pp. 194-195 (intro)
language development (195-203), including box 6.1 on p. 200
process of language acquisition (pp. 203-220), including box 6.2 on p. 210 and box 6.3 on p. 215
INTRODUCTION
symbols
we can use these creativity and flexibly to rep our thoughts feelings, knowledge, and to communicate
we focus on childrens understanding and creation of nonlinguistic symbols, like pictures and models
dominant theme here is nature and nurture, and sociocultural context in how we acquire language across cultures and communities
theres also individual differences as we consider developmental language disorders
active child, comes in as children learn to use symbols to communicate
LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
by 5 years, most children have mastered basic structure of native language or languages, spoken or manually signed
comprehension: what others say/sign/write
production: the act of speaking/signing/writing
children understand more than they can say!!!
THE COMPONENTS OF LANGUAGE
all languages share overarching similarities
sounds —> words —> sentences —> convos
this system is generative, meaning we use a finite set of words and can generate an infinite number of sentences + ideas from combining words
we can also understand new words that we have never heard before bcz of familiar words and grammatical structures (ex. plural of wug is wugs, based on just the grammatical structure of the word wug)
phonemes: are units of sound
ex. lake and rake are different by the one phoneme /r/ vs /l/
differnet languages use different phonemes (which is why speakers of some languages will have a harder time making the sounds that speakers of another language do bcz that phoneme just isn’t in their language and their mouth isnt used to using it, and those sound combinations dont occur in english at all)
morphemes
smallest unit of MEANING
ex. dog. dog is just one morpheme. you can break it into other phonemes, but not other units of MEANING. dogS is two morphemes, bcz we have dog, meaning the animal, and the -s is a plural
even if you knew the meaning of each word you would not understand what they were saying unless you knew how words combined in the language
question. what. what is this saying. je suis confused. wdym what is being combined? is it like if i knew every word in the sentence but not the grammar i wouldn’t get it? question!! p. 196
syntax
permissible combos of words from diff ctageories
ex. lila ate the lobster IS NOT THE SAME AS the lobster ate lila
diff languages orgnaize this differently, ex. russian noun ending in “a” means the entity does the eating, the same noun ending in “u” refers to the thing eaten
pragmatics
the undrestanding of how language is typically used in a specific cultural context
this includes context, emotional tone to read between lines, in some socieites it would be bizarre to be addressed by a stranger
its just the cutlural rules and contextual variations of a langugae
WHAT IS REQUIRED OF LANGUAGE
A HUMAN BRAIN
lol
language is species-specific, meaning only humans get it in normal course of development, and its species-universal! meaning that literally all children acquire it!! (until typical development ofc)
no other animals develop anyhting as cmoplex or general as human langauge BUT ANIMALS DO COMMUNICATE WITH EACH OTHER!!!!!
theres been success (although limited) in training nonhuman primates to use communicative systems(!!!!) (gorillas and chimpanzees have been using manual signs, and can label objects and make requests)
KANZI
great ape
sign learning
used a lexigram board (graphic symbols which repped specific objects and actions), vocab grew to over 350 words, combines symbols but whether these combined symbols can be considered syntactically structured sentences is not clear!!
unfort. deeply unfort. but also interesting, cause arent they just making a new language where there is a new syntax?? but also in linguistics we dont even know what a language is lol
HAVE TAUGHT NONPRIMATE ANIMALS SPOKEN LANGAUGE!!!!
rico, border collie (dog), knew more than 200 words, and learned using same kinds of processes that toddlers use!!
but there were importnat limitations that ig distinguished language learning in humans and nonhuman animals
same with alex an african gray parrot!!
THE DIFFERENCE IS
with humans, they get it naturally, bcz the brain is built for it, but nonhuman animals require concentrated training
and nonhuman animals basically dont have much syntactic structure
but humans suck at learning communicative systems fo other species
BRAIN-LANGUAGE LATERALIZATION
hemispheric differences in language functioning!!
left-hemisphere specializes in language most of the time!!
using PET scans, they found brain activation in left hemisphere for hearing speakers of english and deaf signers of asl and lsq when performing similar language tasks
theory that left hemisphere is predisposed to process langauge but not other types of stimuli, but lifelong signers process sign languages in left-lateralized language centers BUT NON SIGNERS DONT!! meaning theres experience-dependent plasticity going on
note: non signers process sign language in a differnt part of langauge centers? not left lateralized?
how does this illustrate experience-dependent plasticity?
if you don’t acquire the language at a specific period, it wont show up there?
question. good office hours question.
so basically, left-hemisphere brain regions are not solely specialized for spoken language but used for signed languages as well
so what does this have to do wtih experience-dependent plasticity?
