Language development

What is language according to Brown, (1965)

“an arbitrary system of symbols which taken together make it possible … to transmit and understand an infinite variety of messages”

Infants are born with a special sensitivity to

language

What speech and language abilities do newborns have

• attend to speech in preference to other sounds

• can discriminate all phonemes in all languages

• can recognise mother’s voice and language at birth

• can recognise a familiar from an unfamiliar utterance

What are the 4 main components that a child must acquire

• phonology

  • rules governing the speech sounds of a language

• semantics

  • meanings encoded by language

  • meanings are assigned to units of language (morphemes)

    • morphemes: whole words/grammatical markers

• grammer

  • rules governing how words are built from morphemes and how words are combined (syntax)

• pragmatics

  • rules governing how language is used in a given context

What happens in phonological development

• 2 months: cooing

• 6 months: consonants are added, and babbling begins

• 12 months: first words

phonological development mostly complete by school age

What happens in semantic development

• young infants learn 1 to 3 words per month

• 12 months: children say their first words

  • but they comprehend more than they can produce

• 18 months: vocabulary learnt more rapidly (40 words/month)

semantic development parallels development in ability to categorise objects

What happens in grammatical development

• syntax requires more than one word utterance

• 1.5-2.5 years: 2 word ‘telegraphic speech’ emerges

  • focuses on high content words

  • shows grammar: e.g. “mommy shoe” not “shoe mommy”

  • leave out small words and morphemes like “-s” “-ed”

  • but they comprehend these in adult speech

• 2-3 years": 3 word sentences appear

  • English speakers show correct subject-verb-object order

  • grammatical morphemes are added

    • not always correct: over-regularisation

    • e.g. ‘I have two foots’

complexity of grammatical structures steadily increase with age

What happens in pragmatic development

• 12 months: ‘conversational’ turn-taking is mastered:

  • games like peek-a-boo appear (child actively maintains flow)

• preschool years: rules of successful interactions start to appear:

  • ‘turnabout’: speaker comments on what partner said and then requests partner to speak again

• middle childhood: children adapt their speech to the listener

What does the behaviourist theory, Skinner (1950s) propose about how language is learnt

Skinner proposed that language is learnt via operant conditioning

• proposed that adults selectively reinforce child’s babbling sounds

• reinforcement = parental approval, attention to child

believe that language is shaped

• reinforce sounds into words

• reinforce use of words in correct context

  • e.g. parent smiles when child says ‘doggie’ only when dog is present

propose that imitation is important to explain use of complex sentences

What are the 3 arguments in favour of the behaviourist theory

adults do reinforce children’s speech: “say please!”

• explain why children learn local language and dialect

evidence that infants imitate adult speech

• Papousek & Papouesk (1989)

  • found increasing imitation of mother’s speech sounds in infancy (pitch, duration & rhythm)

adult speech quality affects child’s learning:

• Clarke-Stewart (1973)

  • found that infants whose mothers talk to them a lot have larger vocabularies

What are 3 limitations of the behaviourist theory

over-regularisation of grammatical rules

• “my teacher holded the baby rabbits” (Pinker, 1995)

  • adults don’t use such words

  • suggests children develop grammatical rules

little evidence that mothers shape children’s grammar (Brown, 1969)

• examined taped conversations between mother and child

  • found that mothers corrected content rather than grammar

    • mothers corrected “that pig” when pointing to sheep

    • mothers didn’t correct, e.g. “want cup”

rate of learning

• school age children have about 10,000 word vocabulary

• capable of innumerable complex sentences

• reinforcement doesn't seem a practical explanation

What does the nativist theory, Chomsky (1960s) propose about the innate capacity for language acquisition

Chomsky (1960s) proposed innate capacity for language acquisition

Chomsky argues:

• the wide variation in surface structure between language can be reduced to a common set of universal rules:

  • grammatical rules of deep structure shared by all languages

  • called these rules ‘universal grammar’

What is the ‘Language Acquisition Device’ (LAD) - nativist theory

humans possess an innate ‘Language Acquisition Device’ (LAD)

• LAD detects statistical regularities in speech

• forms hypotheses about them, e.g. ‘-ed’ = indicates past tense

LAD is capable of learning any language in this way

the rules of ‘universal grammar’ are innate and embodies in LAD

• the LAD acquires the rules for transforming the surface structure of a language into deep structure

What are the 3 arguments in favour of nativist theory

nativists argue that the universal properties of language point to innate capabilities:

• language occurs in all cultures

• children go through the same stages of language development in all cultures

• languages share certain universal features

pidgin & creole languages

• Bickerton (1990)

  • studied language of immigrant workers in Hawaii in early 1900s

  • immigrants develop a pidgin to communicate

  • pidgin had no consistency word order, no tense etc.

  • but workers’ children developed a highly grammatical creole language

    • argued: the child doesn’t initially “learn” language, child possesses a genetic program for language

specific brain areas with localised language functions:

• Broca’s area in frontal lobe (production)

• Wernicke’s area in temporal lobe (comprehension)

What are the 3 limitations of the nativist theory

• a single set of rules governing all languages (universal grammar) has not yet been identified

• doesn’t acknowledge importance of cognitive development

  • language reflects understanding of the world

    • e.g. phrases like “all gone” emerge when able to solve advanced object permanence problems

• ignores effects of social experience

What does the cognitive theory, Piaget propose about learning and language

Piaget proposed:

• a child’s cognition is built from sensorimotor experience

• child develops ‘schemas’ for objects and events

• cognition precedes language

before age 2:

• schemas represent sensorimotor information (actions and senses)

at around age 2:

• child becomes capable of symbolic thought: can think in words

• children develop rules of language, but not through LAD

• language grows from broader cognitive abilities

What do the Piagetians argue - cognitive theory

• linguistic ability reflects the child’s stage of cognitive development

• children of a given age are alike in linguistic ability because they have had similar experiences, and thus have similar cognitions

What are 3 arguments in favour for cognitive theory

object permanence is taken as evidence for symbolic thought

• language emerges after this is achieved

children’s first words are of familiar entities

• they use knowledge of the world understood non-verbally through actions + senses

phrases like “all gone” emerge when able to solve advanced object permanence problems

What is one limitation of the cognitive theory

ignored the importance of social influences on learning

• viewed children as little scientists, learning in a solitary way

• ignored motivation and influence from people around them

What does the social interactionist theory argue

proposes that infants first learn about social world

• provides basis for language

How do parents influence a child’s language - social interactionist theory

parents tend to assign meaning to child’s sounds & utterances

• e.g. burp → “you really enjoyed that, didn’t you?”

When does conversational turn-taking occur - social interactionist theory

emerges at about 3 months (adult largely maintains flow)

• 12 months: games like peek-a-boo appear (child active in maintaining flow)

What are 2 arguments in favour of social interactionist theory

• highlights importance of non-verbal social behaviours that are necessary for language development

• can explain poor language skills of children raised with little or poor social interaction

What are 2 limitations of social interactionist theory

• not clear how it explains development of grammar

• ignores importance of fundamental perceptual & cognitive processes in language acquisition