Child language Acquisition

What is a Bound morpheme?

-s -ed un- -ly

Behaviourist/ Imitation Theories B.F. Skinner

1957, Skinner's paper Verbal Behavior: his belief that children acquire language through a process of "operant conditioning": a form of behaviourist psychology which sees all human behaviour as a process of learning from what works and what doesn't. Believed: language learning could be viewed as an aspect of a wider "general theory of learning" Children start as a "blank slate", knowing nothing, and then learn to imitate adult language, gaining positive reinforcement (praise, attention, sweeties) for getting language right, and negative reinforcement (tellings off, lack of praise, no sweeties) for getting it wrong. Tested his theories of operant conditioning on rats and pigeons rather than children and watched how they responded to reinforcement for the tasks they completed or failed. Some children do copy their parents or carers: many children pick up labels for new objects, local accents and dialects, or even swear words from those around them.

What is the story of Genie?

1970 Genie was 13 ½ years old when discovered. She had spent her whole life locked in a room in isolation with little human contact. Not long after she was discovered by police, Genie's father committed suicide. While cruelly unfortunate for her, it was a wonderful opportunity for scientists to test hypotheses about human language and the human mind. As the months progressed, Genie made great progress in terms of learning words. Susan Curtiss, a student who worked with her, felt that "mentally her lights were on...she was not retarded". However, after this initial promise, her language progress stopped. The language skill that Genie couldn't get to grips with was grammar.

Lexical development

A child's acquisition of words

What is the finding of the Berko and Brown 1960 - 'The Fis Phenomenon'?

A child's comprehension is often in advance of their physiological capacity to produce a sound. Children understand more sounds than they can produce

When does a child develop their first word?

A child's first recognisable word usually appears around 12 months.

Construction Theory A Usage-Based Approach Tomasello 2003

A major critic of Chomsky's ideas Chomsky said: BIG SCALE- Baby instinctively knows how language works- triggered by stimulus from adults, even if it is never 'complete' adults so often use elliptical sentences Usage-based model says: SMALL SCALE- Baby builds up templates by working out patterns from what adults say- adult input is much more important than Chomsky said. Usage-based theories put less emphasis on a language instinct. Learning to speak is just like learning to walk, draw- more to do with the human instinct to learn from experience and be co-operative. We are still active learners. Adult input is very important. The key is that children have the cognitive skills to work things out, such as: Intention reading I can work out ('read') that adults mean and intend things. They don't just act randomly. 'Joint attention' is key to making these observations adults/children are often doing shared things Pattern finding Exposure to language allows me to work out patterns Ibbotson calls these patterns 'slot and frame': Where's the X I wanna X More X It's a X I'm Xing it X gone The child gets used to putting a word into the slot within the frame- if one word works, perhaps another will. e.g. I want milk - I want biccy Learning to fill the slots in these frames gives the child a foothold into more complex language. Does not mean that children are merely parroting what they hear. They make use of it by seeing patterns, drawing parallels and being creative.

Assimilation phonological error

A sound segment (consonant or vowel) will be made similar or identical to a nearby sound/ sound that is already part of the word: 'gog' for dog, tat' for cat 'lellow' for yellow.

What are phonological mistakes a result of?

A trial and error approach

Addition phonological error

Adding an extra vowel sound to the ends of words, creating the preferred CVCV pattern: 'doggie','cuppy'

Context

Age of a child Who participates in interaction Location of an interaction (a place where child is more/less comfortable....) Time of interaction (time of day, other events occurring) Activity (what is going on during an interaction) Relationship between children (friends, siblings.... - issues of power) Relationship with adults (close relative, distant relative, child minder, teacher... - issues of power) Purposes of speakers Gender of speakers (conversational research, socialisation etc) Cultural influences (characters from television, reading books, social experiences) Play- reference to schemas: repetitive behaviours that children go through when exploring the world and trying to find out how things work. Avoid a 'deficit' approach, being critical of what children can't do and suggesting errors in what they do- interesting insights in to the process of acquisition that we have all gone through.

