REVISION- Child language speech
Study - AnkiWeb (ankiuser.net)
Pre- verbal stages of development
Vegetative- sounds of discomfort or reflexive actions
Cooing- comfort sounds, vocal play using open-mouthed vowel sounds (6-8 weeks)
Babbling- repeated patterns of consonant and vowel sounds (6-9 months)
Proto-words- word-like vocalisations that have consistent meanings, sometimes called scribble talk e.g. dada/mama
Grammatical stages of development
Holophrastic/one-word stage- one word utterances (12-18 months) e.g. choccie
Two-word stage- two word utterances (18-24 months) e.g. want choccie
Telegraphic stage- three or more combinations- often lacks function words (24-36 months) e.g. daddy want choccie
Post-telegraphic stage- more grammatically complex sentences (36 months) e.g. daddy I want some choccie please
Functions of language
TWO KEY THEORISTS- HALLIDAY AND DORE but focus on Halliday (easier) :)
Halliday’s functions:
Instrumental: fulfil a need
Regulatory: Influence the behaviour of others
Interactional: develop and maintain social relationships
Personal: convey individual opinions, ideas and personal identity
Representational: convey facts and information
Imaginative: create an imaginary world and may be seen in play predominantly
Heuristic: learn about the environment
Dore’s functions:
Labelling- Naming a person, object or thing
Repeating- Repeating an adult word or utterance
Answering- Responding to an utterance of another speaker
Requesting action- Asking for something to be done for them
Calling- Getting attention by shouting
Greeting- Greeting someone or something
Protesting- Objecting to requests from others
Practicing- Using language when no adult is present
Categorising first words
In 1973, Katherine Nelson identified four categories for first words:
Recorded the first 50 words of 18 children
· Naming (of things or people) (concrete nouns)
· Actions/events (verbs)
· Describing/modifying things
· Personal/social words.
60% were nouns (concrete)
Verbs were the second largest group.
Modifiers were third.
Personal and social words made up 8% of the results
Overextension/ similar to overgeneralisation - when a child uses a single word to refer to multiple objects or concepts, instead of using different words for different things
Under extension- occurs when a child acquires a word for a particular thing and fails to extend it to other objects in the same category, using the word in a highly restricted and individualistic way.
Inflectional morphology-when a word is altered to make a new grammatical form (e.g. adding ‘s’ to make a plural or adding ‘ed’ to make the past tense
WUG test:
Psycholinguistics professor Jean Berko Gleason, who created the wug test in 1958, as a linguistics tool for testing how well children had learned the so-called “morphemes” associated with making nouns plural or verbs past tense.
This process was showing a child a series of fictional scenarios — like the first, one “wug” becoming two “wugs” — and then analyzing how well he or she pronounces the three “allomorph” sounds needed for plurality: “Z, “S” and “tZ.”
This test also gauges other types of morpheme learning, such as how well a student has truly learned the proper way to make verbs past tense or nouns possessive
Stages of Questions
STAGE 1. around 18 months: during the two-word stage, children start to use rising intonation to indicate a question e.g. ‘Go walk?’
STAGE 2. between ages of 2-3: In telegraphic talk, children continue to use rising intonation but also use Wh- words e.g. Where tractor? They use a wider range of interrogative pronouns such as why, when and how
STAGE 3. from age 3 upwards: Children will use subject-verb inversion e.g. Can I see it? Did she break it? Instead of - I can see it? They also start to use auxillary verbs for the first time. e.g. What is Mummy doing?
Stages of pronouns
Stages of Negation
STAGE 1- around 18 months: Children use no/not to make things negative, normally at the beginning of the phrase rather than at the end e.g. ‘No bed!’
STAGE 2- between 2 & 3: Children start to use no and not in front of verbs too, such as ‘I no want juice.’ They develop the use of contracted negatives such as can’t, don’t. Sometimes they get mixed up with can’t and don’t.
