1
Q
Language Defined
A
- A form of communication - spoken written or signed
- Based on a system of symbols
- Structured system of sound patterns
- Have socially standardised meanings and rules for varying and combining them
- Enables objects, events and processess in the environment to be catalogued
2
Q
Language as a Tool
A
- Originally beleived to be a human attribute
- Central to promoting communication
- Develops social networks
- Has implications for attachment and social bonding
3
Q
Central Debate of Language & Cognition
A
- Piaget - Cognition before language
- Problem solve before we learn language
- Vygotsky - Language before cognition
- Language facilitates learning
4
Q
Three components of language
A
- Phonology
- Semantics
- Syntax
5
Q
Phonology
A
Joining together of units of sound to form words
6
Q
Semantics
A
A system of meanings associated with words
7
Q
Syntax
A
Rules for the connection of words to form phrases and sentences
8
Q
Phonemes
A
Units of sound that can differentiate minimally different words
eg: mat, cat, rat
9
Q
Morphemes
A
- Smallest grammatical unit in a language
- Two types:
- Free - function as words eg: tree
- Bound - found as parts of words, always with a root. eg: ed (work-ed)
10
Q
Symbolic Representation
A
- Capacity to use mental categories as substitutes for physical object and events
- Develops in early second year of life
11
Q
Types of Symbolic Representation
A
- Graphic Symbols - Music
- Motoric - Recall how to tie a knot
- Gestural - Flipping the Bird
- Sensory or Iconic - Smells & Sounds associated with the past
12
Q
Gestural Communication
A
- Two purposes to gestural symbols
- Representational
- Communicative
- Gestural symbols for communication begins at around 8-10 months
13
Q
First Gestures
A
- Waving hands for hello & goodbye
- Shaking & Nodding
- Pointing to draw attention to object or person
- There are cultural differences in gestures
14
Q
Pretend Play
A
- A form of symbolic representation
- Emerges before spoken language
- by 2 years children can differentiate between pretend and reality
- Deferred imitation emerges and the end of sensorimotor stage
- Children can imitate object without being present
15
Q
Deferred Imitation
A
- The ability to reproduce a previously witnessed action or sequence of actions
- Can repeat the action when the original stimulus is no longer present
16
Q
Acquisition of Language
A
- Child language and cognition is a system unique to children
- Not a miniature version of adult language
- Language is acquired during childhood through a Universal series of stages
- Each language stage has its own unique features
17
Q
Phsyiological & Biological Basis for Language Acquisition
A
- Children in all cultural groups progress through the stages of language acquisition in the same sequence
18
Q
Driving force to Language Acquisition
A
- To understand what the people who are important to you and are around you are saying,
- Best way to teach language is to immerse yourself
- Bonobo study demonstrates that culture forms the basis of language
19
Q
Stages of Language Acquisition
A
- Prelinguistic Speech
- Crying
- Cooing
- Babbling
- Linguistic Speech
- Holophrastic Speech
- Two Word utterances
- Telegraphic Speech
20
Q
Prelinguistic Speech
A
- Established sequence of sound
- Infants progress with these before first words
- Approx 12 months of age
- Vocal play evolved to excersise and refine complex muscle movements needed for speech
- Made up of crying, cooing and babbling
21
Q
Dunston System
A
- Priscilla Dunston
- Analysed 5 particular noises that babies make when theyr are crying
- Neh Sound - When baby is hungry
- Owh Sound - baby makes and O shape; When baby is tired
- Heh Sound - burp sound; Baby has wind
- Eairh Sound - more urgent than burp sound means baby has wind pain
- Eh Sound - Baby uncomfortable may need nappy change or another need, can sound happy or like panting
- Not subjected to rigorous scientific evaluation
22
Q
Crying
A
- Earliest means of communication
- Different sounds, pitches and intensities signal different meanings
- Dunston Baby Language
23
Q
Cooing
A
- Infants make squealing and gurgling sounds that are a repetition of vowel sounds
- Sounds sustained for approximately 15-20 seconds
- Appears 6 weeks to 3 months
24
Q
- Alternating sequence of vowel an consonant sounds
- Resemble one syllable utterances
- Appears 4 months - 6 months
- All infants babble - even infants who are profoundly deaf
- Infants babble all possible sounds of all possible langueages
- This suggests physiological/biological basis for language acquisition
A
25
Linguistic Speech
* Speech marked by the utterance of words
* Appears at approx 12 months of age
* Between 18-24 months, children experience “naming explosion”
* New words enter vocabulary very rapidly.
