Language Unit 2

EEG (electroencephalogram)

An amplified recording of the waves of electrical activity that sweep across the brain's surface. These waves are measured by electrodes placed on the scalp.

Between the ages of 4-7 about half of a child's spontaneous language was egocentric.

Between the ages of ___________ about _________ of a child's spontaneous language was egocentric.

Children can be non-egocentric dependent upon the task.

Children can be non-egocentric dependent upon the __________.

can infants alternate turns? yes if adults manage the turns can preschoolers alternate turns? yes but rely on obvious cues -"Now its YOUR TURN"/exaggerated pause -No patience because they can't anticipate if they will get another turn to talk can older children alternate turns? yes and they know how to use filler words to extend time on their turn (to think longer) and how to interrupt at the right moments when they want to add something

Conversational turns: can infants alternate turns? can preschoolers alternate turns? can older children alternate turns?

referential children: mostly object labels non ego centric 50 words --> 2 word combos expressive children: fewer objects more pronouns more function (closed class) words not sure when 2 word combo is cmoing Referential children learn words faster r: language is intended for talking about things e: language is intended for talking about self

Define referential children: expressive children: which learn words faster? what is each's hypothesis?

Two-word phase/semantic relations -simplistic -frequency of words (statistical learning) -telegraphic (text language: "broke. send money") -primarily open class words naming location descriptive ownership who is doing what

Describe Brown's Stage 1. What are a child's words like? What kinds of things would they talk about?

Yes preschoolers identify indirect requests as call to action For example if we say "is your mom home?" at the door they usually go and get their mom. The other hand if they're just having a dispute they may say: "I can't" inability "I don't want to" lack of willingness "I don't have to" lack of obligation "no, you do it" inappropriateness at being asked these tell us they understood the request but just don't want to listen

Do children comprehend indirect requests?

Yes they tend to only ask questions to their mom or an adult because they see kids as on the same level as them. They will no answer questions directed at them by younger children, only sometimes by older children, and almost always when the mom asks.

Do children understand using different language in different contexts? (non-egocentric)

event-related potential (ERP) what do these represent: N400: child hearing a semantic error "I take my coffee with cream and dog" dog?? wUt P600: adult hearing a syntactical error "We took a of picture the family" picture of the family... much better

Electrical changes in the brain that correspond to the brain's response to a specific *event*; measured with EEG. what do these represent: N400: P600:

Macarthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories: parental report *Pros*: Child is totally comfortable Parents hears the most language of the child Long period of time (not just an office) *Cons*: Bias parents want a high scoring child No clue of receptive learning No grammar teset Language Sample Analysis: Our labs *Pros*: Not too structured Dynamic Natural speech, not targeted speech *Cons*: Time consuming Human error (counting or recording words) Shy kids Environmental differences Preschool-Language Scales/Standardized Tests: *Pros*: Easy to grade (quick results) Extremely structured Inventory *Cons*: Personality (worried about getting things wrong and then not do as well under that pressure) Sometimes Q not understood by child ("strict prompts")

Exam Q: What are the pros and cons of... Macarthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories: Language Sample Analysis: Preschool-Language Scales/Standardized Tests:

FREQUENCY and linguistic complexity

How are Brown's morphemes acquired?

Direct requests (with semantic intensifiers) --.> listeners of lower status (these are "*bossier*" Indirect request (with semantic softeners) --> listeners of higher status production based on their audiences gender/age/social class(cooties)/etc.

How do preschoolers produce their requests? Direct requests (with semantic _________________) --.> listeners of _________________ status (these are "*bossier*" Indirect request (with semantic _________________) --> listeners of _________________ status What do they base the type of request on?

1) we move wh- word to the front 2) auxillary word moves to 2nd place (did, has, have) You did eat (what(bananas)) for lunch. What did you eat for lunch?

How do we form wh- questions?

MLU = total number of morphemes/total number of utterances

How do you calculate the Mean Length Utterance?

