language development PD

• what is language

  • 'An arbitrary system of symbols which taken together makeit possible...to transmit and understand an infinite variety ofmessages” (Brown, 1965)
  • “A system of symbols which are arbitrary and shared forcommunication which is intentional” (Bancroft, 1995)
  • “A code in which spoken sounds is used in order to encodemeaning” (Barrett, 1999) on spoken language.
• prelinguistic development

  • infants are well prepared to acquire language
  • infants are born with a special sensitivity to language

  newborns:

  • attend to speech in preference to other sounds
  • can discriminate all phonemes in all languages
  • can recognise mothers voice and language at birth
  • can recognise a familiar from an unfamiliar utterance
• child must acquire skill in 4 main components

  • phonology
  • semantics
  • grammar
  • pragmatics
• key components of language development

  phronology

  • rules governing the speech sounds (phonemes) of a language
• key components of language development:

  semantics

  • meanings encoded by language
  • meanigns are assigned to units of language (morphemes)
  • morphemes: whole words / grammatical markers
• key components of language development:

  grammar: rules governing how words are built from morphemes (morphology) and how words are combined (syntax)
• key components of language development:

  pragmatics: rules governing how language is used in a given context

  sociolinguistic knowledge
• phonological development

  • 2mo: cooing
  • 6mo: consonants are added, babbling begins 'bababa' etc
  • 12mo: first words e.g. 'mummy' 'daddy' 'doggie'
  • limitations are of vocal apparatus rather than cognition: e.g. one child said 'bat; for as many as 12 words 'bad' 'bite'
  • phonological development mostly complete by school age
• semantic development

  • young infants learn 1-3 words/month
  • 12 mo: children say their first words: holophrases e.g. 'milk' i want milk .... but comprehend more than they can produce
  • 18 mo: vocab learnt more rapidly, 40 words per month
  • semantic development parallels development in ability to categorise objects
• grammatical development

  • syntax requires more than one word utterance

  1.5-2.5 yrs:

  • 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

  2-3yrs:

  • 3 word sentences appear
  • English speakers show correct subject-verb-object order
  • Grammatical morphemes are added
  • Not always correct: overregularization
  • e.g. ‘I have two foots’
  • Complexity of grammatical structures steadily increases with age
• pragmatic development

  12mo: 'conversational' turn taking is mastered

  games like peek a poo appear

  preschool years: rules of successful interactions start to appear: 'turnabout': speaker comments on what partner said and then requests partner speak again

  middle childhood: children adapt their speech to the listener
• theories of language development

  • how does the child acquire language?
  • behaviourist: skinner (reinforcement and imitation)
  • nativist: chomsky (innate grammar: LAD)
  • cognitivist: piaget (cognitive development underpins language)
  • social interactionist: bruner (social interaction underpins language)
• behaviourist theory (skinner, bandura)

  • skinner proposed language is learnt via operant conditioning
  • proposed that adults selectively reinforce child's babbling sounds
  • reinforcement = parental approval, attention to child
• theories of language development

  Behaviourist theory

  • 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
• behaviourist theory

  arguments in behaviour

  • reinforcement and imitation are sound principles
  • adults do reinforce children's speech : 'say please'
  • explains why children learn local language and dialect
  • evidence that infants imitate adult speech (papousek and papasouek)
  • found increasing imitation of mothers speech sounds in infancy (pitch, duration and rhythm)
  • adult speech quality affects child's learning: clark-stewart
• behaviourist theory

  limitation

  • overregularization of grammatical rules "my teacher holded the baby rabbits" adults do not use such words. suggests children development grammatical rules, but..
  • little evidence that mothers shape childrens grammar - brown
  • examined taped conversations between mother and child found that mothers corrected content rather than grammar. mothers corrrected 'that pig' when pointing to sheep but not 'the sheeps'
• theories of language development

  behaviourist theory (e.g. skinner, bandura)

  limitations

  • rate of learning
  • school age children have -10,000 word vocabulary
  • capable of innumberal complex sentences
  • reinforcement does not seem a practical explanation
• nativist theory (e.g. chomsky)

  • proposed innate capacity for language acquisition
  • humans possess an innate 'Language Acquisition device'
  • LAD detects statistical regularities in speech
  • forms hypothesis about them, e.g. '-ed' = indicates past tense
  • accepts/rejects hypothesis accordingly
  • LAD is capable of learning any language in this way
• nativist theory (e.g. chomsky)

