child language acquisition

• mehler


  found that French babies had a stronger reaction to French sounds at 4 days old than they did to English, Spanish or Italian. Proves that babies become accustomed to their native language before birth
• The 'pre lingual' stage

  1. biological noises (0-2 months). lots of crying. child begins to control air stream
  2. cooing/ laughing (2-5 months). control of vocal chords, sounds are meaningless. tongue control when coos strung together
  3. vocal play (5-8 months). vowel & consonant sounds, pitch. no meaning behind noises
  4. babbling (6-12 months). consonants linked to vowels
  5. melodic utterances (9-18 months). utterances have rhythm, tone is developed
  6. proto words (a year). utterances resemble words but don't make sense outside of context of primary caregivers
• grunwell


  Children learn /p, b, d, m, t, w, n/ phonemes at 2 and don't learn / θ ӡ ð / phonemes until the age of 4
• Halliday


  children use 7 functions:

  1. instrumental - used for needs and desires
  2. regulatory - used to get people to do something
  3. interactional - used to interact with others and form relationships
  4. personal - explores feelings and identity
  5. heuristic - used to explore the world and environment that surrounds them
  6. imaginative - used to be imaginative
  7. representational - used for facts
• rescorla


  3 categories for when a child overextends words:

  1. categorical - child uses 1 word to describe everything in a category (eg: dog for all breeds)
  2. analogical - child uses word to describe something which is physically similar/ servers a similar purpose (eg: labelling a van as a car)
  3. relational - word has some form of relation to the incorrect word (eg: labelling a road as a car)
• National Literacy Trust


  published most common first words: dada, mama, cat, dog, more, baby, ball, duck, teddy, milk, gran, again
• Gervain


  Work tested babies at 2 and 3 days old and discovered that brain activity peaked with reduplicated syllables
• Crystal


  Argues children recognise that their parents get excited when they say 'ma' or 'da', which increases the frequency in which they say it
• Holophrastic stage

  1. period of time when children speak using single words
  2. happens between 9-18 months
  3. predominently nouns
  4. often encompass many meanings and moods
• two word stage

  1. denotes utterances of 2 word only
  2. 18-24 months
  3. other words classes emerge, nouns still dominate
  4. syntax is explored (correctly)
  5. inflections are not applied to verbs
• telegraphic stage

  1. using utterances with just enough information
  2. 24-30 months
  3. wider range of word classes - paticularly pronouns and then followed by determiners and prepositions
• skinner - behaviourism


  says that a child learns language based on positive and negative reinforcement of ideas
• interactionism


  believes a child is born with a tabula rasa (blank slate) and learns language based on their interactions with caregivers
• bruner


  a child must interact with caregivers in order to learn language. The LASS - language acquisition support system - is a system designed to scaffold a child into learning language
• catherine snow


  'motherese' - the language used by mothers to talk to their children. Argues language acquisition happens as a result of the interaction which takes place between a mother and her child. father interactions is 'fatherese', others are 'otherese'
• Snarey


  fathers use language with their children differently than mothers - more 'roughhousing' as the father teachers biting, kicking and other forms of violence are unacceptable and how to gain self-control. the following form fatherese:

  1. tickling, wrestling and throwing the child in the air
  2. chasing
  3. loud volume
  4. bouncing rather than cuddling and rough rather than gentle
  5. encouragement of competition
  6. promotion of independence over security
  7. less simplification of speech
  8. challenging children to expand vocab and linguistic skills
• Bard and Sachs - Jim case study


  studied 'Jim', whose parents are deaf. He was exposed to various uses of language like TV and radio, but he passed the critical period. However, interactions with a speech therapist helped him acquire language, proving there is need for interaction
• strategies for scaffolding

  1. recasting and reformulation - caregiver repeats what the child said containing anything missing and needed to make a grammatically standard utterance
  2. expansion - caregiver makes the utterance more complex by expanding on what they said
  3. exaggerated prosodic cues - exaggerating intonation, varying pitch, and using higher intonations
  4. over articulation - caregiver stretches out vowel sounds in words
• Rhoades


  Adds more strategies that caregivers may use:

  1. short and simple sentences that are melodic
  2. focus on what the child is doing
  3. repetition of what the child and caregiver say
  4. pausing between words
  5. higher frequency of interrogatives and imperatives
  6. slower speech
• grices maxims

  1. maxim of quantity - must carry enough information
  2. maxim of quality - must be truthful
  3. maxim of relation - must be relevant and pertinent to discussion
  4. maxim of manner - must be clear and limit ambiguity
• chomsky - nativist


  questions how children produce utterances that are grammatically non-standard to the point where no caregiver would have said them
• De Villers and De Villers


  state that it is rare for caregivers to give direct feedback about the correctness of their language, so there must be something more innate
• pye


  researched how different cultures learn language. found that children around the world acquired language roughly at the same time and not all cultures use CDS
• myzor

  believes CDS helps to aid social development but does not help linguistic development. eg: it may teach children turn-taking, but not aid their ability to use correct forms
• Chomsky - LAD


  States that children cannot learn through imitation of caregivers because they provide a 'poverty of stimulus' - not a good enough standard of language. children must have something inbuilt to help them (the LAD - language acquisition device). At 7, the LAD turns off and it becomes difficult to learn languages. Children often resist corrections to their mistakes - the LAD insists that their way of using language is correct
• chomsky - virtuous errors


  states that children can make virtuous errors - ones made with good intentions (eg: i hurted his feelings)
• chomsky - universal grammar


  states that children have a universal grammar which has a set of rules on how to structure language. Supported by the fact that many languages follow SVO - subject-verb-object syntax
• berko - 'wug' test


  children given a picture of a bird-like creature called a 'wug' and then asked to state things like what would 2 of the creatures be ('wugs'). Test invented nouns and verbs to test pluralisation and over-generalisation. 76% of 4-5 year olds and 97% of 5-7 year olds correctly used the '-s' ending. Children had not encountered the word before, proving that children learn the rule and do not imitate
• cruttenden 


  the 'u-shaped curve':

  1. point 1 - the child applies the rule and gets it right
  2. point 2 - the child applies the rule everywhere and gets it wrong
  3. point 3 - the child learns that the rule only works in certain situations
• pinker


  every utterance is unique. children produce utterances they have never heard before. Questions whether children can learn from imitation if every utterance is different
• tomasello


  dismissed Chomsky as an 'armchair linguist' and questions the validity of his theory
• cognitive theory


  states children need a cognitive understanding in order to use language - children cannot linguistically articulate what they do not understand
• piaget


  children start life egocentric. they feel as though the world revolves around them. supported by notion of object permanence
• vgostky


  theory proposes that there is a cognitive deficiency. Calls it the Zone of proximal development. states that a more knowledgable other (MKO) is needed to fill the gap
• challenges to cognitive theory

  1. children that have learning disabilities and cognitive issues still learn to use language, even expressing concepts beyond their understanding
  2. apes share a similar cognitive development in the first years of life, but do not acquire language
• Tomasello - social constructionism

  states that children listen to language and do 2 things: intention reading and pattern finding

  1. intention reading - children learn how to use language to achieve social ends
  2. pattern finding - children look at many utterances and develop schemas based on patterns in language
• braine


  theory proposed that children learn language in a 'slot and frame' manner. the child develops a schema in which variables can be placed to suit the situation