1) Move the wh- word to the front 2) Put the entire negative contraction or just the verb pieces of the negative contraction in second place behind the wh- word You don't like carrots. What don't you like? What do you not like? The rare formation is "What do you not like" where the contraction is split. this is because children understand the word 'don't' but not that it means 'do not' this grasp most likely won't come until they being reading.

How do you for a negative question word? What is the rare formation? and why is it rare?

Question asked of you A pause after a sentence we don't speak mid sentence when we are done we look away, look at watch, look to the door.. walk away

How do you know when it is your turn to speak? What cues do you use?

|| splits clauses, number of T-units at end of sentence She went into the store to by apples. || Then she saw the dog inside. *2* He was a large man || who was often seen hanging around the docks. *1* In a time when electronics dominate our attention, || it is sometimes nice to read a book. *1*

How many clauses and how many T-Units? She went into the store to by apples. Then she saw the dog inside. He was a large man who was often seen hanging around the docks. In a time when electronics dominate our attention, it is sometimes nice to read a book.

semantic relations

How meanings of words relate to each other.

2-3 years old ambiguity choice of words mispronunciation inaudibility

How old are children when they can repair conversational breakdowns? What are four types of conversation errors they can fix?

If the concept is CONCRETE, it is easier to acquire!!!!

If the concept is _________________, it is easier to acquire!!!!

Some variation is normal while others are not. differs from child to child. MLU Brown's Morphemes Question word order Early word types

Is variation in language acquisition normal? What elements are fairly consistent in sequence?

Switching the subject and auxiliary for a yes/no question.

Larry has started working Has Larry started working? This formation of the sentence is an example of what?

Stage 1: Semantic Relations, Two-word phase MLU: 1.75 Age: 15-30 months (1-2.5yrs) Stage 2: Present progressive (-ing), in, on MLU: 2.25 Age: 2-3yrs Stage 3: Irregular past tense, -s possessives, uncontractible copula MLU: 2.75 Age: 3-4yrs Stage 4: Articles, past tense (-ed), third person regular present tense MLU: 3.5 Age: 3.5-4yrs Stage 5: Third person irregular, uncontractible auxiliary, contractible copula, contracibale auxiliary MLU: 4 Age: 4-4.5+yrs

List the stages of Brown's morphemes and the MLU and age that accompany that stage.

*noun phrase* vs verb phrase: *She* went into the store to by apples. *Then she* saw the dog inside. *He* was a large man *who* was often seen hanging around the docks. *In a time when electronics* dominate our attention, *it* is sometimes nice to read a book.

Split into noun phrase and verb phrase: She went into the store to by apples. Then she saw the dog inside. He was a large man who was often seen hanging around the docks. In a time when electronics dominate our attention, it is sometimes nice to read a book.

Many yes/no questions.

Subject and auxiliary inversion is required to form what types of questions?

feedback

The listener's response to a message (verbal and nonverbal)

The use of language in multiple contests shows clear developmental progressions.

The use of language in multiple contests shows clear ______________________ _____________________.

As toddlers age, their conversations become more collaborative. When can toddlers maintain the same topic? when they become less egocentric What types of topics do they tend to produce? -discuss their day -compare and contrast -pretend play (strict roles but have to be able to see the other person's point of view)

Topic maintenance: As toddlers age, their conversations become more ________________________. When can toddlers maintain the same topic? What types of topics do they tend to produce?

False

True or False: One language variety may be more inherently appropriate than another.

Semantics (meaning/function) Pragmatics (use) Morphology/Phonology (form of words)

We are now interested in variation amongst children's language. What do we look at other than syntax?

the basic forms that sentences may take and how the order of words can change the function of the sentence negatives questions negative questions long-distance questions *this way we do not have to memorize every question in the world, instead we memorize formation of sentences syntactically*

What are Sentence Modalities? Name four.