STAGE 3- 3 years upwards: Children stop using no and not in the same way that they did in stage 1. They use can’t and don’t correctly and start using other negative contractions such as didn’t and won’t, but isn’t seems to develop slightly later
Lee Vygotsky
deemed that children’s play was linked to both cognitive and social development, he said young children used props as ‘pivots’ to support their play, but when older, used their imagination instead
Catherine Garvey
Studied pairs of children; noted they adopted role play which mirrored their own experiences; termed pretend play- fulfils Halliday’s imaginative language function
Behaviourism
The idea that communication is conditioned & shaped using environmental influences e.g. imitation, reinforcement & conditioning
Skinner [1957] (behaviourist theorist) - suggested that children learn as a result of the consequences of their behaviour. If children experience a positive consequences after a behaviour, they are more likely to repeat that behaviour again in the future.
Operant conditioning is whereby a behaviour’s learnt/influenced through consequence
Repetition of an event is determined by positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement and punishment
Positive reinforcement- where you gain something from the action e.g. reward for homework
Negative reinforcement- when something is removed as a result of your action & makes you want to do it again e.g. do homework and no chores for a week
Punishment- decreases the frequency of a behaviour e.g. detention for missed homework
Evidence- Ambridge & Lieven argue that children can learn complex grammatical structures through pattern recognition e.g. picking up on past tense forms of irregular verbs through exposure, even without explicit teaching so is it shaped by our environment?
Evaluation: Chomsky’s theory that children would never acquire the tools to learn language but it is actually influenced by our natural cognitive abilities.
Nativism
The idea that communication is innate and we all have the inherent ability to communicate
Noah Chomsky key theorist- His language theory argues that this innate feature is activated during infancy by minimal environmental stimuli.
LAD- Language acquisition device - a term given innate ability to contain linguistic information from birth. It is a tool found in the brain & it encodes the major skills involved in language learning, focusing on the encoding of grammar
The critical period- the ability to acquire language based on age (early years)
Universal grammar: a set of language rules that share common grammar principles that all children are born with an innate ability to acquire, develop & understand language
Evidence- children always have the structure of a sentence in the correct order & children have been observed to pick up grammar & syntax without being taught vocally
The Wug Test
The Wug Test is a well-known and highly regarded experiment conducted in the field of linguistics.
This ground-breaking study was specifically designed to delve into the intricate process of language acquisition in children and shed light on how they acquire and apply grammatical rules.
Chomsky's theory of language acquisition was supported by the results of the test. Children were presented with a made-up word, "wug," and then asked to pluralize it or use it in a sentence.
The results showed that even young children were able to apply grammatical rules to the new word, demonstrating their innate understanding of language structure.
This supported Chomsky's theory that children have an innate ability to acquire language and that grammar is not solely learned through imitation.
Virtuous errors
Chomsky used the term 'virtuous error' to refer to non-standard forms which have their own internal logic that actually displays a greater intelligence than the ability to repeat words and phrases like a parrot the idea of 'virtuous error' is used as a justification of LAD.
A child makes errors in their grammar, inflections and syntax because they are attempting to apply the rules that they recognise from the language around them.
Evaluation- Too much emphasis on innate knowledge and does not adequately consider the role of environmental factors in language development
Cognitivism
Creating knowledge & intelligence is an inherently active process as children investigate, experiment & build knowledge of the world. Children can only use language when they understand the meaning behind it.
Piaget (cognitive theorist)- suggests that children's intelligence undergoes changes as they grow. Cognitive development in children is not only related to acquiring knowledge, children need to build or develop a mental model of their surrounding world. Understanding of abstract concepts e.g. morality
Stages of cognitive development:
Object Permeance: (this is the concept that an object exists out of the child's sight.)
Sensorimotor (under 2 yrs): Experience the physical world through the 5 senses & begins classifying the things in it; lexical choices, when they appear, tend to be concrete as opposed to abstract & using present tense constructions. The child’s object permeance will also develop
Pre-occupational (2-7 years): This is when the language and motor skills of a child develop and become more competent. Language is egocentric so it is either focused on the child or used by the child whilst they are alone. They begin to think about non-physical concepts.
Concrete operational (7-11 years): this is the stage where children begin thinking totally logically about concrete events. e.g. height, weight and volume
Formal operational (11+ years): where a child's abstract reasoning skills develop and they’re able to solve problems
This approach suggests that speech & understanding is that our metal processes play a role in language development according to this approach, language is deeply interconnected with cognitive development. As children develop more complex thought processes, this is reflected in their use of language.