Criticisms: Input/ Social Interactionist Theories Jerome Bruner

All children of all backgrounds and languages tend to go through similar stages at around the same time, thus supporting the idea that language acquisition is innate. If interaction were so significant, children would go through these stages at radically different times, depending on the input and support they received. Some cultures such as Samoa and Papua New Guinea don't use CDS yet their children develop at similar rates. Interaction can't be the only factor in CLA, as children receive wildly different levels of input. It is probably an important factor, but language - in some or other - is probably innate.

Alveolar + Approximant=

Alveolar + Approximant= /l/ /r/

Alveolar + Fricative=

Alveolar + Fricative=/s/ /z/

Alveolar + Nasal=

Alveolar + Nasal=/n/

Alveolar + Plosive=

Alveolar + Plosive=/t/ /d/

Intonation

As a child grows older, a wider range of meaning is expressed through intonation: 'my car' v 'MY car'

What is the question development that occurs from 3 years old?

BEGIN TO USE AUXILIARY VERBS AND INVERSION Auxiliary Verbs acquired, e.g. Where is daddy going? And Did he go? The Inversion Rule, e.g. He is sad - Is he sad? (But then they have to learn that this rule doesn't always apply - we don't say 'Went he to town'? )

Proto-words 9 - 12 months Pre-verbal

Babbling starts to resemble adult language, i.e. word-like vocalisations, which then lead up to the child's first words. Meanings begin to emerge, e.g. using 'mmmm' to mean 'give me that'. Often understood only by the child's carers.

Input/ Social Interactionist Theories Jerome Bruner

Believe that input is vital in helping children acquire language. They suggest that interaction with a child helps them develop a grasp of not only the meanings of words, but also the practical realities of communication: turn-taking, pragmatics, what people really mean when they say things, & non-verbal communication. Bruner Believes interaction scaffolds children's language development. Called his system, the LASS, Language Acquisition Support System, as a witty rejoinder to Chomsky's LAD. According to interactionists like Bruner, Snow and Trevarthen, parents and caregivers engage in collaborative and ritualised exchanges with their children, even before language has fully developed into meaningful words. E.g father changing his six month old daughters nappy: Father: Have you done a wee wee? Daughter: (smiles and maintains eye contact) Father: Shall we have a look in your nappy? Daughter: (vocalises and smiles) According to interactionists the language used by parents and caregivers to children, "parentese" or Child Directed Speech has its own recognised characteristics: •more pronounced intonation that draws attention to key morphemes or lexemes •simplified vocabulary that helps establish key words e.g. "dog" rather than "pitbull terrier" •repeated grammatical "frames" that help draw attention to new elements within those frames e.g. "What animal lives in a kennel? What animal lives in a stable? What animal lives in a sty?" •simplified grammar - shorter utterances •tag questions used to initiate turn-taking •actions that accompany speech: pointing, smiling, shrugging shoulders etc. •more obvious lip and mouth movement to help younger children copy Interactionists also point to ritualised scenarios such as dinner times, nappy changes, bath time in which children "learn their lines". Parents and caregivers are often seen to expand and develop their children's utterances rather than correct them for grammar or vocabulary, helping the child develop at a natural pace while providing models for their communication. e.g. Child: Me saw a doggie Mother: I know, it's a big brown dog, isn't it? The cases of Jim, Genie and other feral children seem to support the role of interaction in CLA.

Bilabial + Approximant=

Bilabial + Approximant=/w/

Bilabial + Nasal=

Bilabial + Nasal=/m/

Bilabial + Plosive=

Bilabial + Plosive=/p/ /b/

What else is likely to influence the type of first words a child learns?