SENSITIVE PERIOD FOR LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
those who learn a second langauge in adolescent/adulthood found it much harder than those who learned a second langauge in early childhood
ealry years, sensitive period for langauge development
this period ends sometime between age 5 and puberty
horrible horrible case of poor genie who was tied up and locked alone in a room, physically motorically and emotionally stunted. with intensive training, progress was made, but language ability never developed much beyond level of a toddlers
adults are more likely to suffer permanent language impairment from brain damage than children bcz other areas can take over those parts, but for adults its more seperated
adults who learned a second language after puberty use different neural mechanisms to process that language than adults who learned second language from infancy
neural circuitry supporting language learning operates differently AND BETTER during early years
key aspects of english grammar related to age where they began learning english, not exposure to language!! most proficient in english (of chinese + korean immigrants) when begun learning english before age of 7
great deal of variabilty among “late learners”
some indivduals achieved skills commensurate with native learners wheras language outcomes for others were quite poor
AHA SO IT IS POSSIBLE TO SLAY A LANGUAGE AFTER THE SENSITIVE PERIOD. LETS GOOOOOOOO
reasons for a sensitive period for language are still unknown!!
theories:
development changes in plasticity of language-related regions of brain + motivational differences across ages
one account suggests that children’s native language knowledge increasing has an effect on second langauge learning
as children learn more about first knoweldge, this interferes with their second langauge
also that poorer working memory lets them extract and store smaller chunks of langauge than adults do (and since they only remember small things and morphemes are super small, this might help them learn langaues better, whereas adults go with the larger chunks of words and words and sentences themselvs which makes it harder to learn smaller parts of languages)
practical implications of a sensitive period in language acquisition
deaf children exposed to sign language early as possible so they can have a native language during the sensitive period!!
otherwise they wont be fluent in anything
also when learning 2 languages in school, should makke sure they learn it as early as possible
A HUMAN ENVIRONMENT
children need to be exposed to other people using langauge
infant’s auditory preferences are fine-tuned thorugh experience with human language (as they prefer nonhuman vocalizations to nonspeech sounds)
not sure the link but whatever. question maybe?
IIFNANT DIRECTED SPEECH
its bsically speech wtih greater pitch variability, slower speech, shorter utterances, more word repetition, and more questions, clearer vowels, adjusted sound of voices
its just exaggerated speech wtih exaggerated facial expressions
IN A TON OF LANGUAGES, arabic, french, italian, japanese, mandarin, spanish AND SIGNED LANGUAGES
IDS is used to share important info even wehn infants dont know meaning of words
ex. cooed warm sound, approval, sharp falling pitch to say “no no”
infants exhibit appropriate facial emotion when listening to pitch patterns even wehn language is unfamiliar
infants prefer IDS to adult-directed speech!!! even when IDS is in a diff langauge than their own!!
infants pay greater attention to it, so they learn and reocgnize words better in IDS than when in ADS, and it helps them discriminate vowel sounds
behavioural effects ARE MIRRORED BY REACTIONS IN INFANT BRAINS!!!! GREATER ACTIVATION WHEN HEARING IDS THAN ADS!!!
cultural context is important to consider
kaluli infants face outward to engage wtih other members of group, immersed in languag eeven tho not addressed by caregivers
tsimane of bolivia, they hear less than 1 minute of speech directed to them per dayliht hour
REVIEW QUESTION
considering the importance of exposure and environment in language development, especially during sensitive periods, what interventions can you think of to ensure adequate opportunities for experience?
making sure kids are around people who are speaking all the time at specific ages, high socialization during sensitive periods, attention from parents, encouragement to use IDS, encouragement to teach a secondary language during sensitive period, implementing immersion in second langauge programs very early on
BOX 6.1 —> TWO LANGUAGES ARE BETTER THAN ONE
evidence that being bilingual improves aspects of cognitive functioning in childhood and beyond
bilingual learning can begin in womb
bilingual infants discrimiante speech sounds of 2 langauges at same pace that monolingual ifants distingish sounds of one language, BCZ BILINGUAL INFANTS ATTENTION TO SPEECH CUES IS HEIGTENED RELATIVE TO MONOLINGUAL INFANTS!!!!!!!!
theyre better at using only visual ifo to discriinate btwn languages
they build 2 seperate linguistic systems
language switching, code mixing or code switching
inserting words or phrases from one langauge into another
bilingual toddlers just as fast as monolingual peers at recognizing familiar words
CHILDREN WHO ARE CMOPETENT IN TWO LANGUAGES PERFORM BETTER ON A VARIETY OF MEASURES OF EXECUTIVE FUNCTION AND COGNITIVE CONTROL THAN MONOLINGUAL CHILDREN
bilingual ifnants show greater cognitive flexibility in learning tasks
bcz they have to switch btwn languae sin comprehension and production
also outperform on word learning tasks in new langaugs, increased openness to non-native languages
bilingual studnets more successful in learning both langagues when school environment provides support for both langauges
THE PROCESS OF LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
SPEECH PERCEPTION
prosody
characteristic rhythmic and intonation patterns a language is spoken with
task of speech perception begins in womb as they like mothers voice nad language they hear her speak
speech perception is figuring out which differences btwn specch sounds are important and which can be ignored
young infants perceive speech just like adults do!!!
