Summative Assessment Part 1

Language

-socially shared code or conventional system for representing concepts using arbitrary symbols and rule-governed combination of those symbols

-the principal method of human communication, consisting of words used in a structural and conventional way and conveyed by speech, writing, or gestures

-complex and dynamic system of conventional symbols that is used in various modes for thought and communication

Contemporary views of language hold that

• language evolves within specific historical, social, and cultural contexts

• language, as rule-governed behavior, is described by at least five parameters

• language learning and use are determined by the interaction of biological, cognitive, psychosocial, and environmental factors

• effective use of language for communication requires a broad understanding of human interaction including such associated factors as nonverbal cues, motivation, and sociocultural roles

speech

Neuromuscular activity that turns language into an oral sound signal and transmits it to an aural receiver

Why does language not = speech

speech is referring to the physical and verbal execution of transmitting and receiving sounds, which is a component of some languages. However, there is more to language than speech. Language is a complex and dynamic system of conventional symbols that is used in various modes for thought and communication. Some languages, such as ASL, do not use speech at all.

communication

a process of information exchange between a sender and receiver through a common system of symbols, signs, or behaviour; it is unique and similar within humans

Examples of animal communication

Waggle dance of bees, pheromones of cats

Why does language not equal communication?

you can communicate without using language, language is just a specific communication tool. Language focuses more on words, signs, or symbols, while communication focuses on the message.

What are the 3 specific characteristics that human language as (that forms of communication may not)

productivity, semanticity/symbolism, possibility of displacement

Productivity

Speakers can make new utterances and recombine the forms they have

learned

semanticity/symbolism

representation of objects, events and ideas symbolically

possibility of displacement

Messages do not need to be tied to the immediate context

what are the 3 domains of language

form, content, use

what are the subtypes of language form

phonology, morphology, syntax

what is the subtype of language content

semantics

what is the subtype of language use

pragmatics

phonology

Study of the sound system of a language, the sounds the language uses and the rules for their combination

phoneme

smallest unit of sound

morphology

rules that govern the use of morphemes in a language that are concerned with the internal organization of words

morpheme

smallest unit of meaning

syntax

rules by which sentences are made; how to combine words into acceptable phrases

semantics

the study of the meaning of language; vocabulary

pragmatics

the rules for when and how to use language to be an effective communicator in a particular culture/society

Children appear to reach developmental milestones ________, regardless of culture or language

in the same order

according to Keller, what are the 2 prototypical cultural models of parenting

interdependence and autonomy

Interdependence Model

-Child is a member of the community

-Children don't sleep alone, are in constant contact with caregiver, and are talked to less

Autonomy model

child is an independent agent who is talked to a lot. There is a desire for independence and sleeping alone

What are the 2 examples of early communicative skills observed in children from different cultures

Example 1: Lieven & Stoll (2013)

· Looked at the communication of two different groups and recorded them

· Village in eastern Nepal (Chintang) vs rural area in western Germany

· Found that there was a similar onset of emerging communicative skills (ex. pointing, showing, attention-getting, etc.) in both cultures

· However, the skills developed at a somewhat different rate

o German children tended to point more (probably give one-on-one interaction with adults)

Example 2: Callahan et al. (2011)

· Development of children in two rural communities (India and Peru) and in a university town in eastern Canada

· 8-month-olds and 3.5 year-olds

Children reached developmental milestones at similar ages - some variation as children got older

Nativist Theories (nature)

-people are born knowing all they need to acquire language, as they biologically develop, so does their language

-insist that language is too complex and is acquired too rapidly to have been learned through any known methods (e.g., imitation), so some critical aspects of the language system must be innate

Empiricist theories (nurture)

-focus on the influence of the environment and the nature of the interactive language contexts within which the child is immersed.