Evidence
Ego-centric speech
As described by Piaget, egocentric speech is associated with immaturity, a sign that a child is at the point in his or her development where he or she has not yet learned how to interact with others. Therefore, the tendency towards egocentric speech would fade away as the child increased in maturity.
Berko and Brown [1960] The ‘fis’ phenomenon (test)
‘Fis’ phenomenon is a phenomenon of child language acquisition that demonstrates that perception of phonemes occurs earlier than the ability of the child to produce those phonemes.
A child referred to his inflatable plastic fish as a ‘fis’. However, when adults asked him, “Is this your ‘fis’?” he rejected the statement. When he was asked, “Is this your fish?” he responded, “Yes, my ‘fis’.”
This shows that although the child could not produce the phoneme, he could perceive it as being different from the phoneme /s/.
In some cases, the sounds produced by the child are actually acoustically different, but not significantly enough for others to distinguish since the language in question does not make such contrasts.
Short summary:
- Child called his plastic fish "fis" and when corrected he refused to correct his pronunciation
- Only satisfied when the adult called it "fis"
It shows young children can understand more than they can say which shows that internal language is ahead of external language
Evaluation: Too rigid & deterministic, it neglects individual differences & generalises people’s experiences
Social Interactionism
Jerome Bruner's theory (social interactionist theorist)- we develop three levels of learning. First, the enactive level encodes knowledge through direct actions. Next, the iconic level encodes idea in visual imagery. Then the third level encodes lessons symbolically, such as in languages.
Lev Vygotsky's theory (social interactionist theorist)- believes that cognitive development is influenced by social and cultural factors
Emphasises the significance of children conversing with more knowledgeable members of society. Higher mental abilities could only develop through interactions with more advanced others. His theory encourages collaborative and cooperative learning between children and teachers/peers. He suggested that play is particularly helpful for children’s language learning & can be an opportunity for MKOs to help children move into their ZPDs.
MKO- A caregiver or ‘more knowledgeable other’ who needs to be present for child’s linguistics development
Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) -refers to the difference between what a learner can do without help and what he or she can achieve with guidance and encouragement from a skilled partner.
LASS- The language acquisition support system. Network of adults that interact with a young child and in doing so supporting their language development
Ritualised activities help children learn language as it require them to actively interact with others and helps them recognise patterns through repetition and makes it predictable so easy to learn e.g. bedtime, mealtime
Child directed speech: the way a person’s voice changes & how they speak and how their characteristics change when speaking to an infant/toddler e.g. long pauses, alter pitch and tone to put emphasis on words, present tense (immediate, happening NOW), recasting (correcting the child in a non-invasive way), tag questions, scaffolding (building a conversation)
Evidence: ZPD Vygotsky’s study- showed that children could perform more complex tasks when assisted by an adult. Also real-world educational examples such as cooperative learning & scaffolding
Evaluation: Too much emphasis on social interactionism and doesn’t consider the individual’s role enough. Learning is not only a social process but also a cognitive process. It also doesn’t apply to all cultures as his observation was based on his experiences
Common phonological errors
Deletion- In child speech, deletion may refer to leaving out sounds or syllables in words, like saying "nana" instead of "banana" or "top" instead of "stop." .
|
Substitution- Substitution in child speech refers to the process where a child replaces one sound or word with another. It is a common part of language development in young children.
|
Addition- Addition in child-directed speech phonology refers to the process where extra sounds are inserted into a child's speech, often to simplify pronunciation or aid in learning. It is a common feature in early language development.
|
Assimilation--Assimilation in child speech phonology is when a sound becomes more like a neighboring sound in a word due to the influence of that sound. It is a common phonological process in children's language development.
|
Reduplication Reduplication is a morphological process where all or part of a word is repeated to convey a specific meaning, often used in linguistics to show intensity, plurality, or continuity.
|
Consonant Cluster Reductions
Consonant Cluster Reductions refer to the process of simplifying a sequence of consonants in a word by omitting or modifying some of the consonants. It is a common phonological phenomenon in language.
