Child Language Acquisition

Behaviorist Perspective

language learning is the result of imitation, practice, feedback on success, and habitat formation

• skinner’s verbal behaviour (1957)

• study of animals (Operant conditioning; rewards and punishments for behaviours)

• children’s mind is a Tabula Rosa, or a clear state

• publicly observable response (performance-focused)

• stimuli-response, habitat formation and conditioning

Nativist/Innatist Perspective

language acquisition is based on internal, language-specific cognitive abilities

• chomskyan perspective (1959)

• genetic capacity, biological predisposition, or LAD

• nature, as opposed to behaviourists’ nurture

• children speak when ready just like other biological functions

• environment offers only a basic contribution

• complex syntactic structures can never be learned through imitation

• importance of Rule Formation

Interactionist Perspective

language develops as a result of the interaction between internal (cognitive) characteristics and the environment

• emphasis on the role of cognitive development of children in language acquisition

• Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky

• kids learn through thousands of hours of interactions with people and items around them; childrens ability to learn from experience

• language develops as a result of

  • interaction between internal (general cognitive; learning ability, not necessarily an innate capacity for languages) characteristics of the child and the external environment

  • an interplay between linguistic structures. cognitive abilities and the social and linguistic environment

• hypothesizes that language learning is based on the same cognitive processes as the learning of any other knowledge or skill

Emergentism/Connectionism

language is believed to emerge out of a complex network of interconnections between neurons

• inspired by the structure of nervous system, language is believed to emerge out of a complex network of interconnections between neurons

• language acquisition is based on the same cognitive mechanisms that allow the child to learn many other things. NO LAD!

• language acquisition is the result of exposure to input. input frequency is a powerful predictor of what will be learned and frequency of exposure determines construction of associations

• when such associations are strong enough, the units and patterns become permanently acquired

• in acquiring language, the child’s brain makes connections between things that go together

  • whether those things are language form and meaning or different language forms that go together

Cooing

• first few months

• vowel-like sounds (like [i] or [u]

• velar consonants (back part of the tongue against the soft palate)

Babbling

• 6-8 months

  • combinations of vowels and consonants (ba-ba, ga-ga)

• 9-10 months

  • recognizable intonation patterns and nasal sounds (ma-ma)

One-Word/Single Unit Stage

• 12-18 months

  • utterance of single words (cup, cat, cookie…)

  • multi-word but single unit (holophrastic) terms

Holophrastic

a single form functioning as a phrase or sentence

• may be overextended and used for the wrong objects

Two-Word Stage

• 18-20 months

  • lexicon beyond 50 items

  • variety of lexical combinations (baby chair, mommy go)

  • communication is happening

• age of 2

  • 200-300 words in child’s lexicon and capable of understanding five times as many

Multiple-word Speech

• 2-2.5 years

  • increase in voc. size but theres a variation in word forms

  • string of lexical morphemes (meaning-carrying units)

  • some sentence building with correct word order (this shoe all wet)

Question formation stages

1. 18-26 months

   • wh- questions (where kitty)

   • rising intonation (doggie?)

2. 22-30 months

   • more complex structures with wh- (what book name?)

   • rising intonation (you want eat?)

3. 24-40 months

   • movement of the auxiliary (can I have a piece?)

   • close to adult formation (why kitty can’t stand up?)

Acquisition of Morphology

• 2-2.5 years old

  • emergence of inflectional morphemes (-ing, plural s)

• around 4 years old

  • overgeneralizing of morphemes like feets, mans…

  • overgeneralizing of -ed ending (goed)

Acquisition of Semantics

during the holophrastic stage

• a lot of overextension based on similarities in shape, sound and size (mom for all ladies, ball for anything round)