Questions that have *embedded clauses* the answer will have a multi part to it that confuses children You think she said something: [You think [she said [something]]] What you think what she said? What do you think she said? Kids form the double whats because they do the usually wh- rules for each clause. 3-5 years is when we start to see this!

What are long distance questions? How do you form them?

1) Semantic - number of meanings encoded in the morphemes (plural, past-tense, 3rd person singular(number and time)) 2) Syntactic - the number of rules required for the morpheme (lexical and functional categories) 3) morphemes share meanings or grammatical rules can be changed

What are the 3 types of linguistic complexity involving morphemes?

Diary Studies - ask parents to record what their children say Act-out tasks - ask a child to "be" something, ("act like a cat"!) Direction task - ask child to do a task like "please take off your socks and give them to me", this is also a good way to test their knowledge or prepositions like "put the bear ON the bucket" this will tell us if they understand 'on' Picture choice tasks - show two actions and have them identify which photo it represents Preferential looking paradigm - (extension of the picture choice tasks) baby sits on mom's lap and is told to look at "blah blah" on one of the two tv's we then analyze if they look at the correct thing and for how long ERP - event related potentials, uses EEG, "he spread the toast w/socks" this has a meaning error and if the child notices that the brain waves recored from the EEG will show a negative spike

What are the 6 types of research methods?

Agent + Action = mommy come, daddy sit Action + object = drive car, eat grape Action + location = go park, sit chair Entity + location = cup table, toy floor Possesser + possession = my teddy, mommy dress Entity + attribute = box shiny, crayon big Demonstrative + entity = that money, this phone

What are the 7 types of semantic relations? give an example for each.

Noun: rachel Verb: run Pronoun: your Adjective: pretty Adverb: quietly Preposition: (dog house example) in, under, on, above Articles and determiners: the, a , an Conjunction: FANBOYS, until, even, as Interjection: Oh, ok, what!, hallelujah!

What are the 8 syntactic categories? Give an example of each.

morphemes -----> (1) Free: stand on its own (cake or milk) (2) Bound: needs to be attached to something (un-, anti, -er, -ing) (2a) Inflectional: assign grammatical aspect to words ( -s, -'s, she kick's', runn'ing', -ed, bitt'en', -er, -est) (SSS,EEEE,I) *does not change grammatical category* (2b) Derivational: change grammatical class (re-, anti-, dis-) *changes grammatical category*

What are the two major types of morphemes? How are they broken down further?

Reversible: The boy kicked the horse --> the horse was kicked by the boy The horse kicked the boy --> the boy was kicked by the horse *Syntax* allows meaning and phrases can be flipped! who is kicking who?? it could be either! Irreversible: The girl patted the dog --> the dog was patted by the girl The dog patted the girl --> the girl was patted by the dog Flipping the "doer" of the action makes NO sense. dogs can't pat people? irreversible passive formation is easier on children because only one subject can perform the action and so order of the sentence doesn't matter and does not confuse them

What are the two types of passive formation? What is easier for kids? Why?

Indirect requests (hinting): "im bored" (aka give me something to do) "do you remember that pizza place u told me about?" (aka i want to go to that pizza place) Direct requests: "Give me an activity" "Take me to the pizza place" Kids more often use direct requests because they're less complex and to the point.

What are the two types of requests? Give examples. What types of requests do children use more often?

Open Class (content words): nouns, verbs, adjectives (picturable), salience, can create new class members, these words are tied to concepts Closed Class (function words): prepositions, conjunctions, articles, pronouns, auxiliaries, inflections, cannot create new class members

What are the two types of words produced in stage one of Brown's morphemes?

used for *emphasis* i eat breakfast --> i DO eat breakfast (dang chill bro) in negatives and subj/aux flips: it fills in for the required auxiliary form of these constructions You like the red one. Do you like the red one.

What can "do" do to a sentence?

Children start to be able to include two semantic relations (agent + action + object) Functional grammar is added to help convey meaning (time of event)

What comes after the two word phase?

