what are the 5 stages of language acquisition
preverbal - 0-5months
babbling - 5-12months
holophrastic/one word stage - 12-18 months
2 word stage - 18-24months
telegraphic/multiword stage - 24-30months
describe the babbling stage
- it is innate
- stage where kids experiment with singular sounds -> figuring out what sounds are in their language (at the start of this stage all babies across teh world make the same sounds)
- same intonation patterns as adults
describe the pre-verbal stage
same melody contour as mother as they imitate them
describe the holophrastic stage
- at start they make 1 word utterances that are usually constant and then a vowel (da) -> vowel can be a diphthong (dai)
- 1st words tend to be concrete nouns eg. car, bikkie, dog
- only know around 50 words so they overgeneralise them to communicate better
- understanding outstrips ability to pronounce sounds
describe the 2 word stage
- only use content words
- only use words in two different ways
1) location phrases -> object +location eg. mumma bed
2) action phrases -> agent +action or action + agent depending on whether the action effects the agent or vise versa - tend to start sentences with voiced stops (stops = completely stop airflow - only 3 voiced stops -> g,b,d)
- production still behind perception
- use the and of, learn -s and -‘s affixes
describe the telegraphic stage
- function words/morphemes still mostly missing at start
- understand simple grammar -> wh- words at the start of questions etc
- acquire function words/morphemes in particular sequence during this time
what is a stop
- stop - complete closure in oral cavity -> can be voiceless (p, t, k) or voiced (b, d, g)
what is semantic bootstrapping theory
it is the theory that children acquire language by categorising words in to groups such as all nouns are objects and verbs are actions. from this they will then look for rules taht apply to these categories and apply this rule to all categories leading to morphological mistakes
what are plural marking phases
- around 18 months kids start using quantifiers or numerical values to pluralise words (two cat, many cat etc)
- around 24 months kids start to use -s plural sometimes
- later they use -s plural on all words even when irregular (mices)
- by 3 years old most children have completely mastered plurals - regular and irregular
what is under-segmenting
when children fail to segment words in to proper morphemes
eg. throw uped instead of threw up
what is over-segmenting
creates additional morphemes
eg. a-dult, two-dult
what is mis-categorising
identifies word as a different category
eg. identifies a noun as a vern
what are mean length utterances
MLU can be measured in morphemes or in words
- way to compare different speakers
- words better when comparing kids from different countries
- kids with similar MLUs tend to have similar grammatical understanding
what are the english word order rules
subject, verb and then object -> kids very rarely violate this rule
list each manner of articulation
stop, nasal, affricate, fricative, lateral, approximant
in what order do children acquire different sounds
nasals, glides, stops, approximants, fricatives, affricates
- > learn voiced ones first then voiceless
- place of articulation can also effect the order of learning but not significantly
- tend to struggle the most with voiceless th, ng and r
what are some ways that children simplify words and how they are pronounces
- deletion - get rid of sounds such as constantant clustors, final constants or unstressed syllables
- substitution - replace soft sounds with hard sounds
- reduplication - different sounds in words are pronounced the same (dog to gog)
when do children acquire certain word groups
1) simple prepositions
2) simple conjunctions
3) simple pronouns
4) simple auxillary verbs
1) simple prepositions (in/on) typically start being used in the holophrastic stage
- by telegraphic stage most use them correctly
2) simple conjunctions (and) - telegraphic stage
3) simple pronouns (I and it first) - at around 2 word stage, then learn this and that during telegraphic stage
4) simple auxillar verbs (to be/to do) - usually in mid telegraphic stage
- > learn have earlier but not all tenses
\
m
u
hj
n
i
what is a nasal
- nasal - closure in oral cavity but air flows through nose - all nasal sounds are voiced (m, n, ng)
what is a fricative
- fricative - partially block air flow by bring two speech organ close together to create friction -> can be voiceless (f, theta, s, sh) or voiced (v, th, z, s in television) -> h is a fricative but neither voiced or voiceless
what is an affricate
- affricate - complete stop of air but then it is released slowly -> voiceless (ch) voiced (j in june)