-language input and exposure are the most important

Structuralism

analyzing the form of the utterance from observable data; do they know how English works?

functionalism

focused more on the pragmatic side of the interaction; utterance is followed by observing an action/getting a response for the utterance

competence

-individuals knowledge of language

performance

-actual instances of language use

what is associated with structuralism

competence

what is associated with functionalism

performance

what are the classic theories of language acquisition

behavioural and linguistic

what are the interactionist theories of language acquisition

cognitive, social, usage/gestural

interactionist theories (meaning)

these say that multiple factors after development interact with each other

main points of behavioural approaches

-focus on measurable aspects of language as a behaviour

-emphasize performance over competence, in that intentions and implicit knowledge of grammatical rules are avoided

-child is viewed as a passive recipient of stimuli

how is language acquired according to behavioural theories?

-Classical and operant conditioning

-Productive speech is the result of reinforcements and punishments supplied by environmental agents

-Language development is determined by training, not maturation

-Imitation is an important factor for language learning

main points of linguistic approaches

-language is innate and has a structure independent of language use

-developed by Chomsky who believed in the language faculty

-children have a universal grammar built into their brains

-children also have an innate biological language component specializes in processing, called the language acquisition device

-favours competence over performance

-believes in a critical period for language acquisition

universal grammar

Noam Chomsky's theory that all the world's languages share a similar underlying system of principles, conditions, and rules and that it is considered to be innate

language acquisition device

Chomsky's concept of an innate, prewired mechanism in the brain that allows children to acquire and process language naturally

language faculty

the hypothetical component of the brain devoted to language

what are the 2 components that the language faculty must have

cognitive system and performance system

critical period for language acquisition

between 2 years and puberty; certain timeframe children have where they can be exposed to language and adequately learn it

what are the 2 cognitive approaches for language acquisition

Piaget's Theory and information processing model

Main Points of Piaget's Theory

-Language is not a separate innate characteristic, but rather an ability that results from cognitive development

-The sequence of cognitive development determines the sequence of language development

-Complex structures of language are neither innate nor learned

-Children

need to complete the sensorimotor period before using language

main point of information processing models

-Children are novice information processors (little computers)

what are the 2 information processing models

competition model and parallel-distributed processors

competition model

-Various cues in the language environment compete with one another and are processed

-As the mind is processing a sentence or phrase, it is rapidly computing these different probabilities, often based on past experiences with similar sentence constructions and the grammatical rules taught for a given language

-Serial processing: Operations performed one at a time

-Parallel processing: Multiple operations occur simultaneously

parallel distributed processing

-Consist of a series of processing units called activation nodes which are connected to other

nodes by pathways that vary in the strength of the connection-Language comprehension and production involve parallel processing-Multilayered networks of connections: Interpret linguistic input and generate speech

-Eg. If you are using the word dog a lot, then the node continues to get activated and then gets learned. The more times info is given, the more the node is activated and the easier it's acquired

main points of social interaction approach

· Speech directed to children (motherese or infant-directed speech) facilitates language development

· Language emerges from interplay between children’s linguistic and cognitive capacities and social environment

· Non-linguistic aspects of interaction are key: turn- taking, mutual gaze, joint attention, and cultural conventions

-Cognitive development results from interaction between children’s innate skills (nativist/linguistic) and social experiences (empiricist/behavioural)

-Social interactive language learning: Interactions between caregivers and children are the basis for future conversational patterns

-zone of proximal development

Social interactive language learning

· Interactions between caregivers and children are the basis for future conversational patterns

Zone of proximal development

Area between what a child can accomplish independently (actual developmental level) and what he can accomplish with another person who has greater knowledge or skills (level of potential development)

Main points of gestural and usage-based approach

· Language acquisition is the product of cognitive and social processes

· Human language roots consist of communicative pointing and iconic gestures

-mirror neurons are support for this

-signs (including ASL) can convey the same information as a spoken sentence without mastering syntactic rules

-pattern finding (a cognitive skill), joint attention, and interactions with caregivers are important for emergence of grammar

mirror neurons

a neuron that fires both when performing an action and when observing the same action performed by another person

joint attention

a process in which social partners intentionally focus on a common referent in the external environment

Infants can ____ different speech sounds before they ____ them

distinguish; produce

word segmentation

the process of discovering where words begin and end in fluent speech

when is speech segmentation acquired

8 months

Early babbling sounds are similar across languages, but this changes towards the end of the____

first year

what are the 5 criteria for deciding if an infant is engaging with intentional communication