|
Study - AnkiWeb (ankiuser.net)
Pre- verbal stages of development
Vegetative- sounds of discomfort or reflexive actions
Cooing- comfort sounds, vocal play using open-mouthed vowel sounds (6-8 weeks)
Babbling- repeated patterns of consonant and vowel sounds (6-9 months)
Proto-words- word-like vocalisations that have consistent meanings, sometimes called scribble talk e.g. dada/mama
Grammatical stages of development
Holophrastic/one-word stage- one word utterances (12-18 months) e.g. choccie
Two-word stage- two word utterances (18-24 months) e.g. want choccie
Telegraphic stage- three or more combinations- often lacks function words (24-36 months) e.g. daddy want choccie
Post-telegraphic stage- more grammatically complex sentences (36 months) e.g. daddy I want some choccie please
Functions of language
TWO KEY THEORISTS- HALLIDAY AND DORE but focus on Halliday (easier) :)
Halliday’s functions:
Instrumental: fulfil a need
Regulatory: Influence the behaviour of others
Interactional: develop and maintain social relationships
Personal: convey individual opinions, ideas and personal identity
Representational: convey facts and information
Imaginative: create an imaginary world and may be seen in play predominantly
Heuristic: learn about the environment
Dore’s functions:
Labelling- Naming a person, object or thing
Repeating- Repeating an adult word or utterance
Answering- Responding to an utterance of another speaker
Requesting action- Asking for something to be done for them
Calling- Getting attention by shouting
Greeting- Greeting someone or something
Protesting- Objecting to requests from others
Practicing- Using language when no adult is present
Categorising first words
In 1973, Katherine Nelson identified four categories for first words:
Recorded the first 50 words of 18 children
· Naming (of things or people) (concrete nouns)
· Actions/events (verbs)
· Describing/modifying things
· Personal/social words.
60% were nouns (concrete)
Verbs were the second largest group.
Modifiers were third.
Personal and social words made up 8% of the results
Overextension/ similar to overgeneralisation - when a child uses a single word to refer to multiple objects or concepts, instead of using different words for different things
Under extension- occurs when a child acquires a word for a particular thing and fails to extend it to other objects in the same category, using the word in a highly restricted and individualistic way.
Inflectional morphology-when a word is altered to make a new grammatical form (e.g. adding ‘s’ to make a plural or adding ‘ed’ to make the past tense
WUG test:
Psycholinguistics professor Jean Berko Gleason, who created the wug test in 1958, as a linguistics tool for testing how well children had learned the so-called “morphemes” associated with making nouns plural or verbs past tense.
This process was showing a child a series of fictional scenarios — like the first, one “wug” becoming two “wugs” — and then analyzing how well he or she pronounces the three “allomorph” sounds needed for plurality: “Z, “S” and “tZ.”
This test also gauges other types of morpheme learning, such as how well a student has truly learned the proper way to make verbs past tense or nouns possessive
Stages of Questions
STAGE 1. around 18 months: during the two-word stage, children start to use rising intonation to indicate a question e.g. ‘Go walk?’
STAGE 2. between ages of 2-3: In telegraphic talk, children continue to use rising intonation but also use Wh- words e.g. Where tractor? They use a wider range of interrogative pronouns such as why, when and how
STAGE 3. from age 3 upwards: Children will use subject-verb inversion e.g. Can I see it? Did she break it? Instead of - I can see it? They also start to use auxillary verbs for the first time. e.g. What is Mummy doing?
Stages of pronouns
Stages of Negation
STAGE 1- around 18 months: Children use no/not to make things negative, normally at the beginning of the phrase rather than at the end e.g. ‘No bed!’
STAGE 2- between 2 & 3: Children start to use no and not in front of verbs too, such as ‘I no want juice.’ They develop the use of contracted negatives such as can’t, don’t. Sometimes they get mixed up with can’t and don’t.