It was often longitudinal studies with "convenient" and clean" sample children so their data would be consistent and clean. They focused on structure of the language and the similarities amongst these kiddos. They wanted to know what was typical. They used all "convenient" children: near by, friends' kids, word of mouth to recruit, snowballing of people would come in, ended up with very similar kids They use "clean" children: no articulation errors, none bilingual, all white, mostly stay at home moms, again already very similar

What did early research focus on when studying language acquisition in children? What was wrong with the way they studied children?

that children may learns words as "packages" and chunks can be lexicalized. they may say "whosdat" but not know it is "who is that" they just know it what job it does "whatsdat" = what is that "don't" = do not

What does "variation in utterance length may be tied to the units they segment from the adult speech" mean in english?

African American Vernacular English African American English consonant reversal, consonant cluster reduction ask --> aks, desk --> des addition of simple past tense had to verb the car had broke his bike subject-verb disagreement she says --> she say Unique Slang *children produce AAE different than adults do* Stereotypes: lower education lower income

What is AAVE/AAE? What types of rules govern this dialect? What types of stereotypes go along with it?

Universal Grammar: -where all children are able to learn all grammar rules but turn off unused "switches" thru statistical learning. -children develop a "skeleton of grammar" -they are able to transform sentences without being taught that specifically (the team will win the game --> will the team win the game? --> what will the team win?

What is UG?

connects words or clauses coordinating: ForAndNorButOrYetSo subordinating: after, unless, whenever, since, as (can't use these alone)

What is a conjunction? coordinating: subordinating:

a word or a group of words that indicates whether discussing a specific type definitive article: the (specific: the ball) indefinite article: a, an (whichever: a ball)

What is a determiner (article)? definitive article: indefinite article:

Person, place, thing, idea, Proper noun: Capital letter objects (specific) Common noun: hat Mass noun: (uncountable) sand, snow, trash Count noun: ducks, hats, cars

What is a noun? Proper noun: Common noun: Mass noun: Count noun:

expresses the relationship of two objects *dog house example* the dog could be... -on -in -above -under ... the dog house

What is a preposition?

Characterize person(1º,2º...), gender(m/f), number(s/p) Subject: I, he, it ,they Object: me, him, us, you, them Possessive Adjectives: my, his, its, their Possessive: mine, theirs, hers Reflexive: myself, himself, yourselves *kids tend to have problems with these because they like to apply one gender to everything (all him or her)* *they often mix up subject and object too* (me sit, him run)

What is a pronoun? Subject: Object: Possessive Adjectives: Possessive: Reflexive:

Using a phrase/clause to serve as an object [it's the one] you went to last night children understand this around age 3 but when they respond to questions they drop the relative clause: A boy is carrying a monkey Another boy is carrying a girl Which one is on the left? {that is} the boy that is carrying the monkey we still understand them

What is a relative clause? When do children understand them? How do they answer questions that ask for relative clause answers?

Action or state of being Transitive: need an object to make sense (take, bring) Intransitive: can stand alone (run!) Linking Verb: is, are, were Helping Verb (modal): would, should, will (condicional)

What is a verb? Transitive: Intransitive: Linking Verb: Helping Verb (modal):

description word Possessive: my, its, your, their Demonstrative: this, that Indefinite: any, many, few Interrogative: which, what, whose Present Participle: walking man Past participle: polished shoes Quality: tall, fat, funny *present and past participle look like verbs* CUIDADOS

What is an adjective? Possessive: Demonstrative: Indefinite: Interrogative: Present Participle: Past participle: Quality:

modifies verb, answers how or when how: quick*ly*, slow*ly* frequency: often time: when where: location (related to go)

What is an adverb? how: frequency: time: where:

Independent: phrase can stand alone ej: the blue bird flew to the store Dependent: phrase that needs a subordinate subject ej: runs to the store. ??? who runs to the store??

