Language Acquisition

Language Acquisition

The process of acquiring the sounds, morphemes, words, and rules for combining them

Imitation Theory

children listen and imitate (doesn’t account for production/understanding of new sentences)

Reinforcement Theory

adults reinforce accurate form & correct inaccurate (doesn’t account for lack of response to correction)

Innateness Hypothesis

Humans are genetically predisposed to acquire and use language

(linguistic universals - basic features shared by all languages

universal grammar - structural characteristics shared by all languages

critical period - time period in which a behavior must be acquired [birth to onset of puberty, neglected children, feral children])

linguistic universals

basic features shared by all languages

universal grammar

structural characteristics shared by all languages

critical period

time period in which a behavior must be acquired [birth to onset of puberty, neglected children, feral children]

what aspects of language may exist for critical period?

syntax in 1st language acquisition and phonology in 2nd language acquisition

Active Construction of a Grammar

The ability to develop rules is innate, but that the actual rules are based on the speech children hear around them

Connectionist Theories

Language is learned by creating neural connections in the brain through exposure to language and by using language

The strength of these connections is due to input frequency (some underlying process of determining a statistical pattern is innate)

Social Interaction Theory

Children acquire language through social interaction, with older children and adults in particular

Children must develop rules; heavy emphasis on social interaction and type of input rather than simple expusure

Stark’s Stages of Vocal Development

Stage 1

Reflexive (0-2 months)

crying/fussing and vegetative (burps, coughs, sneeze) sounds

Stark’s Stages of Vocal Development

Stage 2

Control of phonation (1- 4 months)

cooing, gooing, and laughter (6 - 16 weeks)

starts as one long vowel (coo)

back sounds + vowel-(goo)

laughter around 16 weeks

Stark’s Stages of Vocal Development

Stage 3

Expansion (3 - 8 months)

series of vowel sounds

producing growls, squeals, and friction noises

Marginal babbling: short strings of consonant-like like and vowel-like sounds

variety of different consonants and vowels observed (/k/ and /g/ first, then about 6 months /p/, /m/, /n/, /b/, and /d/

Stark’s Stages of Vocal Development

Stage 4

Canonical Babbling/Syllables (5 - 10 months)

presence of true syllables (e.g. baba)

syllables are consonant + vowel combinations not usually seen as request for needs or wants

not observed for children who are deaf (although children exposed to ASL babble with hands)

Stark’s Stages of Vocal Development

Stage 5

Advanced forms (9 - 18 months)

Diphthongs (combination of 2 vowels)

complex consonant vowel combinations

different consonant + vowel combinations are produced (e.g. “bado”)

Jargon - wordless sentences observed

Phonological acquisition

regardless of language, all children acquiring speech sounds make production mistakes on the road to mastery

sounds that ____ maximally from one another are first to be mastered

differ (ex: /ma/ /pa/)

In longer words with repeating CV patterns, some CV syllables are ____ based on stress

deleted (ex: potato /deido/, banana /nanuh/)

production lags behind comprehension by…

3 months

Regardless of language, children go through the ___ major stages

same

One-Word Stage (holophrastic stage)

begins with naming (people, objects, pets, etc)

then verbs and other useful words (go, no, gimme, mine, etc)

Two-Word Stage

Consistent set of word orders determined by semantic relationship:

agent + actions: baby sleep

action + object: kick ball

action + location: sit chair

entity + location: teddy bed

possessor + possession: mommy book

entity + attribute: block red

demonstrative + entity: this show

(18 - 24 months) telegraphic speech

telegraphic speech

omission of function words

function morphemes

developed in a consistent order beginning in two-word stage:

• ing (present progressive), in, on

• ed (past tense)

• plural -s

• possessive ‘s

• -s (third person present)

Plurals progression

singular (mouse) →

irregular may apear briefly (mice) →

morpheme -s appears

• may over generalize (mans)

• words ending in sibilants are unchanged (mouse)

• siilant plural ending /IZ/ (mouses, but also manses)

→ irregular (mice)

Negatives progression

• “no” added to beginning of utterance )no baby sleep, no I drink milk)

• no, not, can’t don’t inserted between subject and verb (baby no sleep, I not drink milk)

Interrogative

GO FILL IN BECAUSE YOU WERE FALLING BEHIND IN LECTURE

by age 6 kids have almost ____ words

14,000

Semantics

GO FILL IN BECAUSE YOU WERE FALLING BEHIND IN LECTURE

complexive concepts

a set of objects that do not have a unifying characteristics, but are associated together with the meaning of a particular word on successive uses

(brother in a band example: “oo” is associated with band, leather jackets, instruments, and cigarettes)

overextensions

child applies a word to more things or in more contexts than the meaning indicates

(boo calling sully “kitty” just because he is furry)

(every vehicle with wheels gets called “truck”)

underextensions

child applies a word to fewer things or in fewer contexts than they should

(“toy” only extends to teddy bears)

relational terms

correct use requires knowledge of absoluter size of object in question and its position on a scale of similar objects (ex: large, small)

deictic expression

personal, temporal, spacial aspects (ex: i/you, now/then, here/there) “hold you”

what two things do adults use to get children to pay attention:

attention getters & attention holders

attention getters & attention holders fall into two broad classes:

names and exclamations & mudulations

Names and exclamations

“Mitch, there’s a monster truck.”

“Hey! That’s a dirty monster truck.”

Modulations

high pitch voice

whispering

attention getters & attention holders also include…

gestures and touch

talking about the “here and now”

done by naming, describing, narrating (prioritizing nouns over pronouns)

encourage taking turns

early on, whatever the infant does is treated as a conversational turn

making corrections

done to make sure child’s contribution is true (explicit or implicit)

adults ater the way we say things to children by:

slowing down, using short simple sentences, higher pitch, repeat frequently

simultaneous bilingualism

learning more than one language from birth

sequential bilingualism

learning a second language as a young child

second-language acquisition

learning a second language later in life

influences on second language learning

similarity of native language to second

transfer (positive and negative) of the native language on the second

age

working memory

motivation

context and amount of exposure