STAGE 3- 3 years upwards: Children stop using no and not in the same way that they did in stage 1. They use can’t and don’t correctly and start using other negative contractions such as didn’t and won’t, but isn’t seems to develop slightly later
Lee Vygotsky
deemed that children’s play was linked to both cognitive and social development, he said young children used props as ‘pivots’ to support their play, but when older, used their imagination instead
Catherine Garvey
Studied pairs of children; noted they adopted role play which mirrored their own experiences; termed pretend play- fulfils Halliday’s imaginative language function
Behaviourism
The idea that communication is conditioned & shaped using environmental influences e.g. imitation, reinforcement & conditioning
Skinner [1957] (behaviourist theorist) - suggested that children learn as a result of the consequences of their behaviour. If children experience a positive consequences after a behaviour, they are more likely to repeat that behaviour again in the future.
Operant conditioning is whereby a behaviour’s learnt/influenced through consequence
Repetition of an event is determined by positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement and punishment
Positive reinforcement- where you gain something from the action e.g. reward for homework
Negative reinforcement- when something is removed as a result of your action & makes you want to do it again e.g. do homework and no chores for a week
Punishment- decreases the frequency of a behaviour e.g. detention for missed homework
Evidence- Ambridge & Lieven argue that children can learn complex grammatical structures through pattern recognition e.g. picking up on past tense forms of irregular verbs through exposure, even without explicit teaching so is it shaped by our environment?
Evaluation: Chomsky’s theory that children would never acquire the tools to learn language but it is actually influenced by our natural cognitive abilities.
Nativism
The idea that communication is innate and we all have the inherent ability to communicate
Noah Chomsky key theorist- His language theory argues that this innate feature is activated during infancy by minimal environmental stimuli.
LAD- Language acquisition device - a term given innate ability to contain linguistic information from birth. It is a tool found in the brain & it encodes the major skills involved in language learning, focusing on the encoding of grammar
The critical period- the ability to acquire language based on age (early years)
Universal grammar: a set of language rules that share common grammar principles that all children are born with an innate ability to acquire, develop & understand language
Evidence- children always have the structure of a sentence in the correct order & children have been observed to pick up grammar & syntax without being taught vocally
The Wug Test
The Wug Test is a well-known and highly regarded experiment conducted in the field of linguistics.
This ground-breaking study was specifically designed to delve into the intricate process of language acquisition in children and shed light on how they acquire and apply grammatical rules.
Chomsky's theory of language acquisition was supported by the results of the test. Children were presented with a made-up word, "wug," and then asked to pluralize it or use it in a sentence.
The results showed that even young children were able to apply grammatical rules to the new word, demonstrating their innate understanding of language structure.
This supported Chomsky's theory that children have an innate ability to acquire language and that grammar is not solely learned through imitation.
Virtuous errors
Chomsky used the term 'virtuous error' to refer to non-standard forms which have their own internal logic that actually displays a greater intelligence than the ability to repeat words and phrases like a parrot the idea of 'virtuous error' is used as a justification of LAD.
A child makes errors in their grammar, inflections and syntax because they are attempting to apply the rules that they recognise from the language around them.
Evaluation- Too much emphasis on innate knowledge and does not adequately consider the role of environmental factors in language development
Cognitivism
Creating knowledge & intelligence is an inherently active process as children investigate, experiment & build knowledge of the world. Children can only use language when they understand the meaning behind it.
Piaget (cognitive theorist)- suggests that children's intelligence undergoes changes as they grow. Cognitive development in children is not only related to acquiring knowledge, children need to build or develop a mental model of their surrounding world. Understanding of abstract concepts e.g. morality
Stages of cognitive development:
Object Permeance: (this is the concept that an object exists out of the child's sight.)
Sensorimotor (under 2 yrs): Experience the physical world through the 5 senses & begins classifying the things in it; lexical choices, when they appear, tend to be concrete as opposed to abstract & using present tense constructions. The child’s object permeance will also develop
Pre-occupational (2-7 years): This is when the language and motor skills of a child develop and become more competent. Language is egocentric so it is either focused on the child or used by the child whilst they are alone. They begin to think about non-physical concepts.
Concrete operational (7-11 years): this is the stage where children begin thinking totally logically about concrete events. e.g. height, weight and volume
Formal operational (11+ years): where a child's abstract reasoning skills develop and they’re able to solve problems
This approach suggests that speech & understanding is that our metal processes play a role in language development according to this approach, language is deeply interconnected with cognitive development. As children develop more complex thought processes, this is reflected in their use of language.