CATEGORICAL PERCEPTION OF SPEECH SOUNDS
categorical perception
perceiving speech sounds as belonging to categories
study:
liteners hear /b/ gradually change into /p/
theyre produced the same way!! its just that hte length of time between when air passes throgh lips and vocal cords start vibrating is different
this lag is VOICE ONSETN TIME (VOT)
its less than 25ms for /b/ and more than 25 ms for /p/'
like ba happens immediatley, pa has a teensy bit more time bfore you say the thing
adults didnt perceive the continuous change into series of sounds, they more so were like
all the ones that were less than 25ms those are /b/ and all those greater than 25ms were /p/
BUT IT WAS A CONTINUUM THEY CHANGED IT SOOO SLOWLY so there were chnages in super small parts of it
but the fact that they put it in categories is important bcz it only focuses on ifferences that are LINGUSTICALLY MEANINGFUL ignoring meaningless differences
ex. 10ms VOT /b/ vs 20 ms VOT /b/ VS /b/ vs /p/
YOUNG INFANTS DRAW THE SAME SHARP DISTINCTIONS BTWN SPEECH SOUNDS
they used a pacfiier hooked to a computer, the harder they sucked the more often they heard repetitions of a single syllable
if sucking rate increased when tehy switched, then they were dishabituated, and they could tell the difference btwn the two syllables
after habituated to /b/, infants increased rate hwen new sound came from a IDFFERENT PHONEMIC CATEGORY, habituation contnued hwen new sound was within same cateory as original
so they do think of sounds in categories!!!!!
INFANTS MAKE MORE DISTINCTINOS THAN ADULTS DO
speakres of arabic perceive diffrence in /k/ sounds in “keep” nad “cool”
english adults don’t cause its not linguistically meaningful
but infants can distinguish btwn phonemic contrasts in ALL LANGUAGES OF WORLD
600 consonants and 200 vowels!!!
this is bcz infants are primed to start learning whichever of the world’s languages they happen to ehear around them
which is experience-independent
QUESTION:
so whats the difference between experience-independent, and experience-dependent, and experience-expectant?????
experience-independent, its innate, not something they develop with experience?
experience-dependent, they develop it with experience
idk chat gotta come back to this
experience-dependent
brain develop occurs as a result of unique, indivudal experiences. changes are specific to each person, depend on what theyre used to. for example, child learsn to play the piano. this skill isnt prepirogrammed, and it depends on practice. new sybaspes form in respones to learning
experience-independent
aspects of development that happen REGARDLESS of environmental input
pre-programmed ibological processes that unfold naturally
ex. formation of basic brain structures (like neurons, spinal cord,) happen even if hte baby is in isolation. theyre like genetically driven processes, like neural tube development
experience-expectant developmet
brain development that relies on typical, universla experiences most indivduals encounter
expecting of certain inputs to shape normal development (like visual or uaditory stimuli), if these inputs are missing, development may be impaired.
for ex. babies need to exposed to langauge ealry on, if they dont hear language within a critical period, ability to learn it later is severely affected. so tehse are things like sensitive periods of learning langauge, or developing vision through interacting wtih the enviornment
DEVELPMENTAL CHANGES IN SPEECH PERCEPTION
perceptual narrowing!!!!!!1
infants specialize even mre as they grow up, meaning they cant really see differences in non-native faces
this also happens for speech perception!!!! cause they become less sensitive to differences btwn non-native speech soudns
like remember /k/ differences in cool and keep? infants can do that, but if they start learning english, they will become less sensitie to that and wont even hear it anymore
study
if infants turned head following sound change, they were rewarded iwth itneresting visual display (and praise!!)
using this, tehy foundt hat if infants turned heads immediatley after a sound change, they detected teh change
6-8mos, canadian englihs leanring readily dscirminated between non-english phonemes, (one hindi from another, one nthlakapmx syllable from anotehr)
BUTTTTT AT 10-12MOS THEY COULDN’T FIGURE OUT THOSE DIFFERENCES!!!!!1
quesiton, could they figure out differences between hindi and nthlakapmx? is it that those differences between those lagnauges theyre not learning, those syllables have been perceptually narrowed so /k/ in hindi between two syllables that arne’t in english, they wouldn’t understand that anymore??????????????/
COME BACK CHAT IM SO CONFUSED
this isn’t a entirel passive process
learned more abut phonetic structure of mandrain from interacting wtih mandarin speaker than watching a video of one
active learning!!!!!!!!!!!!! active leraning, engaging with material better, encodes better
also, infants more successful at learning mandarin phonemes from screen wehn they did wth a peer!