CONTEXT: Who cares for them Where they spend their time Family set up eg, lots of different interactions/busy and varied social life or in one place/ with one carer most of the time? Etc etc

Rate of acquisition

End of first year: child begins to speak 18 months: vocabulary of about 50 words Object permanence: understanding coincides with vocab growth- Piaget 2 years: vocabulary of about 200 words EXPLOSION 5 years: vocabulary of about 2000 words 7 years: vocabulary of about 4000 words

2. VERB (V)

Can express a range of meanings - actions, processes, states and so on. They are the most important clause element and cannot be omitted (except in the case of a minor sentence): The elephants stampeded The policeman didn't believe me

What is a Free morpheme?

Can stand alone as words, eg. pig, bark, mother, please

What types of Over-extension did Leslie Rescorla 1980 identify?

Categorical Analogical Mismatch/predicate Statements

Over 36 months / 3 years+ Post-telegraphic Over a year

Child now begins to get to grips with the inflections of English: possessive /s/, plural /s/, present/past verb endings etc. Take a long time to master, and many virtuous errors will be present initially. Sentence length is built up. Function words such as pronouns, prepositions, auxiliary verbs etc are used. Grammatical function words (determiners, auxiliary verbs, conjunctions) begin to be used more consistently More than one clause used Most of basic grammar rules mastered by 5 years, though some still to be learned, passive Increased MLU, mean length of utterance Longer noun phrases Manipulation of verbs e.g. passive voice

What are the arguments for cognitive theory?

Children can't grasp aspects of language until they are ready; stages of development support this produce utterances which increase in complexity as they work towards mastering a rule Brown's morphemes Bellugi's stages for pronoun + question formation

What are the arguments for Nativism? Nature

Children experience the same stages of development and at the same pace Resist correction Create forms of language that adults don't use, overgeneralisation, virtuous errors Make their own rules for language use that seem to understand that all languages have grammatical rules Produce correct language when surrounded by impoverished faulty adult speech i.e with false starts, incomplete utterances Wug test suggests children apply grammatical rules

What are the arguments against social interactionist?

Children from cultures that do not promote interaction with children e.g Samoa, can still become articulate + fluent language users without adult input.

What do you observe about the language of the requests as children get older?

Children gradually understand the expectations of politeness - moving to question rather than command, 'please'....

Arguments for a usage based approach

Children's books often biased around very repetitive sentence structures- giving children nice 'slot + frame' structures Social interactionist ideas- input important

What are the arguments for behaviourism?

Children: Imitate accent + dialect Learn politeness + pragmatic aspects of the language Repeat language they have heard around them + incorporate it into theirs- lexical knowledge must be gained from being told the right labels.

What are the arguments against cognitive theory?

Children: With cognitive difficulties can still manage to use language beyond their understanding Acquire language without having an understanding of it, especially in the early stages of development 'Fis' phenomenon suggests children's cognative understanding can be present but their physical development still impacts their ability to use language.

What are the arguments against behaviourism?

Children: do more than just imitate language + can form sentences that they have never heard before hear ungrammatical spoken language around them but can still learn correct language do not seem to respond to correction aren't negatively reinforced for language use aren't always corrected by parents for incorrect grammar corrections might actually slow down development imitate but don't neccessarily understand the meanings 'fis phenomenon suggests that children can hear + understand the correct pronunciation but simply can't produce it themselves at that stage research was conducted on rats + pigeons not humans

Nativist / Innateness Theories Noam Chomsky & Steven Pinker

Chomsky All languages-"universal grammar" which is part of their "deep structure". Children have an inbuilt LAD (Language Acquisition Device) which enables them to extract the rules of language from the words and structures they hear. Children are pre-programmed with the underlying rules of grammar and simply need to be exposed to stimulus to activate their LAD. All children of all backgrounds and languages tend to go through similar stages at around the same time, thus supporting the idea that language acquisition is innate. Pointed to the "poverty of stimulus" that children receive. in other words, the quality of the language they hear from parents and carers isn't high enough for them to simply copy it and produce "correct" grammar. He argued that as a result, language can't be simply a mimicking or imitating exercise. But, more recent research suggests that Chomsky overstated the poverty of children's input: many researchers suggest that 90% + of the language children hear is of standard grammar, rather than the fragmented utterances Chomsky implied. Children produce novel utterances ("linguistic creativity") showing that they can produce many more utterances than those they hear around them e.g "virtuous errors" - understandable and logical mistakes that children make which reflect their learning process at work. Overgeneralisations such as "I runned", "I felled over" or "I've got two mouses" are typical of this and can't be accounted for by a child imitating a parent's language.

