Child language updated theory

Nelosn’s first 50 words study

• Studied 18 childrens’ first 50 words

• Naming things/ actions + events/ describing/ personal and social T

Truth-valuereinforcement

Brown, Cazdin and Bellugi

Parents respond to truthfulness and not purpose of reinforcement

Principles and Parameters theory (Pinker)

By hearing the rules of language, children are able to replicate them effectively

Reading meaning into social situations (MacNamara)

Children have innate capacity to read into social meaning

Aitchison’s stages of acquisition of vocabulary

Labelling (linking sounds)/ packaging(understanding range of meaning)/ network building (grasping connection)

Stages of interrogative acquisition (Bellugi + Klima)

Initially expressed with rising intonation

Construct closed questions with auxillary before pronoun

Pre- speech interaction (Clarke- Stewart)

Children who’s parents talk to them in early childhood achieve a greater vocabulary later

Universal grammar (Chomsky)

The idea that we are born with preconceived understanding of grammar rules

Baby Talk register (Ferguson)

• Higher pitch

• Slower speech

• Exaggerated intonation

• Simplified vocab

Stages of negation (Bellugi)

• Begins sentence with “no”

• Negation moves inside clause

• Achieves standard form

Motherese hypothesis (Newport, Gleitman and Gleitman)

Restricted properties of CDS help language acquisition

Not widely accepted

Telegraphic speech

Utterances without function words

Taxonomy of language functions

Instrumental/ regulatory/ Interactional/ Personal/ Imaginative/ informative