was running)
• contractable copula verb be (i’m hot)
• contractible auxiliary verb be (she’s running)

Question 23

Acquisition of negation
what are the four stages?
who discovered it and when?

Answer 23

some propose a non-verbal rejection stage

children develop language features systematically be creating new forms and structures negation is learned early by refusing suggestions with a single word stage

Lois Bloom’s study (1991)- four stages
. Stage 1: ‘No’ - e.g., “No go.” “No eat.”
. Stage 2: Subject + no- e.g. “Daddy no comb hair.”
. Stage 3: Auxiliary or modal verbs (do/can) + not (yet no variations for different persons or tenses) e.g. ‘I can’t do it,” “He don’t want it,”
. Stage 4: correct form of auxiliary verbs (did/ doesn’t/ is/ are) + not
e.g. He didn’t go. She doesn’t want it
But sometimes double negatives are used
e.g. “I don’t have no more candies,”

Question 24

How do children acquire pronouns?

Answer 24

avoid pronouns!
Parents + child
1 word I/ it
3 TELEGRAPHIC my/ mine
2 word me + you
Pivot schema yours, he, she, we

question pivot schema = inversion
negatives - = complex
negatives “hardly want to do that”

Question 25

CLA: lexis (and semantics) 1. hat, run, seat, hop, juice, ink, sun, hot, mummy, goes, happy. What sort of words are these? 2. a, we, the, they, is, on, in What sort of words are these?

Answer 25

1) lexis/ lexical words → content words 2) grammatical words → function

Question 26

what is the 'fis' phenomenon?

Answer 26

→ they think they are saying fish reception (understanding of word) comes before production (correct pronunciation) They can hear and distinguish just can't produce it

Question 27

1. general order of language acquisition? 2. what did Brown's study show?

Answer 27

1. - noises - cooing - babbling - first word - two-word stage (18-24 months) syntax = word order 2. Brown study (meaning relations= there is a particular semantic relationship between word s=choices and a particular structure) . a lot of closed class words are omitted during early stages . gradually acquired in standard

Question 28

what kind of overextension 'cat' when looking at a doormat?

Answer 28

- mismatch overextension = most abstract application of a word not just right or wrong → use metaphors or inventive methods to try to make connections

Question 29

what elements are missing at the two-word stage? (5 things)

Answer 29

- auxiliary verbs 'is' or relational verbs → copular → s.v.c structure - deictic 'the' (articles) - personal forms - no tense - conjunctions

Question 30

1. what are underextensions? 2. what are overextensions (they are used as child is trying to make links)? 2. what do overextensions and underextensions link to?

Answer 30

1. words children use that are too narrow for what they are describing 2. using a word in too broad a manner, often speaking in overgeneralisations (such as calling a cow a dog as its 4 legged) 3. semantic ability (definitions of words/ word function/ categorisation of diff. words) which is trying to be developed?

Question 31

what sort of overextension? Categorical or analogical 'dog' for all 4-legged creatures?

Answer 31

categorical - where the child will see similarities between the items in a group (characteristics) and use one term for all

Question 32

what sort of overextension? categorical or analogical 'stone' used for all round objects?

Answer 32

analogical - where a quality is seen in similar objects and the term is overlapped

Question 33

telegraphic stage of language development what is it? what word classes are used? what word classes are missed out? how can it be described in simpler terms?

Answer 33

telegraphic stage → 24-30 months the telegraphic stage of language development is a persons ability to utter phrases to communicate - the telegraphic stage only requires the use of necessary words such as nouns, verbs, or adjectives - often, this means that telegraphic speech does not include prefixes, suffixes, prepositions, conjunctions or pronouns in simpler words. telegraphic stage can be describes as two-word sentences

Question 34

Did the WUG test find any... Gender differences? Age differences?

Answer 34

1- gender diff? "boys did as well as girls or sometimes better, on over half the items, no evidence of the usual superiority of girls in language matters No gender diff 2. Age diff? first graders (5-6years) did significantly better than preschoolers (4 years) on slightly less than half of these specifically better on verbs eg glasses 75% correct preschoolers, 99% correct 1st graders

Question 35

How did children find ______ in the wug test 1- plurals? 2- possessives?

Answer 35

1- plurals → -s easy 91% of children getting 'wugs' → -es tricky 36% of children getting 'gutches' → except glasses = 91% correct → -ves alright 530% pre, 82% -'heafs', '-ves' 2- possessives → '-s' = fine 'wug's' 68% pre, 81% 1st → '-es' 53% pre, 82% 1st more tricky found plural easier than singular niz's 49% correct → singular wug's 88% correct → plural niz's = hard wug's = fine

Question 36

How did children find ________ in the wug test 1)Adjective forms? 2)lexical formation?

Answer 36

1) adjective forms found comparative and superlative endings very hard only 1 of 80 children answered with these forms 2) lexical formation struggled to create new words (derivational) → deriving new words 35% gave no answer for " what is the word for a man who zibs for a living, he is a _____."

Question 37

How did children find verb tenses in the WUG test?