Critisisms: Behaviourist/ Imitation Theories B.F. Skinner

Chomsky Rubbished Skinner's approach, pointing to the fact that all children of all backgrounds and languages tend to go through similar stages at around the same time, thus supporting the idea that language acquisition is innate. If imitation were taking place, children would go through these stages at radically different times, depending on the input they received. Pointed to the fact that children produce utterances they could never have heard before ("linguistic creativity") and make mistakes ("virtuous errors") that suggest they have an inbuilt grasp of the rules of language. Children commonly produce overgeneralisations such as "mouses" for the plural of "mouse", or "falled" and "runned" as past tense forms of irregular verbs which adults would say as "fell" and "ran". They can't have heard these from adults, so something more than imitation must be at work."Poverty of the stimulus" suggests that the language children hear is so fragmented and often gramatically nonstandard,that children can't hope to copy it and learn "correct" adult speech. Katherine Nelson Linguist who researched the field in the 1970s, argued that children resist correction and, as a result, the whole idea of negative reinforcement would seem to fall to bits. e.g. Child: I putted the plates on the table Mother: You mean, I put the plates on the table Child: No, I putted them on all by myself

AO2 Child Directed Speech (CDS)

Clarke-Stewart (1973): children whose mothers talked to them more had a wider vocabulary Nelson - children's whose mothers corrected them more in the holophrastic change showed slower development Thiessen et al (2005) and Henrichs (2010): positive correlation between interaction with children at an early age and their linguistic achievement (p.33) Deb Roy's son observations - 'birth of a word' coincides with point at which adult CDS makes language most accessible to children Mitsuhiko Ota, Edinburgh University (Word of Mouth, 2013) - value of adults using 'baby talk' words and intonation, encourages 'chunking' (breaking words into units) Dr Victoria Leong (Cambridge University) 2016 - brains respond best to motherese Accommodation Theory - downwards convergence as concept to apply to adults Other cultures do not use CDS, e.g. in Papa New Guinea Dr Caroline Floccia (Plymouth University) 2007 - parents' differing regional accents may harm children

Consonant Cluster Reductions phonological error

Consonant clusters (ie 2 or more together) are difficult to articulate so children reduce them to smaller units: 'pider' for spider, 'pease' for please

Cooing 4 - 7 weeks Pre-verbal

Cooing involves the articulation of (mainly) vowel sounds, often isolated (one syllable). The cooing lacks 'adult' intonation (ie tends to be monotone). The sounds are typically 'coo' or 'goo'.

Critisisms: Nativist / Innateness Theories Noam Chomsky & Steven Pinker

Critics argue that nativists place too much emphasis on what's inbuilt and not enough on the importance of interaction between child and carer, or even what's actually inherent in language itself. Connectionists argue that language can be learned through processing patterns in language and have built neural networks to "prove" this. Even Chomsky has developed his views over time away from the most simple version of the LAD: he now proposes a "principles and parameters" model along with Pinker which consists of a number of "switches" that will be turned on or off depending on children's exposure to common rules of their native language. Followers of the cognitive approach argue that language acquisition can be innate but that it is an artificial distinction to separate language acquisition and the wider cognitive processes of thinking and puzzle-solving, as Chomsky once suggested. Behaviourists point to children's development of regional accents and imitation of vocabulary as evidence that innateness isn't the only element of child language acquisition.