  • chomsky points out: sentences have both surface and deep structure
  • 'the dog bit the man'
  • 'the man was bitten by the dog'
  • different surface structure (words and word order)
  • same deep structure (meaning)

  chomsky argues:

  • the wide variation in surface structure between languages can be reduced to a common set of universal rules
  • grammatical rules of deep structure shared by all languages
  • called these rules 'universal grammar'
• theories of language development

  nativist theory (e.g. chomsky)

  • chomsky argues: the rules of 'universal grammar' are innate and embodied in LAD
  • the LAD acquires the rules for transforming the surface structure of a language into deep structure and vice versa
• nativist theory (e.g. chomsky)

  arguments in favour

  • 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
  • language share certain universal features (e.g. nouns, verbs)
• nativist theory (e.g. chomsky)

  arguments in favour

  • pidgin and creole languages
  • bickerton - studied language of immigrant workers in hawaii in early 1900s
  • immigrants develop a pidgin to communicate
  • pidgin had no consistent word order, no tense etc. but workers children developed a highly grammatical language
  • argued: the child does not initially 'learn' language
  • the child possesses a genetic program for language
• nativist theory (e.g. chomsky)

  arguments in favour

  • specific brain areas with localised language functions:
  • broca's area in frontal lobe (production)
  • wernicke's area in temporal lobe (comprehension)
• nativist theory (chomsky)

  limitations

  • a single set of rules governing all languages (universal grammar) had not yet been identified
• nativist theory (chomsky)

  limitations

  • does not acknowledge the 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
• limitations of nativist theory

  • ignores effects of social experience i.e. pragmatics
• language development

  cognitive theory (e.g. piaget)

  piaget proposed:

  • a child's cognition is built from sensorimotor experience
  • child develops schemas for objects and events
  • cognition precedes language
• cognitive theory (e.g. piaget)

  before age 2:

  • schemas represent sensorimotor information (actions and senses)

  at around age 2:

  • child becomes capable of symbolic thought: can think in words
  • child develops rules of language, but not through LAD
  • language grows from broader cognitive abilities

  rules are acquired from and reflect child's knowledge of the world
• Cognitive theory (e.g. Piaget)

  Piagetians argue: 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
• cognitive theory

  the 'cognition hypothesis' (cromer)

  'we understand and use particular linguistic structures only when our cognitive abilities enable us to do so (smith et al)
• cognitive theory

  arguments in favour

  • object permanence is taken as evidence for symbolic thought, language emerges after this is achieved
• cognitive theory (e.g. piaget) arguments in favour

  • children's first words are of familier entities, they use knowledge of the world understood non-verbally through actions and senses
• cognitive theory

  arguments in favour

  • phrases like 'all gone' emerge when able to solve advanced object permanence problems
• cognitive theory (e.g. piaget)

  limitations

  • ignored the importance of social influence on learning, viewed children as little scientists, learning in a solitary way.
  • ignored motivation and influence from people around them
• social interactionist theory (bruner)

  • proposes that infants first learn about social world. this provides a basis for language
  • social processes underpinning language: bruners language acquisition support system (LASS)
• social interactionist theory

  • parents tend to assign meaning to child's sounds and utterances e.g. burp - 'you really enjoyed that didnt you?'
• social interactionist theory (e.g. bruner)

  • conversational turn taking
  • in the form of extended exchanges like that above
  • emeres at 3 months (adult largely maintains flow)
  • 12mo: games like peek-a-boo appear (child active in maintaining flow)
• social interactionist theory (bruner)

  • focusing of joint attention
  • important rule of conversation
  • 6mo: child will follow mother's gaze to see what she is looking at
  • enables communication about an object: parent shows child object, names object
• social interactionist theory

  • gestural communication
  • child learns gestures and uses them during joint attention around 9 mo
  • e.g. pointing
  • child touches object and looks at parent = 'look at this'
• social interactionist theory

  evaluation

  • highlights importance of non-verbal social behaviours essential for language development
  • can explain poor language skills of children raised with little or poor social interaction
  • not clear how it explains development of grammar
  • ignores importance of fundamental perceptual and cognitive processes in language acquisition