Evidence
Ego-centric speech
As described by Piaget, egocentric speech is associated with immaturity, a sign that a child is at the point in his or her development where he or she has not yet learned how to interact with others. Therefore, the tendency towards egocentric speech would fade away as the child increased in maturity.
Berko and Brown [1960] The ‘fis’ phenomenon (test)
‘Fis’ phenomenon is a phenomenon of child language acquisition that demonstrates that perception of phonemes occurs earlier than the ability of the child to produce those phonemes.
A child referred to his inflatable plastic fish as a ‘fis’. However, when adults asked him, “Is this your ‘fis’?” he rejected the statement. When he was asked, “Is this your fish?” he responded, “Yes, my ‘fis’.”
This shows that although the child could not produce the phoneme, he could perceive it as being different from the phoneme /s/.
In some cases, the sounds produced by the child are actually acoustically different, but not significantly enough for others to distinguish since the language in question does not make such contrasts.
Short summary:
- Child called his plastic fish "fis" and when corrected he refused to correct his pronunciation
- Only satisfied when the adult called it "fis"
It shows young children can understand more than they can say which shows that internal language is ahead of external language
Evaluation: Too rigid & deterministic, it neglects individual differences & generalises people’s experiences
Social Interactionism
Jerome Bruner's theory (social interactionist theorist)- we develop three levels of learning. First, the enactive level encodes knowledge through direct actions. Next, the iconic level encodes idea in visual imagery. Then the third level encodes lessons symbolically, such as in languages.
Lev Vygotsky's theory (social interactionist theorist)- believes that cognitive development is influenced by social and cultural factors
Emphasises the significance of children conversing with more knowledgeable members of society. Higher mental abilities could only develop through interactions with more advanced others. His theory encourages collaborative and cooperative learning between children and teachers/peers. He suggested that play is particularly helpful for children’s language learning & can be an opportunity for MKOs to help children move into their ZPDs.
MKO- A caregiver or ‘more knowledgeable other’ who needs to be present for child’s linguistics development
Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) -refers to the difference between what a learner can do without help and what he or she can achieve with guidance and encouragement from a skilled partner.
LASS- The language acquisition support system. Network of adults that interact with a young child and in doing so supporting their language development
Ritualised activities help children learn language as it require them to actively interact with others and helps them recognise patterns through repetition and makes it predictable so easy to learn e.g. bedtime, mealtime
Child directed speech: the way a person’s voice changes & how they speak and how their characteristics change when speaking to an infant/toddler e.g. long pauses, alter pitch and tone to put emphasis on words, present tense (immediate, happening NOW), recasting (correcting the child in a non-invasive way), tag questions, scaffolding (building a conversation)
Evidence: ZPD Vygotsky’s study- showed that children could perform more complex tasks when assisted by an adult. Also real-world educational examples such as cooperative learning & scaffolding
Evaluation: Too much emphasis on social interactionism and doesn’t consider the individual’s role enough. Learning is not only a social process but also a cognitive process. It also doesn’t apply to all cultures as his observation was based on his experiences
Common phonological errors
Deletion- In child speech, deletion may refer to leaving out sounds or syllables in words, like saying "nana" instead of "banana" or "top" instead of "stop." .
|
Substitution- Substitution in child speech refers to the process where a child replaces one sound or word with another. It is a common part of language development in young children.
|
Addition- Addition in child-directed speech phonology refers to the process where extra sounds are inserted into a child's speech, often to simplify pronunciation or aid in learning. It is a common feature in early language development.
|
Assimilation--Assimilation in child speech phonology is when a sound becomes more like a neighboring sound in a word due to the influence of that sound. It is a common phonological process in children's language development.
|
Reduplication Reduplication is a morphological process where all or part of a word is repeated to convey a specific meaning, often used in linguistics to show intensity, plurality, or continuity.
|
Consonant Cluster Reductions
Consonant Cluster Reductions refer to the process of simplifying a sequence of consonants in a word by omitting or modifying some of the consonants. It is a common phonological phenomenon in language.
|
