Language Acquisition PDF

Language Acquisition What does it mean when you refer to a child as an "active experimenter" when it comes to acquiring language? Children do not learn from being corrected by adults and repeating after them. Experimenting with language structure, they create sentences that work and eventually com...

Language Acquisition What does it mean when you refer to a child as an "active experimenter" when it comes to acquiring language? Children do not learn from being corrected by adults and repeating after them. Experimenting with language structure, they create sentences that work and eventually come up with "correct" conclusions themselves. What is caregiver speech? A speech style often used by adults and older children when talking to infants or young children. It's characterized by short sentences, simplified grammar, obvious questions to which the caregiver knows the answers to, restricted vocabulary and slow and raised speech with many repetitions. Example: "Where's Teddy? Oh look - there's teddy. He's on the chair". What are the five most important stages of language acquisition? 1. Cooing (at 4 months) - single-vowel sounds, such as “ooh” and “aah.” A cooing baby is making their first attempt at expressive language. 2. Babbling (at 6-10 months) - A baby makes consonant-vowel or vowel- consonant sounds, such as “ma”, “da” or “um”. This stage gives a lot of false hope to the parents, who think their child is referring to them, by saying "mama" or "dada". 3. Holophrastic stage (at 12-18 months) - Is made up of simple, single words to communicate needs. For example, a child may say "juice" which could mean "I want juice". Children at this stage also communicate by a single form of utterances, functioning as a phrase or sentence, for example "wasat" spoken in raised voice means "what's that?" 4. The two-word stage (at 18-20 months) - During this stage, toddlers begin stringing together two words to create basic sentences to better communicate their emotions, needs, and perceptions, such as "mommy up" or "more juice". 5. Telegraphic speech (at 2-2.5 years old) - It's characterized by short, simple sentences made up primarily of content words. Children make use of grammatical variations in word forms and use correct word order, for example "This shoe wet". What are the basic requirements for language acquisition during a child's first two or three years of development? The child needs interaction with other language-users, exposure to a particular language, and physical capability to send and receive sound signals. A child who does not hear or is not allowed to use language will learn no language. Why is cultural transmission considered crucial in language acquisition? cultural transmission is a process through which cultural elements, in the form of attitudes, values, beliefs, and behavioral scripts, are passed onto and taught to individuals and groups. It emphasizes that the specific language a child learns is not genetically inherited but acquired in a particular language-using environment. What's the difference between acquiring a language and learning one? The acquisition allows us to use language intuitively, with less attention to grammatical rules. It is a subconscious process. That is why native speakers use their mother tongue with no apparent effort. On the other hand, learning a language is conscious and offers a deep understanding of the language's structure, making it possible to comprehend and use more complex forms. How does overextension manifest in a child's early vocabulary? Overextension occurs when a child uses a single word to refer to multiple objects or concepts, instead of using different words for different things. For example, a toddler may use the word "dog" to refer to all four-legged animals, including cats, pigs, and cows, and the word “daddy” may be used in reference to all men. A child can also use the word "apple" to refer to all things round, meaning a ball, a tomato, or a strawberry. Thank you