WORD SEGMENTATINO
so spoken lagnuae doesn thave subtitles. everything comes together, almost as if its one word like “haveyoueverseensuchaprettybaby?”
they ahve to figure out where words start and end, which is WORD SEGMETNION
this starts during second half of the first year.
preferential-looking technique to see if they can pull sepcific words out of the stream of speech
testedon repetitions of words presented in sentences
infants listened longer to words they had heard in passages of fluent speech compared with words that never occured in passages
length of time infant spends looking at light on one side where speaker was making sound provided a measure of degree to which infant is attracted to that sound
so however long the infant looked at that side was what they were measuring
dk how this study worked gotta get back to it
how do infants find words in pause-free speech?
stress patterning
element in prosody
in engish, first syllable more likely to be strssed than second syllable in 2 syllable words
by 8 months, they expected stressed syllables to beginw rods, and used this to seperate words in fluent speech
in quebec french, stress falls at end of phrase, so they pay atteniton to that
distributional properties
infnats are so good at statistical learning
sounds that are part of same word more likely to occur together than others
theyre sensitive to these regularities
so 2 minute recording of 4 diff 3 syllabue words with no pause between, then using preferntial listening test, found that infants discriminated between words nad sequnces that wernet words
how???
well!! they used the predictable sound patterns that they had detected when the syllables were organized in the way they were to fish out words of the stream of speech!!!!!!! they occured together a lot more so they were able to go “oh yeah this one is the same here, and this one is different so its not an acc word” even tho theyre all not words lol
THEY ALSO LOVE THEIR NAME LOL
they pick their own name out of background info and they use it as a pivot point to figure out new words in speech stream
ex. “its jerry’s cup!”, well cup came after jerry, so hes more likely to remember that
and as they learn more words, they can use thos words as pivot points too
PREPARATION FOR PRODUCTION
they coo, “ooohh” or “aahh”, click, smack, squeal, blow raspberries
they gain mtoor control over vocaliations
they know their sounds elicit resonses from others and coo recirpocally
infants with more responsiive caregvers are more likely to use more mature vocalization patterns
BABBLING
babies begin babbling between 6-10 months of age (average at 7 months)
consonant-vowel syllabues from limited set of sounds regardless of language theyre learning
language exposure is key component in it
deaf infants regularly exposed to signed langauges like ASL BABBLE WITH HANDS!!!!!
repetive hand movements of pieces of full ASL signs
so infants seem to expeiremnt with elements that evnetually become words of native langauge
in one study of english and chinese 12 month olds, adult listeners were unable to tell from babbles alone which languages tehey were learning, BUT the babbling gradually takes on sounds, rhtythmsn and intionational patterns of the langguaes they see daily
its just too early to be super distinct
EARLY INTERACTIONS
mature participants alternate between speaking and listening
learning to take turns, peekaboo, give and take
in dialgoues, infant alternates btwn passive and active role like conversation, so they learn how to conversee LMAFO
caregivers resond to babbling might have same function of enforcing bidirecitonal communication
babbling also signals that infant wants to learn
infant babbles, adult labels object, infant learns more than if they lableled and infant dindt babble (babbling means theyre paying attention!!)
INTERSUBJECTIVITY
two itneracting pattenrs shrae a mutural undrestanding
super important for scucessful communicaiton
JOINT ATTENTION
caregiver follows babys oelad!!! whatever baby lookks at, caregiver comments on, and by 12 months they realize communicative nture of pointing and ifnants also point themselves!!!!!!
FIRST WORDS
how to babies take hte sounds and assign it meaning? sure they can recognize the sounds of hte wrod “bunny” but what IS a bunny?
EARLY WROD RECOGNTION
when 6 month olds hear mommy or daddy, they lookk at image of the right person
study
researchers put pictures of common foods and body parts, racked eye gze when one picture named
EVEN 66 MONTHS OLD LOOKED TO RIGHT PICTURE (significantly more often than would be expected by change!! a = 0.05, p<0.05 type beat (although idk their acc alpha)
so inants acc know the meanings of a lot more words than caregivers realize!!
even autistic toddlers who have delayed language abilities underatnd more wordsthan their parents think they do
we learn a lot about what infants know the meanings of without acc saying it thorgh eye tracking studies
in studies where infants were presented pair of objects and heard one labelled, 15 months waited until whole word to look at it BUT 24 MONTH OLDS LOOKD AT THE RIGHT ONE AFTER HEARING THE FIRST PART, LIKE ADULTS DO!!!!!
older children like toddlers lso use context, like gender of an article to speed reocgnition of the noun
EARLY WORD PRODUCTION
we’re not sure what a first word is lol
like babbling can be word-like,
“woof”, to refer to dog next door
infants produce first words between 10-15 months of age, but early words are mispronounced a lot
like nana for banana, or bubba for brother, wabbit for rabbit
or cagoshin for chicago!