What is an independent clause what is a dependent clause?

word or phrase that expresses emotions and feelings hey! well! hurray! oh! ouch! yow!

What is an interjection?

combining things Sentential coordination: combining two complete sentences Phrasal coordination: combining within sentences Based on one of the readings: phrasal coordination or p&s are acquired first but never sentential coordination first *and* is the easiest conjunction for this

What is coordination? What are the two main types? What is acquired first?

Social interactive coding system. On-line method to observe a child's social communication. Observes conversational turn taking, number of interactions, and type of communication partners.

What is the SICS?

1. Present progressive (-ing) 2/3. Prepositions (in, on) 4. Plural (s) 5. Irregular Past Tense 6. Possessive (Kayla's) 7. Uncontractible Copula (is) 8. Articles (a, the) 9. Regular Past Tense (-ed) 10. 3rd Person present Tense (regular) 11. 3rd Person present Tense (irregular) ... this order is based on frequency and saliency (easy to say/pronounce). Also how necessary the usage is.

What is the acquisition order for grammatical morphemes? What determines this order?

C-units: communication unit, an independent clause and all of its dependent clauses, is our LSA labs we count every c-unit ("yeah", "no", "hi") T-units: terminable units, sentences that can stand alone -- one independent clause plus any dependent clauses ("yes i would like some milk" rather than just "yeah") younger: C-units/MLCU so we count all attempts at speaking because there abilities are limited older: T-units/MLTU because our ratio may be decreased by constant "i dunno"s and "yeah"s although these children may have a wide variety of language abilities

What is the difference between C-units and T-units? What would we want to use for a younger/older child?

Agent = who is doing the action Object = what the verb acts upon (spill milk) Entity = just a thing hanging out (big cake)

What is the difference between the agent, object, and entity of a sentence?

What (whatsit) Where & Who (where is it, who is it) Why (age 3) (why, why, why) How & When (when can we go) What: object Where: location Who: person/animal Why: reason, logic, opinion How: in what way or in what manner When: time What: simply refers to an object, easy Where: like a 'what' but a place, easyish Who: like a 'what' but a person, easyish Why: more abstract, not common until 3ish How: Looking at adverbs, more complex When: hard to conceptualize (3 sleeps vs 3 days)

What is the order of acquisition for question words (6) ? What type of answer is obtained? Why this order?

Created by Jean Berko 1958 -take a group of kiddos -draw a wug (blue birdie thing) tell the child it is a "wug" -draw a second one and ask "now there are two what?" and the child should answer "there are two wugs" if they are 2.5+ -proves they don't memorize words they can create em *plural mastery* *correct morphemes on novel nouns and verbs*

What is the wug test?

Piaget's 3 mountains egocentrism test the child will explain their own point of view and not understand that the doll is not able to see what she is seeing

What is this an image of and what would the child say if we asked what the doll could see?

Direct feedback: I don't understand you, what did you say? rather than back-channel feedback: uh-huh, head nodding (not as clear)

What type of feedback do preschoolers need?

teacher: derivational ,we changed teach to teacher, verb->noun modification faster: inflectional, modification of adjective->adjective

What type of morpheme is the -er in each of these: teacher faster

bar versus church friends versus stranger family versus teacher kids versus grandparents

What types of scenarios require different social communications?

actional verb: kick age: 4 or 5 psychological verb: think age: 7-9 younger children rely on word order strategy

What would be (in the passive formation/comprehension): actional verb: age: psychological verb: age:

18-24 months 50 words

When is the two-word phase? how many words are known around this time?

