Language Development PDF

Summary

This document discusses language development, covering various theories, components, and associated problems. It delves into aspects such as the role of the environment and the brain in language acquisition. It also details different perspectives on the subject, including the nativist, interactionist, and constructivists approaches.

Full Transcript

From zero to hero: language development This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-SA Lost in the mall The phenomenon of false memory Visual cliff was explored by which study design? The strange situation The light bulb task ...

From zero to hero: language development This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-SA Lost in the mall The phenomenon of false memory Visual cliff was explored by which study design? The strange situation The light bulb task We are prone to have false memory Why don’t most people We are more likely to create remember false memory when we are things from older much younger age? We are affected by infantile amnesia We tend to repress memory Components of language Phonology: Segmentation of sounds Semantics: meaning of sounds Grammar: Structure words in the right order (Syntax) Pragmatics: Produce sentences in the right context Features in early word learning  Reciprocal relationship between language and cognition Role of Perceptual saliency Fast mapping Underextension and overextension  Teddy Sensitive/optimal period for acquisition  Vocabulary spurt Theories of language development Behaviourist vs. Interactionist Innate Constructivist Biologically based Cognitively based Chomsky (1980) Tomasello (2003) Behaviourist perspective  Notice the association between a particular sound pattern and the consequence in the environment  Associated learning  Language develops from imitation (from the child) and reinforcement (from the parents) However, creative uses and speech errors suggest there is more to simple associated learning motivated by reinforcement I am Why is it Me do it ballereening weathering? (Kuczaj, 1978) age 2 - "This is Please may can Daddy is my jigsaw. I'm I have some noisying sawing some sweets. jig." age 3 (pointing to the back of her knee): "My legpit hurts." Broke, went Broke, went Overregularisation Wented, breaked, blowed, sitted, flyed Teeths, blockses, feets Breaked, wented Can he eat_ it? How useful is Shall he eat_ it? imitation Child hears unmarked form in input in Child uses unmarked Does he eat_ it? language form: He eat_ it. Where will he eat_ it? learning? What kind of input leads to: Is the man who is tall sad? Parents correcting their child’s language? (Braine, 1971) Child: “Doggie bited daddy” Reinforcin Mother: “Yes, that’s right” g Child: “And Walt Disney comes on Tuesday” language Mother: “No. He doesn’t” use? Parents more concerned with ‘semantics’ than ‘syntax’ The Chomsky Revolution (Hoff, 2009) According to Chomsky,  Language module independent of cognition  Grammar acquired rapidly and effortlessly in spite of  Poverty of the stimulus  Absence of negative evidence  Therefore, Universal Grammar and Language Acquisition Device (LAD) (Chomsky, 1957, 1980)  Parameter setting Drawing from biological evidence  Species-specific  Only human infants can discriminate sounds  Only human able to produce complex and symbolic speech  Genetically-specified  Universal language milestones (Chomsky’s universal grammar)  Grammatical impairments run in families  Biological underpinning of development  Brain specialization/lateralisation: Broca’s vs. Wernicke’s area (too simplistic!)  But what about the creative errors? Interactionist perspective I  language driven by need to interact and supported by social agents  Frequency of mother-child talk predicts vocabulary size (Huttenlocher et al., 1991)  Infant/child directed speech (IDS or CDS) helps mapping between speech sound and meaning:  Speech register This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-SA-NC  Rare overt corrections by parents. Instead, expansion & recasting used to model language  Repeat with expanded grammatical forms  M: Who stepped on that? Interaction   C: Muffy. M: Muffy stepped on it. ist  Reformulate incorrect uses (Chouinard & Clark, 2003) perspectiv   C: I want butter mine. F: OK, give it here and I’ll put butter on it. e II   C: I need butter on it. 2yr more repetitions of the correct form if heard own sentence recast (Nelson, 1977; Farrar, 1992)  Cazden’s (1970) training study: expansion, conversation and control  Conversation > expansion = control However  Doesn’t explain how children move from simplified language (baby talk) to complex sentences  Use of IDS not universal  Recasting and expansion relatively rare in spontaneous interaction. Yet children still learn complex grammar (Morgan et al, 1995)  Mapping isn’t as straightforward  Explanation of creative errors? Wanted, washed, Feeding adult input to a cleaned, closed etc network to see if network V-ed could learn ‘grammar’ without being taught explicitly the rules want wash clean close Connectionist Network Distributional learning  Only 52 frequent constructions in 5000-7000 utterances a day (Cameron-Faulkner et al., 2003)  Network can produce correct grammatical inflections (plural, past tense) without pre-programmed rules  Also shows developmental U-shape in past tense acquisition If connections lessoned, model behaves similarly to speech/comprehension produced by brain damaged patients  However, real development receives more varied input. No consideration of interactive and pragmatic context “The fundamental proposals of this Constructivist: approach are that children learn language Usage Based Perspective from particular utterances in particular  Early language is mostly concrete contexts and that constructions and closely related to input increasingly complex and  Grammar is constructed in a piecemeal abstract linguistic fashion and underpinned by pattern- representations are built finding and intention-reading from this learning. mechanisms (Tomasello, 2013)  Children rather conservative in (Lieven, 2014, p. 48)” generalising ‘constructions’ to begin with  Extract ‘rules’ (grammar) through ‘patterns’ (constructions)  Not a rapid and effortless learning process as proposed by Chomsky Main reading: Language Development in Chapter 5 by Berk Language and communication Learning Communication and interaction problems Regulation More prevalent than other well known developmental disorders Language Can be in any of combinations of the Stammer, Lisp, Dyslexia, Specific language impairment (SLI), four main language components Pragmatic deficits Specific language impairments (SLI) (see NILE folder) The RALLI campaign (See NILE) learning in general and literacy in particular language plays an important role in Forming a person’s identity Key concepts in Language development  What is fast mapping?  Underextension vs. overextension: what does each behaviour tell us about the child’s language and cognitive development?  What can children’s overregularised use of words tell us about their grammatical development?  What are the key arguments for the following perspectives of language development  Nativist  Behaviourist  Interactionist  Constructionist

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