which is an example of reordering parts of a word
early words often refer to family members, pets, importnat objects
also frequent routines like up, bye bye, night night,
mine, hot, all gone as modifiers
cultural context!!
lots of cross-lingusitic similarities
many of infants first words referred to specific people or sound effects
so infants do be having the same prioriites all around the world!!!!
overextnesion
kids wanna talk about things that are bigger than exactly what words they know
so theyll use the word “dog” for any four legged animal, or hot for any reflective metal
its just too broad, cause they dont have the words for it
undreextnesion
teh opposite, where they use a word in a more limited contex than appropriate, believing that dog is ONLY THEIR DOG, not neoghbours dog too
these reflect incorrect mappings btwn wrods and meanings, need to be revised as language learning cotninues
WORD LEARNING
after producing first words, children go ahead slowly, learn about 50 words by 18 months of age
then rate of learning acelerates, VOCAB SPLURT!!
not sure if this is for all or most children, buttt whats clear is that they are learning more
ADULT INFLUENCES ON WORD LEARNIGN
IDS hellps
stressing or repeating new words also helps
naming games, like “wheres your nose”, “wheres your tummy”
toddlers show better word learning when object being labelled is centered in visual field than in periphery
early word learning influnced by contexts where words are used
like words in kitchens or bathrooms used very specifically in there like “soap” and “toilet” are produced earlier than words across a bucnh of contexts
also toddlers are somehow better at learning names for solid substances than nonsolid substances (im not sure why lol) but theyalso are better at this when theyre in a high chair, cuse thats when the yet their food
caregivers also facilitate word learning by maintaing spatial consistnency with objects labelling
when objects are alwyas in the same locations, it easier for them to name them, cause they can map these words onto the objects an the events
CHILDRENS CONTRIBUTIONS TO WORD LEARNING
when given new words,children use the context the word was used in to figure out its menaing
expect that one entity will only have one name which is MUTUAL EXCLUSIVITY
bilingul and trilingual infants who are used to hearing more than one name for a give objct, are less likely to follow muutual exclusivity
when given two objects, they have the name for one object, but not the other,a dn theyre given the word “blicket” they sasume its for the one they dont know, isnead of consdiering it could be for the one they know as well bcz they think “oh it already has a name and it can only hav eone name”
whole-object assumption
chilren expect a new word to rfer to a WHOEL OBJECT than a part property, action or other aspect of object (like colour, texture)
ex. label “bunny” to the whole animal, not twitching of nose or its tail
pragmatic cues
they pay attention to social contexts in which words are used to learn its meaning
ex. children use an adults focus of attention as a cue to word meaning
study:
showed 18 month olds 2 new objects, then put them in 2 diff containers
when asked for “modi”, infant picked the one the experimenter was looking at when saying the label
infants can use adults meotinal response to infer name too
“find the gazzer” picked one up, suepr disappointed, picked hte other one up, adult super happy, infant was liek ‘THATS HTE GAZZER THE ONE THAT MADE THEM HAPPY”
if adults labelling of object conflicts with childsknoweldge of it, they will ccept hte label if the adult used it intentionally
if you call a cat a dog, theyre gonna go “wtf i dont think this ones right in the head,im not gonna trust what it tells me”
but if you go “you are NOT GONNA BELIEVE THIS, but this is acc a dog!!” showing a ton of intentionality, theyll go “oh my gaursh, thats crazy i believe you”
also use linguistic ocntext to infer meaning
showed preschool children a pair of hands kjneading mass of material
if they said sibbing, they went “oh its the action”
if they went “a sib”, they were like “oh its the object”, of “some sib”, theyre like “oh its some of hte object” or whatever, like they distinguisehd from aciton, count noun, or mass noun based on teh grammar of hte new word
count noun —> like something you can physically count, like 1, 2, 3 apples. its a noun that can form a plural like apple, bcz it can be applies
mass noun —> a noun that is just what it is, liek water or air. it cant be 2 waters or 2 airs. you can say some water or a lot of air though. its just an “uncountable” noun.
infants nad toddlre can use these ilnks to find menaing as well
OBJECT SHAPE
shape tells us a lot aobut what category its in
children readily extend a new noun to new objects of same shape, even if theyre usper differnet in size colour and texture
like shape overrules everything else, even size, colour and texture
a U shapped wooden block + U-shapped object in blue fur, and u-shaped piece in red wire, ALL DAX but if its a wooden block of a differnt shape compared to a u shaped wooden block, thyell go “not dax sorry!!”