Negatives: 1) "no" or "not" outside of the sentence ~ no mommy do it 2) negative word moved to inside ~ mommy no do it 3) Auxiliaries in the adult form ~ mommy don't do it 2.5-3 MLU Questions: prosody and syntax are VERY important. when we use motherese our questions always end in a higher tune so children will copy that prosody when they ask questions although they may not start the question with a question word (what, who, where) ~ mommy eating it? (prosody makes this a question) this is picked up due to the frequency of prosody usage in questions. !!!! *kids use prosody in a lexical way* !!!! 1)Prosody 2)yes/no 3)wh- questions (specific order) Negative questions: Long-distance questions:

When thinking about sentence modalities how would you describe the phases of acquiring... Negatives: (know the 3 stages) Questions: Negative questions: Long-distance questions:

He performed longitudinal studies on several children and recognized that they all had the same order of acquisition of morphemes and then created the 5 stages of brown's morphemes based on that

Who is Roger Brown?

*Passive formation* (good way to be diplomatic) the second sentence highlights the object or recipient of the action in the sentence (voz pasiva)

Who stole my super suit????? My super suit was stolen!!!! What are these sentences an example of? What is the difference between these two sentences?

Nelson. He took 18 children from varied backgrounds and genders and concluded that children were either "referential" or "expressive" Meaning children have different hypotheses about language, either it is intended to talk about... things or self With Diary studies came: -parent reporting (over/under estimate their child, lie) -salience of words (don't notice morphemes and prepositions as much as you would a new noun) -observation bias -context of communication (home environment cozy, w parents they're more obnoxious, dinner vs video games) -frequency of use of certain words (if parent writes word down once they may not right it again cuz they're like "oh got that already and im lazy") -difference between form and function("cat!" means nothing to us, is the kid telling u he likes cats or he sees a cat or?) soooooo these two boxes (ref and exp) are too vague children fall more on a continuum

Who studied early word variation? what did he conclude? What issues came from his studies?

Utterances are productions made by the child/adult Clause is a statement containing a subject (noun phrase) and a predicate (verb phrase)

_____________________ are productions made by the child/adult ______________________ is a statement containing a subject (noun phrase) and a predicate (verb phrase)

optional infinitive stage

a stage in early childhood (ages 2 to 3 years), during which children sometimes include tense inflections on their main clauses (unembedded clauses) and sometimes fail to include tense inflections in this context, producing infinitive verb forms instead (he fall down)

referential communication non-egocentric because they're trying to describe something (an easy concrete noun)

communication in situations that require the child to describe an object to a listener or evaluate the effectiveness of a message what type of language do they use here?

semantic intensifiers: "or else!" "now!" semantic softeners: "please" "may I"

define: semantic intensifiers: semantic softeners:

conversation

exchange of information

Registers

forms of language that vary according to participants, settings and topics

Languages

forms that are not intelligible across groups

egocentrism -ask a question without waiting for an answer (their part of the conversation is over and they are no longer interested) -waving at the telephone to say hi (normal phones) -telling stories about things only the child knows in ways that assume the listener would know

in Piaget's theory, the difficulty for young children to take on another's point of view. the world revolves around them. What are some examples of this?

Morpheme

in language, the smallest unit that carries meaning

knowing how to continue a conversation on your "turn" is a skill that varies depending on social context

knowing how to continue a conversation on your "turn" is a skill that varies depending on _________________ _________________.

Dialects

mutually intelligible forms of language associated with regions

Scaffolding

temporary support that is tailored to a learner's needs and abilities and aimed at helping the learner master the next task in a given learning process mom and 8yr old are more likely to _________ 1-3 yr old's language (understand child ~ so the child is more likely to go to them)

communicative competence (conforming to the social norms and using a variety of texts)

the ability to communicate in a personally effective and socially appropriate manner knowing when to change the types of words, tones, phrases, etc. in order to fit the situation best.

social communication

the communication that occurs in one's personal and community life

anaphora

the use of a word referring to or replacing a word used earlier in a sentence, to avoid repetition, such as do in I like it and so do they. (himself/him)

overregulation

when children mistakenly apply regular grammatical rules to irregular cases mans foots tooths

turn taking

when conversing with others we wait and listen, an then produce an utterance. what is this back and fourth action referred to as