* Up to 20 new words per week
* Three stages:
* Holophrastic Speech
* Two Word Utterances
* Telegraphic Speech
26
Human Speechome Project
* Deb Roy at MIT has collected more than 80,000 hours of video and 120,000 hours of audio recordings.
* A database of parent-child interactions has been compiled, illustrating how children learn to use language.
* The naming explosion has been modelled mathematically
27
Holophrastic Speech
* Single word utterances
* Convey different meanings depending on context
* First words relate to child's own actions
* Events in which child participates
* appears at 12-24 months
* eg: Ball
* There is my ball
* I want my ball
28
Holophrastic Speech - Nelson 1973
* Most common of first 50 words spoken by children 12 months - 24 months of age:
* Names:
* General (woof-woof à dog)
* Specific (Blacky à one specific dog)
* Action words: bye bye = go, good bye
* Modifiers: Hot, cold
* Words that express feelings: NO!
* Some grammatical words: For
29
Overextension - Clark (1973):
* Common nouns are extended to categories to which they do not apply in adult speech.
* Example:
* orange’ → orange + all fruits we can eat (e.g., apple).
30
Overextension - Clark 1983, 2009
* Illustrates child’s active involvement in use of language as communication tool.
* Interim measure → as vocabulary develops, overextended word usage declines.
31
Overextension
* Meanings conveyed by overextension are similar across world’s language communities.
* → indicates biological ability
* Evidence indicates that children’s early vocabulary development are more than simple copying of adult meaning by simple approximations.
32
Underextension
* Anglin (1977):
* Common nouns are applied to more narrowly defined categories than in adult speech.
eg: ‘Dog’ → the family pet dog only, not other dogs.
33
Two-Word Sentences
* Combination of two words to convey meaning.
* Unique linguistic system.
* Not imitation of adult speech.
* Grammatically correct (subject-verb-object).
* Appear at 18 months - 22 months of age.
* Examples:
* ‘More page’:
* Request to adult to continue reading aloud from book.
* ‘More wet’:
* Want hands washed again.
34
Two Word Sentences - Brown 1973
* Pivot grammar:
* All words fall into one of two classes:
* Pivot.
* More, big, gone
* Open.
* Nouns
* Rule:
* Sentence = Pivot + Open.
* Example: More food, toy gone
35
Pivot Grammar
* Simple grammar found in the early stages of language development
* Characterized by two-word utterances in which one word (the pivot word) is typically a function word
* The other (the open word) is a content word, such as a noun or verb.
36
Two Word Sentences - Braine 1963
* Studied 11 children learning either English, Samoan, Finnish, Hebrew or Swedish as first language.
* All children used distinctive two word grammar governed by small set of rules.
* Meaning of two word sentences is context specific.
* Set of 10 positional formulae enabled expression of ten broad ideas.
* Two words enable children to convey a wide range of meanings through combination of words and contexts
37
Ten Broad Ideas for Two Word Utterances
1. Disappearance
2. Negation
3. Actor-action relations
4. Location
5. Requests
6. Identification
7. Description
8. Possession
9. Plurality
10. Recurrence
38
Children's Two Word Sentences - Examples
39
Telegraphic Speech
* Sentences resembling adult telegrams
* Sentences comprised primarily of:
* Nouns
* Verbs
* NO use of Prepositions, Conjunctions, Articles, Auxiliary verbs
* Appears at approximately 24 months.
eg: ‘Jenny want that’, ‘Put truck table’,
40
Over-Regulisation
* Feature of telegraphic speech.
* Children apply general rule for forming a plural (add -s)
OR
* Past tense (add -ed) to irregular nouns or verbs.
* eg: ‘Mouses’ or ‘mices’ cf mice, ‘I goed’ cf ‘I went’
41
Over-Regulisation - Berko 1958
* Developed set of nonsense words, for which children had to supply plural, past tense, and possessive inflections.