we acc know that they care a lot about the shape of objects in categorizing things even before they have a lot of words, and shape is evident in how they recognize the same words
with objects iwth wrong colours, toddlers still look at cow when they hear cow
like if its a pink cow theyll still go “oh thats a cow just a differnet colour”
another useful cue is repeated correspondence btwn the wrods the child hears and the object it sees in the world
ex. if they hear dax among a bunch of object sthey already know they dont know which one is dax!! but if dax is said in a bunch of contexts where one is always present, theyre prolly gonna go “well thats one commanlity there, thats gotta be dax”
THIS IS CALLED CROSS-SITUATIONAL WORD LEARNING
bcz theyre using info from differnt situations to figure out the meanings of the new word
SYNTACTIC BOOTSTRAPPING
is when kids use the grammatical structure of the sentences words occur in to figure out the meanings of the new words
study
1 group heard “the duck is kradding the rabbit” the other heard “the rabbit and duck are kradding”
put two videos side by side, one showing duck pushing on rabbit the other showing both animals waving arms in circles
wheninstructed to find kradding, they lookedat hte event that matched teh syntax of what they hard
group 1 chose the one wehre the duck is pushing on rabbit, and group 2 chose hte one where they are both waving even tho its the same word, what they thought the word meant was based on the STRUCTURE OF THE SENTENCE
BOX 6.2 —> LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT + SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS
one of key determinants of langauge children hear is socioecnomic status of parents
the average child of parents on welfare received half as much lingustic expeirence than kid with working class parents, nad less than one third of child in proefssional family
this is bcz of diffrence sin how paernts talked to children
more questions and convos initaited in higher income families
but new research says that this difference may be exaggerated bcz they didnt take into account speech not given by primarycaregiver, and the kids have other ppl talking to them
children from higher SES have bigger vocab than children from lower SES
diff in amt of languag einput affects how quickly toddlres recognize familiar words
more mtohers talked to them, able to recognzie words quicker
question!!!!
is it cause the kids arent being talked to as much? cause parents are busy? is that why they have smaller vocabs? lack of interactoin bcz parents are at work?????
could it also be cycle of poverty, they dont know as many words so they cant tell the infants more words?????
great variability in amount of input parents provide even within group of similar SES
19 month olds who heard more speech had larger vocab and were faster at proessing words 6 months later
richness of communicative context (joint engagenet, routines, rituals, fluency, predicted children’s lagnauge attinamnet a year later)
children who experienced hgiher-quality langauge input (more convos back and forth) greater activation in language areas of brain and icnreased cortical surface area in left hemispheric lagnag regions (we know that left hemisphere is specialized in language)
physical enviornments children learn language also influences quality of langauge input
harder to learn new words in noisy home enviornments, noise pollution also makes it ahrder to process lnaguage input
low language sills kids in peers iwth also low language skills, less lnaguage growth than with kids who have high languge skills
this has implictions for programs designed to help wtih early litearcy for kids living in poverty
negative peer fffects can be offset by positive teacher effects
intervention
increased access to childrens book, words praents dont usually use in convo wtih other infants
age-specfic advice about reading to children to increase family literacy-related behaviours
also inceaisng time lower SES parents spend talking to children, encouraging parents to onverse with kids about foods seen in market
providing parents wtih recording devics that track how much they speak to baby so they can montiro and icnrease amount of speech as well
educaitng parents about thier own role has psoive effect on language development
also more teacher trainigns in low income school settings
BOX 6.3 —> iBabies: Tech + Language Learning
study
trying to figure out if a best selling education dvd had an impcat on infant language development
4 groups of 12 to 18mos
infants in video with interaction with parent
infants in video without interaction wtih parent watching along with them
infants in parent teaching group, didntd watch it at all parents were given list of 25 words in vdeo and taguht infants in ways that felt more natual to them
contorl group, no intervention
findings
infants in parent teaching showed greatest vocab development
in dvd conditions learned no more, and how much they learend was unrelated to how much parents thought infant had learned
but if parents like dvd, they thought the infant learned more from it
passive viewing isnt sllay adn tehy do learn more hwen itneracting wtih humans tho
the most recent screen time recommendation
were getting a ton of education apps, but effect on child development remains largely unknown
parents asked to teach 2 new words to 2 year olds
during learning session of one of 2 words, parents interrupted by phone call
they learned better when they didnt have phoen interruption, suggesting that interruptions in interactions WHICH AHPPEN AT LOT WHEN WERE ALL ADDICTED TO OUR DAMN PHONES can hinder childrens opportunities to learn
could thsi be because of getting out of the flow state, takes more enregy to focus again? attention and focus is impaired?
PUTTING WORDS TOGETHER
wehn children start combining words into sentences, they can express more comlex ideas!!
FIRST SENTENCES
most children beign to combine words into simple senteces by end of second year
young children undrstand word combos earlier than they can product them tho
two word utterances —> TELEGRAPHIC SPEECH
bcz telegrams, can only speak in short sentences bcz you’re paying by the word
'“read me”, “can you please read me this book”
“all wet”, “it appears i have spilled this liquid onto myself, resulting in my garments being soaked. i myself, my mortal being, also seems to be wet. i will be requiring some assistance”
many children continue to rpoduce short uterrrrances for a bit, then they start putting sentences of 3+ words together
rapid increase in mean length of utterances studied longitudinally
lgenght of iutterances increase in part CAUSE NOW THEY INCROPRATE SOME ELEMNTS MISSING FROM TELEGRAHPIC SPEECH
ex. like connecting words like “and”, “read to me” with the key word being “to”?