Answer 37

→ progressive = easy 'zibbing' 72% pre, 97% 1st → past tense = more tricky 'melted' 72% pre, 74% 1st → irregular = 'rang' 0% pre, 25% 1st (surprising) → 3rd singular = hard 'oodges' 57% pre, 56% 1st (surprising pre-schoolers= better - perhaps spelling confusing to 1st graders) progressive and past = alright except double letters eg bodded range = hard =irregular overregularization got confused add -ed not 1 pre-schooler knew 'rang'

Question 38

key takeaway from the wug test?

Answer 38

* children do seem to be innately better at grammar but can't do word building morphology evidence for innateness theory

Question 39

what is pragmatics?

Answer 39

- politeness → positive (camaraderie) and negative face (space) - genre - implication and implicature (grices maxims (quantity, quality, manner, relevance) - what we achieve through our speech perlocutionary acy - functions - speech acts offer, request, command etx -registers - rules of conversation

Question 40

what is cryptophasia?

Answer 40

twins sometimes develop their own private language (lexis) - cryptophasia sometimes just words body language, gesture, facial expressions part of communicative structure etc. emoji

Question 41

what do children know about pragmatics (from an early age 10-12 months?

Answer 41

adjacency pairs turn taking (intonation) fall-rise/ rise → question rising intonation can show uncertainty Halliday - pragmatic function market with rising intonation - mathetic function marked with falling intonation they are mainly playing with intonation and discourse structures (melodic utterances) * still dont really understand adult language)

Question 42

what did Halliday say about language acquisition? when does this start?

Answer 42

"children are learning how to mean things." this starts even before they speak etc. crying to get an affect eg attention

Question 43

Halliday's macro functions what age is it acquired? What does it consist of? is there any auditory differences?

Answer 43

18-20 months - children usually say mathetic utterances with falling intonation - using language to explore the environment by finding out about their surroundings is called the mathetic macrofunction - language for learning - children usually say pragmatic utterances with rising intonations - using language as action, getting what you want and getting people to do things, is called the pragmatic macrofunction - language as an action

Question 44

what is the representational/ informative microfunction? Example?

Answer 44

Representational/ informative - children use language to explain (learn late it is quite complicated to think that you can tell something to somebody who does not already have that information) eg i'll tell you how to do it

Question 45

what is the personal microfunction? example?

Answer 45

children use language to express their awareness of themselves and the fact that they are separate from the surrounding environment eg "me good girl"

Question 46

what is the heuristic microfunction? example?

Answer 46

children use language to start exploring what is around them eg "what tractor doing?"

Question 47

what is the imaginative microfunction? example?

Answer 47

children use language to create an environment of their own eg "i'm a cowboy your a doctor"

Question 48

What is the instrumental microfunction? example?

Answer 48

children use language to get what they want to meet their bodily requirements eg "want juice"

Question 49

what is the regulatory microfunction? example?

Answer 49

children use language to regulate or control other people's behaviour eg "go away"

Question 50

what is the interactional microfunction? example?

Answer 50

children use language to interact with the people around them or the child wants to focus someone's attention on something eg "love you mummy"

Question 51

Hallidays functions what is the order of the 7 microfunctions/ developmental functions? which of the functions are mathetic? pragmatic? when are the microfunctions acquired?

Answer 51

6-18 months old order instrumental (pragmatic) regulatory (pragmatic) interactional (pragmatic) personal (mathetic) heuristic (mathetic) imaginative (mathetic) representational/ informative (mathetic)

Question 52

childrens language acquisition early stages and phonology Stilwell peccei

Answer 52

0-2 months → reflexive vocalisation 2-4 months → cooing 4-6 months → vocal play (diff. pitches, raspberry) about 6 months → babbling (consonant and vowel sequences) 9-18 months ------------------- 12 months → first word 24 months → two-word stage 36 months → full speech

Question 53

Children's language acquisition Early stages and phonology crystal

Answer 53

1. basic biological noises 0-8 weeks 2. cooing and laughing 8-20 weeks 3. vocal play 20-30 weeks 4. babbling 25- 50 weeks 5. melodic utterance

Question 54

what are the groups of sounds ordered developmentally?

Answer 54

- early: /m/, /b/, /j/, (y), /n/, /w/, /d/, /p/, /h/ by age 3 - middle: /t/, (ng), /k/, /g/, /f/, /v/, /ts/ (ch), (j) by age 4-5 -late: (sh), (th) fricative and non fricative version, /s/, /z/, /r/, (zh)

Question 55

diminutive?

Answer 55

a word or part of a word that expresses the fact that something is small, often used either to show affection or to suggest something or someone is not important endings -y -e -o -s doggie rocky dolly teddy

Question 56

rough order of words learnt

Answer 56

1- peoples names, cartoon characters (proper nouns) 2- actions, events, commands, 'light' 3- food, body parts, clothing, animals (sounds), vehicles (sounds), objects 4- places, social words 'bye, yes, no'

Question 57

what are the /l/ and /r/ sounds called?

Answer 57

liquids or approximates

Question 58

why are certain imitations of sounds considered words? examples?

Answer 58

words are codified, repeated "pop-pop" (fire) "hoo-hoo" (owl) "neigh-neigh" (horse) "meow" (cat)

Question 59

what is a holophrase?

Answer 59

A single word that expresses a complex idea, used mainly by young children when they are learning to talk (takes the place of what would be a full sentence in an older persons speech) ("dontthrow", "light,"→ produced as a single word)