* eg: Wug, heaf, quirk
* Children extended standard grammatical rules to nonsense words.
* Implication - By over-regularizing, children were learning rules of grammar not imitating what is heard around them.
* Child language is a unique **not** **imitative** system of language.
* Supports argument that children biologically predisposed to acquire language
42
Transformational Grammar
* Rules that allow simple declarative statements to be modified to convey a range of more complex meanings
* Appears at age 2-4 years
eg:
* **Questions**. - Is mum helping Louise?
* **Negations**. - Mum is not helping Louise.
* **Passives**. - Louise is being helping Mum
* **Conjunctive** **Assertions**. - Mum is helping Louise, and Dot is watching her
* **Embedded** **Sentences.** - Louise said that Mum was watching her
43
Negation
* Bloom (1970):
* Children use negative words (i.e., no, not, can’t, don’t) to indicate three types of negative meaning:
* Non-existence.
* Rejection.
* Denial/implied or previously spoken statement not true.
44
Questioning
* The rules needed to convert an affirmative sentence into a question are acquired sequentially.
1. Holophrastic -Tone of voice eg: rising intonation
2. Two Word and Telegraphic Speech - Tone of Voice
3. Question Words - Who, what, where & Declarative sentence
4. Question Proper - Inversion of sentence subject and ausillary verb
45
Complex Sentences
* Emerge at 2 years to 4 years.
* Feature → Embedding:
* Appears at 3 years to 5 years.
* Syntax allows children to talk about cognitive states, false beliefs and false statements.
* Necessary prerequisite for mastery of theory of mind.
46
Embedding
* Co-ordinate simpler sentences into more complicated meanings.
* Inserts embedded clause under umbrella of larger phrase structure.
* eg: Do you mind if Mum puts the toothpaste away?
47
Theories of Language Acquisition
* Revisit the nature-nurture debate
* Central to explanations of language acquisition in childhood.
* Understood that language acquisition is the result of complex interplay of environmental and physiological/neurological factors
48
Biological Perspectives (5)
* Universal sequence (discussed earlier).
* Early responses to language.
* Physiological evidence.
* Critical period for language acquisition.
* Over-regularization of grammatical rules (discussed earlier).
49
Early Responses to Language
* Foetuses and newborn infants respond to language in highly sophisticated ways.
* DeCasper & Fife (1980):
* New born babies prefer the voice of their mothers over those of other women (and even their fathers).
50
Critical Period for Language Acquisition
* Lenneberg (1967):
* Language is learned more readily in childhood than in adolescence.
* Once brain lateralization has occurred at puberty, ability to acquire primary language is severely comprised.
* Example: Secret of the Wild Child (Genie Wiley).
51
Environmental Perspective
* THREE pieces of evidence:
* Imitation - Children learn to speak the language heard around them.
* Parentese.
* Necessity of social interaction for language acquisition (e.g., Genie).
52
Parentese
* Simplified language that adults use with young children
* Nine primary features
53
Features of Parentese
1. Simple, short sentences
2. Repetition
3. Exaggerated intonation contours
4. Long pauses between sentences
5. Emphasis of most important words
6. Echoing (Repeating)
7. Prompting (Rephrasing if child not understood)
8. Expansion (Restating)
9. Recasting (Rephrasing in different way while maintaining original meaning)
54
Parentese - Toni Cross 1976
* When primary caregivers used parentese children progressed significantly faster in acquisition of language
* Important features:
* Expansions, Repetitions, Recasts, Shorter sentences.
55
Language Acquisition Summary
* Children whose primary caregivers used parentese progressed significantly faster in acquisition of language
* Important features: Expansions, Repetitions, Recasts, Shorter sentences.
* Cognition and language enable the infant and child to develop socially in sophisticated ways.
* Cognition enables the child to understand that he/she has their own identity separate from others.
* This establishes the basis for the development of the self-concept.
* Development of a sophisticated set of symbols (language) enables the child to communicate in their social world.
* This establishes the basis for the development of relationships and social cognitions and perceptions
2052 - Lifespan Development
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