LECTURE NOTES:
6A: what is language?
language, strucuted, rule baes dsystem of comunicaiton to communicate meaning
ways of symbolically repping dog
through the letters, the wrod itself uttered being a symbol for it, the ASL sign for dog, but theyre all arbitrary whatever the sounds are
a symbol is nathing that represnts osmething else too, its the shared undersatnidng with other speakers thats what its all about
environmental cues, like context, tone and other stuff affect interpretation. “meet my dog!” —> furry dog, pet. “hey thats my dog” at a cookout, —> hotdog. same word tho
pragmatics: knowlefge of how language is used in a given context. cultural context involved here but also environmental context (i think)
language is generative. you can generate infinite number of stences that are totallyu unique, and you can interpet infinite numbers too.
ex. “snake eating a hotdog”
never seen that, know what that looks like tho
structures are important cause they change meaning. carl hit roger is diff from roger hit carl.
those are 4 key components of language
language is symbolic (ex. the word dog is a symbol for the animal. whats imp is the shared understanding we have of it, because everything is arbitrary)
cues alter how we interpret languge (pragmatic cues)
language is generative
language has structural rules unique to human language not in other animals, adn we have to follow those to communicate the right ideas
productive vocab
all words you can spontaneously use yourself
receptive vocabulary: what words youd undesatnding if you encountered them (you are recipient of language)
for babies, they recognize more than thye can say
also we hear words that we recognize and understand but we might have trouble using them ourselves
GENERATIVITY VIDEO CLIP:
what is generativity?
capacity for language to generate infinite number of setences to express infinite number of ideas
no matter how bizarre a setence, you can put it all together as long as its using words you know, symbols you undestand, using grammatical rules you know
unique property of language not found in communication of other species on earth!!
ex. monekys hav epredator-specific alarms. if they see apredator they do that specific call
one call for leapoards, one for snakes.
but these are still general. theres no specificty to a situation. its just “snake!! danger!!” not “Snake to the right side of the brown tree, don’t go there”
no innfinite number of idesa to communicate
communicaiton exists across animals, but not all communicaiton is langauge. language is only for humans.
PHONEMES AND MORPHMES
phonemes
elemntary units of sound
/p/, /b/ —> phonemes
around 200 across all worlds languages, but each lagnauge only uses a specific amount. for those that don’t use phonemes that another language uses, its hard to say them, adn youll say them differntly
/k/ and /c/ are differnet sounds in arabic (i think), those are both phonemes. fro an english speaker its not linguistically meaningful so its hard to tell the difference. in arabic, its linguistically meaningful, so they can tell the difference,a nd produce that sound if theyve been learning it seince like ibrht
bulk of learning occurs in first few yeras of life.
befor ethey can even speak, theyre figuring out what sounds are imp in lnguage, how to dinstuigsh btwn them
dog —> d-, aw-, g-
3 phonemes that make it up
each is just like a sound, they dont have indivudally meaning
what has MEANING is a morpheme
morpheme —> smallest unit of MEANing
dog —> 1 morpheme. one unit of meaning
butterfly —> 2 morphomes. butter + fly, two units of meaning. can’t keep breaking them up tho.
suffixies and prefixxes also morphemes cause theyre meaningful additions
-s, de-, pre-…
semantic dev
expressing meaning in a lagnauge
taking morphemes and striging them together meaningfully
word leanring, modifying languge, hw oto epxress meaning in meaningful and intelligeble way
morphemes —> not just words, not just syllables either!
dog, -s, —> dogs
as long as they have meaning
SYNTAX
syntax —> rules for how diff words can be combined
ex. “cat bit the dog” vs “the dog bit the cat” vs “the dog was bitten by the cat”
not just word order!! also grammatical tensing (where hte subject is based on whats happenig to what? idk man its not important)
syntatical development
synatactical rules of language, understanding grammatical rules of language HAPPENS NATURALLY. INTUITIVE, EFFORTLESS
noam chomsky
idea of universal grammar, superficial differences between langauge
grammar of french and english is diff, but chomskys like they all have some of the same things
subjects, verbs objects, tenses, asame core properties. so he argues langauge has evolved to be a central part of humans innate communicative abilities
a sentence can grammatically make sense, but content might not!!!”
ex. “the most magical thing a human can do is become a transparent butterfly brimming with peonies”
this makes no sense wtf is going on, but my grammar is on point
again, talking about generativity of language
6 more videos for unit 6
12 for unit 7
11 for unit 8
SPEED RUNNING MODULE 6:
any new info?