1. Child makes eye contact with the partner while gesturing or vocalizing (alternate gaze between object and partner)

2. Some gestures become consistent (opening and closing hand when the baby wants something)

3. Some vocalizations become consistent (producing "eh eh" when the baby wants something)

4. After a gesture or vocalization the child pauses to wait for a response from the partner

5. The child persists in attempting to communicate if he/she is not understood (can modify behaviour)

When do the first signs of intentional communication tend to emerge

8-10 months

What are 4 ways that infants can communicate with their caregivers

-Show an object to the caregiver while vocalizing

-Give an object to the caregiver

-Point to direct attention to an object (around 6 to 10 months)

-Look towards an object indicated by a caregiver (around 9 to 12 months)

when does joint attention emerge

around 12 months

protowords

Vocalizations with consistent sound patterns used across situations but unique to the child

what are the two main aspects of a caregiver's speech when communicating with infants

child directed speech and the conversational nature

child directed speech (motherese)

Speech directed to infants that contains specific characteristics

what are 5 characteristics of child directed speech

-Higher pitch

-Slower rate of speech

-Variable pitch (greater pitch variation)

-Exaggerated stress

-Simplified sentence structure

why is the conversational nature of caregiver's speech important for language development? and what does this mean?

Caregivers comment on various nonverbal and verbal behaviours exhibited by the infant; as infants grow up caregivers change in what they accept as a turn in a conversation. Important because the quantity of adult-to-child speech is important for rate of language development

When do children start putting words together?

age 2

What is timing of first word combinations related to

timing of first words, time that they understand around 50 words, mother's responsiveness to child communication at age 1

what are 6 methods of assessing early comprehension of syntax

-diary studies

-act-out tasks

-direction tasks

-picture-choice tasks

-preferential looking paradigm

-ERP's

Diary studies

document conditions under which the child can or cannot understand

Act-out tasks

the experimenter asks the child to act out a sentence such as Make the girl kiss the duck using toys)

direction tasks

child is asked to carry out a direction, such as Tickle the duck, or answer questions

Picture-choice tasks

child must select the picture that best represents the linguistic form being tested

Preferential looking paradigm

Experimental method used with prelinguistic infants that tracks eye movement

-ex. reading a sentence and seeing if the children reliably spend longer looking at a correct depiction of the scene

ERP and syntax

2-year-olds showed different brain responses to grammatical vs. ungrammatical sentences

when do children produce single-word utterances

12-24 months

when do children produce two-word utterances

18-24 months

when do children produce longer multi-word utterances

24-30 months

One-word stage

■ Comprehension is ahead of production

■ One-word utterances express sentence-like meaning

Two-word stage

■ Most of the child utterances are two words-long

■ Child's language is creative (no imitation of adult sentences)

■ Sentences are simple

in the two word stage, what are early sentences mostly composed of?

content words such as nouns, verbs, and adjectives

in the two word stage, what are early sentences mostly lacking?

function words such as prepositions, conjunctions, and articles

telegraphic speech

Speech that consists of content words without function words; kitty go home

what is the average age of syntactic growth

18 months

at what age do most children produce word combinations

2 years

_____ is a good indicator of syntactic development

Sentence length

Stage 1 (browns stages of early syntactic growth)

MLU= 1.0-2.0, age= 12-26 mo.

Stage 2 (browns stages of early syntactic growth)

MLU= 2.0-2.5, age= 27-30 mo.

Stage 3 (browns stages of early syntactic growth)

MLU=2.5-3.0, age=31-34 mo.

Stage 4 (browns stages of early syntactic growth)

MLU=3.0-3.5, age= 35-40

Stage 5 (browns stages of early syntactic growth)

MLU=3.5-4.0, age=41-46

what does predict the order of morpheme acquisition? what doesn't?

complexity; frequency of parent's usage

Average order of acquisition of grammatical morphemes

what are the first 3 pronouns acquired

I, it, you

when are subjective and objective pronouns acquired?

by age 3