Child language acquisition

What are some features of parentese?

• High pitch

• Short utterances

• Telegraphic style

• Reduplication

• Questions

Holophrasis

One word represents a longer utterance

(“Door” while pointing)

What is over extension?

Common in children under 2 yrs 6 months

Over generalization of meaning

Under extension

Less common

Too narrow of a meaning

Aitchison (1987)

• Labelling (link between sounds and objects)

• Packaging (a words range of meaning)

• Network building (connections between words)

What did Aitchison believe?

• The speed of learning is influenced by innate abilities and environment

• Parentese could hinder acquisition

Piaget - Cognitivism

• Acquire language through thought and experience

• Children can produce linguistic structures when they understand the concept

CHALLENGE - cognitivism

• Cognitivism occurs in the “black box” of the brain

• It’s difficult to make precise connections

Fis phenomenon (Berko and Brown 1960)

• Perception of phonemes occurs earlier than production of phonemes

• Child “my fis” - Adult “Is this your fis?” child - “no”

Behaviourism - Skinner

• Stimulus and response

• Imitation

• Language is learnt through external stimuli

• Caregivers reinforce language

CHALLENGE - Behaviourism

• Children do not automatically pick up correct forms

• Grammatical structures are not imitated

• Fails to explain how children produce structures they haven’t heard before

Nativism - Chomsky

• Suggests that children are born with an innate capacity for language

• LAD is biologically programmed for speech

• Provides innate understanding for grammatical rules

CHALLENGE - Nativism

• The LAD is an abstract concept

• Heavily based on learner competence (of adults)

Virtuous errors

• Over application of grammar rules to irregular constructions

• Eg. “runned” instead of ran

Social learning theory - Vygotsky and Bruner

• Children will signal a want to learn

• They learn behaviour through example

• Learn through discovering it themselves

• Bruner suggests the “LASS”

CHALLENGE - SLT

• Aitchison suggests parentese can hinder child language

• Not possible to identify precise links between parent and child

Ursula Bellugi - 1967

• Use “no” at the beginning of sentences

• Moves “no” inside the sentence

• Achieves the standard form

Eric Lennenburg - Critical Period hypothesis

• There is an ideal “window” of time to acquire language in a linguistically rich environment

• The onset of puberty closes the window

• Today, they think around 7

Bard and Sach

Studied Jim - a child with deaf parents

His linguistic development was significantly lower than that of his peers

Contrasts Nativism

Study of Genie

• Isolated her whole life

• Never exposed to language

• Upon her release she could use words but not grammar or syntax

The Wug test - Jane Berko Gleason (1958)

• Child is told “this is a wug. There are two?”

• Very young children cannot answer

• 4-5 year olds say “two wugs”

• Small wug = baby wug not wugette/ wugling

CHALLENGE - wug test

• It is only really applicable to English