2 steps forward, 1 step back

Deb Roy's son attempting to say water

Dental + Fricative=

Dental + Fricative=/ɵ/ / ð/

3. OBJECT (O)

Describes something that is directly affected by the verb. You can check which part of the clause is the object by asking who or what is affected by the action or process of the verb: The cook chopped the carrots The cook made the dinner

1. SUBJECT (S)

Describes the person or thing who/which does the action of the verb. Check which part of the clause is the subject by asking who or what is 'doing' the verb: I am happy The green grass grew everywhere

Lexical aquisition

Does not end at a certain age- we continue learning new words throughout our lives

What does the research about Genie tell us about language development?

Environment must ultimately we vital - we do need the exposure to language from those around us- early in life - before the 'critical period' elapses

Before Birth

Evidence to suggest baby acclimatizes to native language through sound of mother's voice

Aitchison's building meanings stages: Packaging

Exploring what labels can apply to. Over/under extension occurs in order to understand the range of a word's meaning

Analogical Over-extension Semantic Development

Extending a label from one item to another by connecting their functions or how they are perceived: a child might call his scarf 'cat' when he strokes it or call a cement-mixer 'football' because of it's shape and rolling action

Value of early interaction

Feral children, Victor, Genie, Lenneberg's Critical Age Hypothesis, Oxana Dr Ofer Tchernichovski (City of New York) - zebra finches study (the 'forbidden experiment' on birds), innate basis of song Judy Kegl (1980s) - emergence of Nicaraguan sign language

First conversations

First utterances are statements, child will often seem to ignore the other speaker Typical conversation is initiated by an adult, dependent on continued adult input to progress Aged 2-4: development in turn-taking, response to questions, greetings, politeness forms

Acquisition of morphology

Free/bound morphemes 2 ½ to 5 years show awareness of grammatical rules through virtuous errors: generally centred on patterns such as foots (noun plural inflection), goed (past tense inflection), gooder (comparative adjective inflection) Children not conscious of learning grammatical rules - no metalinguistic awareness Predictable patterns (Brown 1973): -ing, plural 's', possessive 's', the/a, past tense 'ed', third person singular 's', auxiliary 'be' Berko-Gleason (1958): 'wug experiment' (p.28) Brown's regression/U-shaped curve - pattern of correct-incorrect-correct use Simon Kirby (2009) Edinburgh University, 'alien fruit' experiment - by the 9th 'generation' of participants, a rule-governed morphology system emerged

4. COMPLEMENT (C)

Gives extra information about the subject - Usually follows a stative verb (appear, seem, be): I am happy She seems nice The painting was a masterpiece

Babbling 6 - 12 months Pre-verbal

Greater range of sounds- more consonants. Consonant/vowel reduplication: bababa, dadada. Sometimes varies: bada, gaba- variegated babbling. Deaf babies babble-instinctive behaviour, gradually stop doing so, listening to sounds around them is important in order for babies' babbling to become more sophisticated. Babies who can hear start to specialise in sounds of the language around them.

Substitution phonological error

Substituting one sound for another, especially later, harder sounds like /ʃ/ : 'dip' for ship Note types of sounds substituted- often fricatives are problems

What's actually happening in the data

Successful/unsuccessful attempts at correction by adults - behaviourism Virtuous errors - nativism Learning through play - Vygotsky Use of CDS - Bruner

12-18 months 1 word Holophrastic stage Over a year

Holophrase: single words or phrases which convey a complex meaning - 'juice' Children start using words at about 1 year. 18 months they will speak about 50 words, and understand around 250. The majority of these first words tend to be PROPER or CONCRETE NOUNS- WORD HAS NAMING FUNCTION. The child will often use 1 word to stand for a full sentence. Context, gesture and intonation enable the carer to understand the child's meaning

HALLIDAY'S SEVEN FUNCTIONS OF CHILD'S LANGUAGE PRACTICAL PURPOSES 3 REPRESENTATIONAL

The 'I've got something to tell you' function: language is used to communicate information and express propositions, e.g. reporting, recalling, retelling, stating, affirming, describing, answering, explaining, justifying etc: Mary, aged 6, 'I got four Barbie dolls at my birthday party' .

