language development

Vocabulary Acquisition

• The greatest increase in vocabulary occurs in children between the ages of 1-3 years old.
• Fast mapping is the process by which young children add new words to their vocabulary.

Language Development

• Children tend to learn verbs before nouns in languages such as Inuktitut and many Indigenous languages of Australia.
• English is a language where children tend to learn nouns before verbs.

Vocabulary Size

• The average vocabulary size of a 4-year-old is around 5,000-6,000 words.
• The average vocabulary size of a 6-year-old is around 10,000-14,000 words.
• Infants have the smallest vocabulary size.

Language Learning

• The term "lexical spurt" describes the period in early childhood when the capacity for learning new words is especially pronounced.
• The term "semantic network" describes the mental map of interconnected sets of word categories that young children form as they learn new words.
• The process of connecting a new word to one of their existing word categories based on its usage and relation to known words is called "semantic mapping".
• Function words (e.g., "the", "and", "a") are added more slowly in both Eastern and Western languages.

Language Rules

• A language's distinctive system of rules is called a "grammar".
• By the age of 3, children use correct grammar in 90% of their statements.

Language Research

• Jean Berko investigated how children learn morphology (the rules governing the structure of words).
• Chomsky's language acquisition device refers to an innate capacity for language acquisition in children.
• Pragmatics in language learning refer to the rules governing the use of language in social contexts.
• Children grasp the pragmatics of a basic conversation by around 2-3 years old.
• By age 4, children learn to use language to achieve social goals, such as getting attention or making requests.
• The use of pragmatics in language learning represents the ability to use language effectively in social interactions.
• Adults tend to find amusing rather than offensive the mistakes young children make in their language use.