Unit 3 Language Development Exam

structuralist approach

analyze form of utterance, finding it to be composed of a subject, a main verb, and an object

syntax, sentence structure etc., rules and signs

take sentence as evidence that child knows English order rule covering active, declarative sentences

ex. I want milk, want, milk

functionalist approach

utterance determined by context and its consequences

social and cognitive

form is unimportant

ex. I want milk, presence of mother and hunger or thirst, receiving a glass of milk

competence approach

individual’s knowledge of language, rules

ex. She will be home yesterday, know that utterance is ill formed

performance approach

actual instances of language use (application)

nativist appraoch

language is too complex and is acquired too rapidly to have been learned though any known methods, aspects of language must be innate

ex. a child spontaneously using the correct grammatical structure of a sentence like "I go to the park" even though they've only heard "I went to the park" or "I will go to the park"

empiricist approach

influence of environment and nature of interactive language contexts within which child is immersed

environment, imitation, reinforcement

ex.when a child learns to say "mama" because they are positively reinforced by their mother's smile and affection each time they make a sound close to it

classic behavioral approach

observerable and measurable aspects of language

imitation, reinforcement, and conditioning

ex. a child learning the word "drink." A parent provides the stimulus of a cup (classical conditioning) and, when the child says "drink" (response), the parent reinforces the behavior by giving them a drink and offering praise (operant conditioning)

interactionist behavioral appraoch

many factors (social, linguistic, maturational/biological, cognitive) affect course of development, and these factors are mutually dependent upon, interact with, and modify one another

dynamic, active role, biological and social interactions

ex. a parent pointing at a banana and saying, "This is a banana," which combines a behaviorist reward (attention) with an interactionist social cue

classical conditioning

in behavioral approach

verbal stimuli and internal responses are cited as source of word meanings

operational conditioning

in behavioral approach

children’s productive speech is shaped by differential forces and punishments by environment (parents, caretakers etc.)

behavioral approaches

emphasizes performance over competence

language as a behavior like any other skills

classical and operant conditioning

imitation training

allows a shortcut to mature behavior without laborious shaping of each and every verbal response

grammatical frames through imitation, substituting their own words appropriate to the new context in which utterance occurs

behavioral approach problem

contrary evidence

limited applicability outside of controlled environments

parents do not typically reinforce correct grammar

linguistic appproaches

competence vs. performance

universal grammar

poverty of stimulus

language acquisition device

children as little cryptographers

hypothesis testing

universal grammar

Chomsky system of grammatical rules and categories common to all world’s languages

poverty of stimulus

linguistic approach

children learn more than what there environment provides in language input

ex. how children learn complex grammar, specifically knowing to contract a sentence like "He is happy" to "He's happy" but not a more complex sentence like "I wonder how happy he is at school"

language acquisition device (LAD)

Chomsky

decode linguistic input and deduce grammatical rules

innate language component

host of information about grammatical classes and possible transformations

ex. a child saying "goed" instead of "went" or "sheeps" instead of "sheep," demonstrating an innate ability to apply a general grammatical rule to a new word, even if it's an exception

hypothesis testing

linguistic approach

child’s notion of hierarchically organized sentence structure is further differentiated over time into noun and verb phrases and so on

children move from one-word stage to two-words at a time to multiword utterances

highlight children’s active role in acquisition of syntactic rules

ex. a child might say, "I want to buy a car blue," and if a parent corrects them, the child learns that the correct structure is "blue car"

cross-linguistic universals

patterns that occur across natural languages

brain asymmetry for language vs. non-language sounds

For language, the brain shows strong left-hemisphere dominance, especially in areas like Broca’s and Wernicke’s regions, which support speech production and language comprehension.

Non-language sounds (e.g., environmental noises, music notes) tend to be processed more bilaterally or in the right hemisphere.

Linguistic approaches emphasize that this asymmetry reflects the brain’s specialization for structured, rule-based symbolic processing rather than just sound perception.

interactionist approaches

middle ground between behaviorism and linguistic theories

cognitive, social interactionist, and usage-based approaches

cognitive approach piaget’s theory

cognitive skills fundamental to linguistic development

sensorimotor period

milestones are pre reqs for language (ex object permanence)

social interactionist approaches

caregivers and conversational bouts

joint attention and language development

stress that language has a structure and follow certain rules

skills may have developed from much simpler rote associations an imitations learned within social context

gestural and usage-based approaches

_ are foundations of language

_ precede language

mirror neuron system- understand others actions

acquired through repeated interactions

universalist bias

that all languages share fundamental structures and children are born with an innate ability to acquire language, often called universal grammar

ex. . “Children universally acquire nouns before verbs.”  Based on English-speaking, Western children; ignores languages where verbs may appear earlier.

history of variation in child language research

common patterns

minimal attention to individual differences

universalist bias in early language research

cross-sectional studies- focused on common structures

exclusion of participants in research studies

longitudinal studies- common focus on a few children

changes in 1970s

increased interest in semantic and pragmatic aspects of language- use language and achieve communication goals

expressive learners

higher use of social-personal words

ex hello, thank you

referential learners

dominance of general nominals, noun, verbs

ex. dog, ball, cup

children differ

children’s differing hypotheses about how language is used

social interactions vs. naming objects

fluency

produce language smoothly

precision

produce grammatically correct and accurate language

cautious approaches

precision, longer

risk-taking approaches

fluency, not precise

frozen phrases

prelearned chunks of speech that they repeat

ex. Let’sgo without space in words

gestalt type of speech

phrasal speech

involves a way of learning language by first processing "chunks" or scripts of language rather than individual words

analytic type of speech

a typical developmental process where a child first learns single words and then gradually combines them into phrases and sentences

smaller precise untis of speech

nominal strategy

more content words

ex. nouns, verbs

pronominal strategy

more pronouns

analytic style

role based

holistic style

memorized phrases

maternal conversational style

how parents talk to children

technoference

disruption from technology

interrupts interactions

socioeconomic status (SES)

correlation with rate of language development

quality/quantity

higher income tends to interact more with children

cultural factors

differences in sentence structures

bilingualism (BFLA vs ESLA vs SLA)

joint object attention

associated with referential learning

kid and parent focus on same object

context of interaction

book reading, ritualized games, routines- structured to practice language

interests of child and caregiver

cross-linguistic research

see how children learning different languages develop different pathways

research on phrasal language

many phrases in adult speech are stored/retrieved as holes

chunk, not word-by-word