comunicaiton is diff from language. only humans learn language and in typical development, all humans learn language (species-specific, and species-universal)
kanzi, bonobo
able to recognize 300 words, doesnt spontaneously reporudce them tho, can follow verbal instructions tho, nad undrestand verbal symbols and syntax
but!! its not language, becuase hes not understand generativity and usage of syntax like a human child would
not much support for language in anything beyond humans,
LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT IN HUMANS
sensitive periods for langauge
the window where language develops most optimally, and effortlessly.
its ages 0-7/8
can also learn multiple leanguages during this period and be fluent in them
study where immigrnat children, between ages of 3 and 7, masered english like hte kids born there, because theyre still in sensitive period, but after this, for those who entered btwn 8, 10, 39 all that, mastery of english much lower cause out of sensitive period
infant-directed speech (warm and positive, highlights positive meoitons, high in pitch, slower enunciation, exaggerated facial expressions, big open eyes)
across many but not all cultures, draws attention to conrasts between speech sounds, IMPROVES WORD RECOGNITION
even without it they do still learn language!!
SPEECH PERCEPTION
perceptual narrowing
/p/, /b/ differnet in the diff in onset of making the sound (difference in voice onset time)
first, showed infants /p/, then habituated to that, they played /b/, and infants were disahbiutated, saw it as different
these are 1 month and 4 month old infants as well
so they are drawing categorical distinctions between phonemes
for the next one, they had /d/ and /d3/, which are the same thing in englihs, not linguistically meaningful distnction, but in diff languages you would dsitnguish cause they are diff phonemes
12 month olds, didn’t dishabituate
but 8 month olds did!! they hadn’t perceptually narrowed yet
WORD SEGMENTATION
telling the diff words apart in a long stream of words
how do they do this?
prosody: rhythmn and intonational patterns in a spoken language, so STRESS PATTERNS
some language stress at beginning, some at end, this helps them figure out wher teh words start and end
also distributioanl properties of speech. statistical learning, some syllabules occur together frequently, some don’t ever
third, using contextual cues, like their own name. they pivot off their name to learn more cups
SPEECH PRODUCTION
at birth, they just cry
6-8 weeks, communicatve signals like cooing, grunting, raspberries
6-10 months, babbling, even sign babbling, after some expoure to phonemes
so 6-7 month olds, babble, repetitive consonant vowel sequences, practicing production of important sounds in lanauge . babbling with asl of hand signs htey use
soon, they gesture more, point, not using languge but joint attention and gaze following gets better. engaging in conversation with parents, taking turns, social interaction, but still babbling
then they learn words, using word segmentation, figuring out which words map onto which things in the world. ex. “word dog. is that the big furry thing there?”
word learning in the FIRST YEAR. year 1, start speaking
10-15 months, first word production.
holophrastic period —> after learning first words. use single words to communicate whole ideas.
holo —> whole
phrastic —> phrase.
whole phrase in one word
ex. “drink” for “i need water”
overextension
newly learned word, use it more generally than they should
ex. juice —> any beverage, even coke
underextension
specifiying a word to less than it acc means
ex. kitty —>just their cat, not all cats
18 months, 50 words in vocabularly
from here, word learning increaes rapidly —> vocabulary spurt
rapid word learning after about 18 months (on average)
WORD LEARNING AND BUILDING SENTENCES
mutual exclusivity
one thing must have one word, can’t have multiple things that you call it
fast mapping —> rapidly learninga new word from hearing the cotrastive use of a familiar word and an unfamiliar word
monolingual —> you hear that word and an unfailiar word, you map unfamiliar word onto the unfamiliar object,
ex. you see two objects, one is cup other is new. they take new word and put it on the object they don’t know
its fast its intuitive
but blingual infants are like “oh it could be the one i know too cause things can have multiple names”
cross-situationl word learning
if you go “look at ducks” over and over in diff situations where theres ducks aorund, theyll go “ah statistical learning, thats prolly a duck”
pragmatic cues
using soical info to learn new words
ex. eye gaze, looking at one thing, super happy, looking at other thing, sad. so the thing theyre looking for has got to be what theyre happy about seeing right.
eye gaze hwen they just see a thing ,emtoinal cues hwen they use emtoin
syntactic boostrapping
using grammatical structure of whoel setences to figure otu the meaning
ex. “rabbit is kradding the duck”, its a verb, its an action
vs “rabbit is hugging the krad”, its a noun
use the context to figure out hwere krad fits in
pst the holophrastic period, they use telegraphic speech
instead of one word sentences, its 2 word sentences
“eat cookie”,
piecing things together, the wrods in the right order (you put verbs before nouns)
in tellegraphic speech, using newly learned grammar rules where theyre not correct
ex. “look, mooses”, because theres esceptiosn in plluralization and stuff
thats not their fault, we just have a weird langauge (ex. eated —> ate)
ex. of overregularization