Language Development

5 Basic Components of Sound Language: Phonology

- knowledge of sounds used in a given language

- detect: meaning we heard something

- discriminate: what does it mean/ what is the meaning

- produce speech: reproduce what we just heard

5 Basic Components of Sound Language: Morphology

- understand the way sounds can be combined to form words

- infants learn to combine sounds to make it meaningful

- specifically toddlers, language is important because toddlers are able to learn that there's a word for everything (symbolic learning) that is tangible like water bottle is for water bottle and when they say water bottle, other people know what they are talking about

5 Basic Components of Sound Language: Semantics

- understanding that when you put certain sounds together, it makes meaning

growing vocab signals an increase in semantic knowledge; the more words that a toddler has, there'll be an increase in knowing what those words mean

ex. synonyms: two words that kind of mean the same thing

5 Basic Components of Sound Language: Syntax

- knowledge of the structure of sentences

rules for how words are combined to form sentences

ex. adjective: tall, verb: running → sentence order: tall running man in English

ex. in Spanish the order is swapped so if you directly translate it, the grammar would be improper

5 Basic Components of Sound Language: Pragmatics

- understanding how to use language to communicate effectively

if you ask someone a question, you usually lift the ends of your sentence to make it sound like a question

we talk to children differently because their vocab is smaller so we need to speak at the level of their language development

emojis change the way we perceive the text so it facilitates the pragmatics

Contextual Influences on Language Development: Poverty

less developed language skills

less exposure to speech

lower quality parent-child interactions

increase household instability and disorder