Spoken Language

• Stages of speech development - vegetative

  0 to 4 months, reflex, crying noises
• Stages of speech development - cooing

  3 to 6 months, open mouthed vowel sounds
• Stages of speech development - babbling

  6 to 12 months, repeated consonant, vowel, sounds, and the combination of these: bababababa etc.
• Stages of speech development - proto word

  9 to 12 months, babbling sounds that seem to match an actual word
• Stages of speech development - holophrastic


  Around one year, using one word to sign post things
• Stages of speech development - 2 word stage

  Around 18 months, two word utterances, make up mini sentences, beginning of syntax
• What are the four categories of early words in children according to Nelson (1973)?


  1. Naming

  2. Action

  3. Social

  4. Modifying (descriptions)
• What was the largest category of early words in children according to Nelson (1973)?


  Naming words (60% of child's first 50 words were nouns)
• Bloom, 2004, babies first words


  Supposed noun bias, argued by Nelson reflects relative frequency of nouns in the language.

  
  

  Environment plays big role in determining in individual words spoken by children - have productive vocabularies
• Baby's first words, saxton, 2010


  Family - mama, dada

  Food - bread, cookie

  Toys - teddy, ball
• Overextended words


  Attempt to do a lot with little vocabulary so words are overextended - apply label to more reference than it should eg. 'sea' for any body of water
• Underextended words


  Cover a narrower definition of a word meaning eg. know what banana is when faced with a real one, but wont be able to see that picture of a banana in a book or photo has the same label
• What is categorical overextension - Rescorla 1980


  Labeling any kind of round fruit as 'apple
• What is analogical overextension - Rescorla 1980


  Labeling a scarf as 'cat' because both are soft
• What are mismatch or predicate statements - Rescorla 1980


  Complete mislabeling like using 'doll' for an empty cot
• What are the three stages in a child's acquisition of words and meanings according to Aitchison, 1987?

  Labelling, Packaging, Network building
• What does the labelling stage involve in a child's acquisition of words and meanings? - Aitchison


  Associating sounds with objects in the world around them
• What is the packaging stage in a child's acquisition of words and meanings characterized by? - Aitchison


  Exploring the extent of the label, frequent use of overextension and extensions
• What is network building in a child's acquisition of words and meanings? - Aitchison


  Making connections between the labels they have developed, understanding opposites and similarities
• Aitchison 1987


  Acquisition of words is active process of deductive reasoning as they make sense of the world around them, and mapping out connections between words and the world
• Addition


  Add extra vowel sound to create CVCV structure e.g. dog becomes 'doggy
• Deletion


  Leave out last consonant of a word e.g. mouse becomes 'mou
• Reduplication


  Repetition of particular sounds instructions, e.g. choochoo
• Substitution


  One sound swapped for another another e.g. rabbit becomes 'wabbit
• Consonant cluster reduction


  Difficult to produce consonant clusters so will reduce them to smaller units. E.g.dry becomes 'dy
• Deletion of unstressed syllables


  Removal of an entire syllable, e.g. banana becomes 'nana
• Assimilation


  Substitution occurs, but the sound changes because of other words around it e.g. doggy becomes 'goggy
• Telegraphic stage of development

  2 to 2 1/2 years old, utterances contain three or more words in which key content words are used while grammatical function words are admitted e.g. 'that my doll
• Post telegraphic stage of development

  Three years old, utterances were grammatical words missing from telegraphic stage, start to appear clauses begin linking to form longer sentences, implement passive voice
• Ursula Bellugi and David McNeill (1960s-1970s)


  Children progress through distinct stages as they develop and apply certain rules to the creation of negatives and questions

  eg. where to place negative word or clitic morpheme

  how to invert syntax of subject and verb
• The 'WUG' test Jean Berko Gleason

  Test children's use of the -S plural

  
  

  When faced with imaginary animal children would apply grammatical rules

  
  

  Process of unconscious systemisation of the world around them
• Nativism, Chomsky, 1959


  Behaviourism doesn't explain how children's language develops because language they hear is not a useful model, (poverty of stimulus)

  
  

  Language is innate to all humans
• Behaviourism, Skinner, 1957


  Children, hair language and are either positively reinforced by environment or negatively reinforced

  This conditions, child's words, phrases and utterances towards full adult speech
• Chomsky language acquisition device


  Once a child is exposed to their native language, it kicks in, inbuilt facility
• Behaviourist argument


  A child would never say "I folded over and hurted my knee" (virtuous errors) - they would never hear this or would be corrected out of doing so yet children still make these mistakes.

  
  

  Clearly generating their own language, based on rules, they intuited in
• Challenges of Chomsky's nature vs nurture view

  Child, language environment provides much richer language data than Chomsky acknowledged

  
  

  Parents and caregivers help interact with children to give them input and relevant context

  
  

  If there is inbuilt capacity for a language, it's not the product of a specific language related facility, but something linked to other areas of understanding and development
• Deb Roy speech Home project

  Recorded son from when he was born to 3 years old, noticed simplifying speech was essential for early development - still ongoing
• Tecumseh Fitch


  Vocal cord is flexible - animals

  
  

  Must be the brain stopping animals from talking
• William Fifer


  what point newborns react to speech around them using electrodes on a 1 day old

  - was able to respond to mothers voice - learning from mother in the womb
• Gary Morgan


  Autistic man able to understand 20 languages including arabic, memorised all the words he was taught in just 10 minutes