Psychology of Language First Language Acquisition

When does a child start to talk

Between 1 and 2 years old (one word utterances first)

An influential theory: nativism

Language cannot be learned exclusively from the input

• There is a universal grammar that underlies all languages

• Innate principles guide language acquisition

• Parameter settings based on the input the child receives

• Language is unique to humans

Nativism: Big Bang theory

Language emerged suddenly in human evolution

Language learning starts before birth

4-day old infants can discriminate native from non-native language (spoken by the same individual)

• This is the result of pre-natal exposure, not instinct

Challenges for babies: variability

• Within sounds (same speech sound can be produced differently)

• Between sounds (similar sounds)

• Within speakers (same person does not speak the same all the time)

• Between speakers (everyone speaks differently)

• Between context (speech changes depending on the situation)

Imparative pointing

They point because they want something

Declarative pointing

They point to share interest or to draw someone’s attention to something

Babbling

Brabbelen: when infants explore the sound of language (around 6 months)

Pre-verbal language development

1. Turn taking: learning when to pauze, listen and respond

2. Prosodic contours: the pitch and rythem pattens in speech that give it a melody

3. Non-verbal behavior: gestures, facial expressions

4. Mutual, reciprocal behavior: looking at each other, at gestures

5. Laughing in response etc.

Phonemes in sign language: handscape

The shape of a hand

• Can change meaning

Phonemes in sign language: location

Place on or near the body where the sign is produced

• Can change sign

Phonemes in sign language: orientation

Direction the palm and fingers are facing

• Can change meaning (in or outwards)

Phonemes in sign language: movement

Straight, circular, fast etc.

• Crucial for distinguishing signs and for grammatical functions

Phonemes in sign language: fingerspelling

A-Z

A pantomime in sign language

Not bound by linguistic rules

High Amplitude Sucking

0-4 month olds

The amplitude (strength) of their sucking changes depending on their attention

• Non-nutritive sucking: for exploration

• Force and time of sucking can be measured with a pressure transducer

• Researchers can determine whether babies can distinguish between different sounds or stimuli and which they prefer

Head-turn preference paradigm

4,5 - 18 month olds

Infants will turn their heads longer toward sounds they prefer, find interisting or recognize, providing a non-verbal measure of language processing

Recording brain activity in babies

EEG & MEG

Toddlers learning words: arbitrary mapping

Language works because we collectively agree on symbols, not because the sounds resemble their meaning

• Between form and meaning

Toddlers learning words: iconic mapping

Resemble or imitate what they represent

• Between form and meaning

Iconic mapping: ideophones

Vividly evoke sensory experiences (‘pikapika’ = something sparkling in Japanese)

Iconic mapping: onomatopoeia

Word that imitate real sounds (beep, click)

Iconic mapping: iconic co-speech gestures

Hand or body movements that visually resemble the action or object being described

Iconinc mapping: iconicity in sign language

Signs that visually resemble their referent

Early language production: the one-word stage

Infants - 12 months

• People

• Things

• Observations

• Requests

Early language production: the one word stage + gestures

Infants - 15 months old

Early language production: the two-word stage

Infants - 18 months old

• e.g. mama gone

• e.g. doggy sad

• e.g. give this

We know it’s a real two-word utterance if there is variation

• e.g. doggy gone

• e.g. ball gone

Early language production: telegraphic speech

Infants - 2 years

• e.g. doggy bite no finger

Mostly contain content words, but omit function words and grammatical morphemes

• Simple/more complex sentences

Learning the rules

U-shaped development in use of past tense

1. Correct use (memorized forms)

2. Overregularization (overapplying the rule to irregular verbs)

3. Correct use (rule + exception)

Syntactic bootstrapping

When children figure out a word’s meaning by looking at how it’s used in a sentence

• e.g. ‘‘She is blicking at the ball’’

• Tells them that blicking is probably something you do to the ball

• The grammar and structure help them to guess what the word refers to

Social context helps in word learning: beyond associative learning

Social cues help them understand the meaning intentionally, not just by simple association

Social context helps in word learning: referential intent

Children pay attention to what the speaker intends to refer to - they infer that words are meant to label things or actions in the world

Social context helps in word learning: referential transparancy of language input

Words are easier to learn when the context clearly shows what the word refers to

e.g. ‘‘Look at that apple!’’

The Gavagai problem

Imagine a linguistic say ‘‘Gavagai’’ while pointing at a rabbit. How do you know what ‘‘Gavagai’’ means? Rabbit, animal, furry, lunch?

• There is no simple obvious way to map a word to meaning just by observing a situation

The Whole-Object bias

While babies hear a new word while looking at an object, they usually assume the word labels the entire object, not just a part, its color, material or what it does

Preference for basic-level category terms

‘‘Rabbit’’ instead of ‘‘Animal’’ or ‘‘Netherland dwarf’’

The mutual-exclusivity bias

Children often assume that each object only has one label

When they hear a new word, they tend to map it onto the object that doesn’t already have a name

Preschoolers learning sentences: building blocks

Sentence constituents: different words can take the same place in a sentence

• e.g. ‘‘I see you’’ (pronoun)

• ‘‘I see the audience’’ (article + noun)

Children can notice and remember this

Semantic bootstrapping

By looking at what words mean, children can guess how sentences are organized even before they fully understand grammar

• Verbs for actions, nouns for objects etc.

Agglutinative languages

Words are often formed by stringing together many morphemes, each adding a specific meaning or grammatical function (e.g. Turkish)