Nativist / Innateness

Humans have an inbuilt capacity to learn language Noam Chomsky born-1928 (universal grammar, LAD), Pinker (1994 "The Language Instinct") Nativism = 'nature', 'nativist', 'innateness', 'inbuilt'

HALLIDAY'S SEVEN FUNCTIONS OF CHILD'S LANGUAGE PRACTICAL PURPOSES 2 REGULATORY

The 'do as I tell you' function: language is used to control the behaviour of others, e.g. controlling, directing, commanding, persuading, threatening, transacting goods and services: Miriam says 'Daddy push' telling her father to push her on the swing.

INNATENESS - Chomsky (1965)

INNATENESS - Chomsky (1965) Children must be born with an innate capacity for language development: they are pre-programmed to do so, and only require a certain amount of input from others to 'kick start' the process. Chomsky went on to argue that all children have an innate LAD (Language Acquisition Device).They know in outline what languages are; they have knowledge of language universals.They have conception of the substance of language (ie not sneezes, belches etc), what sentences are, required syntax (word order), that there are different grammatical categories, that words have meanings.All that is required is the 'switch' to be set to the relevant language, and this is done through babies' early language input. He further hypothesised that all languages share the same deep structure (ie have subjects, verbs, objects).They only differ in their surface structure, and how they make transformations between deep and surface structure.Once the 'switch' is switched to English (through initial input), the child knows the surface structure that they will have to deal with.The surface structure might take some time to refine for the child. This led Chomsky on to the idea of transformational grammar: children gradually learn the transformations from deep structure to surface structure, and thus their language increases in complexity. Deep Structure Surface Structure I like cookies Do I like cookies? I do not like cookies. Don't I like cookies? (H Bee, The Developing Child, 1981, p.215) In support... The idea of LAD would help us account for the amazing speed with which children pick up language. Virtuous errors demonstrate a logical/innate ability to apply language rules. It helps account for why all children (around the world) go through virtually identical stages of language acquisition. Adult speech is too complex and disorganised for children to work out all they need to know solely from this. In criticism... It understates (Chomsky only mentioned some exposure to English necessary) the role of the environment.When we encounter feral children, or abused children (like Genie), we will see that language doesn't develop in the 'innate' way hypothesised unless considerable linguistic input is available to the child.And the input does have to be human interaction.Bard and Sachs (1977) studied 'Jim', a non-deaf son of deaf parents.He heard a lot of spoken language from television and radio, but didn't have linguistic interactions with his parents.His speech was severely retarded.

What did Ursula Bellugi suggest?

In 1966, Ursula Bellugi suggested that there are three stages of children's formation of negative constructions.

HALLIDAY'S SEVEN FUNCTIONS OF CHILD'S LANGUAGE SOCIAL PURPOSES 5 PERSONAL

The 'here I come' function: language is used to express self, personal feelings, e.g. conveying attitudes, expressing feelings towards objects, people and events, reacting against others' feelings, reassuring others of feelings: 'Andrew's room. Be where! Keep Out!' (sign on Andrew's door - handwritten, aimed at his brother - bit of regulatory here too).

HALLIDAY'S SEVEN FUNCTIONS OF CHILD'S LANGUAGE LEARNING PURPOSES 7 IMAGINATIVE

The 'lets pretend' function: language is used to create imaginary worlds, e.g. creating stories, songs, jokes, rhymes, riddles, imagining, role play: I'm He Man (role play writing from Brad aged 6).

HALLIDAY'S SEVEN FUNCTIONS OF CHILD'S LANGUAGE SOCIAL PURPOSES 4 INTERACTIONAL

The 'me and you', 'hello!' or 'I see you' function: language is used to begin or maintain interaction, e.g. establishing roles and relationships, co-operating, refusing roles, attracting attention, integrating group action: 'Hello' said Catherine - holding out her doll.

HALLIDAY'S SEVEN FUNCTIONS OF CHILD'S LANGUAGE LEARNING PURPOSES 6 HEURISTIC

The 'tell me why' or 'I can find out' function: language is used to find information and names, to seek knowledge, and to learn the how and why of people, things and events, e.g. questioning, actively pursuing meaning, testing out ideas: John aged 4, 'Why don't stars fall out of the sky?'

Categorical Over-extension Semantic Development

Inappropriately extending the meaning of a label to others in the same category: a child calls all green, leafy vegetables 'cabbage'

Why is morphology helpful?

Inflectional morphology: • Children's early speech won't have these morphemes, e.g. marking tense, showing possession, pluralisation etc. • Gradually they will appear. You might comment on the absence or the presence, or inconsistent use of these morphemes.

Hyponymy: Hyponym

Items in the category e.g dogs, cats

What is the 'Wug' Experiment and who came up with it?

Jean Berko Gleason, 1958 and the 'Wug' Experiment. When given nonsense words (like 'wug'), children are generally able to make the plural for 'wugs' shows a picture of 2. The accuracy of doing this increases with age. It shows children have acquired the rules of morphology (add -s to noun for plural) and can apply it to something they've never encountered before. This could also be done with other issues (eg making past tenses)

Labio-dental + Fricative=

Labio-dental + Fricative=/f/ /v/

COGNITION - Piaget (1896-1980)

Language acquisition must be viewed in the context of a child's intellectual development.Language abilities will emerge when cognitive abilities do, and this is the overriding factor in language development. For example, children will only be able to use a linguistic comparison (X is bigger than Y) when they have the conceptual ability to make judgements of size. Also, the cognitive principle of object permanence is key.This is the realisation that objects have an independent existence - so they still exist (and have names) even if they are not immediately in a child's line of vision.(The peek-a-boo game may help you understand this concept).It is at around the age of 18 months that the child fully understands this.Significantly, this then coincides with a sudden increase in children's vocabularies. The above point on object permanence reinforces that children are egocentric when very young - viewing the world from their own perspective, and having difficulty understanding others' perspectives. In criticism... Several studies have been made where children's mental development has been retarded, but are still able to speak fluently.Perhaps the role of cognitive development is overstated. It is hard to measure how a child's linguistic development relates to these stages of cognitive development.

Why Construction Theory?

Language acquisition, constructions are ready made chunks of language that can be used to express many ideas Instead of picking up single words and then combining them according to grammatical rules, children pick up chunks of language and adapt them to generate new and creative forms of their own Also called the usage-based approach because of the focus on real language used in conversation between adults and children TIP: What to look for in the data... Shared attention between adult and child Use of sentence frames by adult or child Filling in slots by child or adult

Behaviourist / Imitation

Language is acquired through imitation and reinforcement B. F Skinner 1904 - 1990 Behaviourism - Skinner (operant conditioning, reinforcement) Behaviourism = 'behaviourist', 'nurture', 'imitation'

Social Interactionist

Language is developed through interaction / communication with others Jerome Bruner 1915 - Lev Vygotsky 1896 - 1934 Social interactionist - Bruner (LASS, scaffolding), Vygotsky (ZPD-zone of proximal development, MKO-more knowledgeable other) Social interactionist = 'input'

Cognitive

Language is part of wider development of understanding that develops Lev Vygotsky 1896 - 1934 Jean Piaget 1896 - 1980 Cognitive - Piaget (object permanence, seriation - concepts gradually develop, language develops), v Dr Spelke (Harvard) children's "core knowledge" there from birth

Usage-based approach

Language structure emerges from use; linguistic patterns are formed and become what we know as grammatical constructions Michael Tomasello Paul Ibbotson Usage-based approach - construction theory, Tomasello (2003), intention reading, joint attention, pattern finding, slot-and-frame constructions

Evaluate how important the role of caregivers are in developing children's pragmatic development?

Likely very important. Adults can insist children are polite for instance. Adults can model expected behaviours for this. Having a consistent approach from both parents (in that circumstance) could lead to mixed messages though.

Aitchison's building meanings stages: Labelling

Linking words to the objects to which they refer Understanding that objects can be labelled

Aitchison's building meanings stages: Network building

Making connections between words - understanding similarities and opposites in meanings

Criticisms: Cognitive Theories Jean Piaget & Lev Vygotsky

Many people don't support Piaget's view that language and cognition aren't closely related. Areas in children's language acquisition that don't easily relate to Piaget's belief that concepts come first and language afterwards: children often get past tense endings right a long time before they grasp the concept fully. Children with particular medical conditions like autistic spectrum disorders, often have highly advanced language skills but weaker conceptual understanding. More people tend to agree with Vygotsky's views that language is more closely related to cognitive development. Nativist theories tend to sit fairly closely to cogni- tive theories, but some nativists might argue that language development is unique and shouldn't be linked too closely to wider processes of child development.

Arguments against a usage based approach

Might be a starting point for language use- children need to do more to use language effectively Unless adult language is very basic, the structures are likely to be lost amongst other language - hard for child to pick them out. Innateness theory (Chomsky) - language comes by instinct, not really copying

What are the 2 main types of vowel?

Monopthongs: vowels with a single perceived auditory quality, e.g. dog /dɒg/ Diphthongs: vowels where there is a perceptable change in quality during a syllable, e.g. my /maɪ/ and how /hɑʊ/. They use two symbols to show the starting and finishing points of the sound.

What is morphology?

Morphology: the study of the structure of words. Morph (form) + ology (science of) = the science of word forms Morphemes: units within words which carry meaning. A word can be analysed in terms of how many and what kind of morphemes it contains e.g 1= child 2= childish 3= childishness

Does the place of articulation being the glottal make any sound?

NO

How did Katherine Nelson's categorise First Words (1973)

Naming things / People (N) Actions / Events (V) Describing / Modifying things (M) Personal / Social Words (S)

What are the key theoretical debates into how we acquire language?

Nativist / Innateness Behaviourist / Imitation Social Interactionist Cognitive Usage-based approach

How are vowel sounds made?

No closure to the vocal tract

Braine, 1963

Noted that at the two-word stage, children use patterns of two-word utterances that seem to revolve around certain key words He called this a PIVOT SCHEMA - children's use of certain key words as a 'pivot' to generate utterances, e.g. 'Allgone' would act as a pivot and be combined with other words to create two-word constructions, e.g. 'allgone dinner', 'allgone milk', 'allgone daddy'.

What did Katherine Nelson's Categorisation of First Words, 1973, conclude?

Nouns - particularly concrete nouns from a domestic lexical field - predominate in early language. Suggests that children are focusing on labelling items in their daily environment. Often small things and/or things that change/move.

What is the question development that occurs from 1 year old?

ONLY: Rising intonation to convey a question, e.g. dadda? All gone?

Deletion phonological error

Omitting a consonant - often the final one in a word: 'do' for dog, 'cu' for cup

Deletion of Unstressed syllables phonological error

Omitting the opening syllable (usually) in polysyllabic words: 'nana' for banana, 'member' for remember

Hyponymy: Hypernym

Overarching category e.g. animal

HALLIDAY'S SEVEN FUNCTIONS OF CHILD'S LANGUAGE

PRACTICAL PURPOSES: 1 INSTRUMENTAL 2 REGULATORY 3 REPRESENTATIONAL SOCIAL PURPOSES: 4 INTERACTIONAL 5 PERSONAL LEARNING PURPOSES: 6 HEURISTIC 7 IMAGINATIVE

Palatal + Approximant=

Palatal + Approximant=/j/

Palatal + Nasal=

Palatal + Nasal= /ŋ/

Palate-Alveolar + Affricate=

Palate-Alveolar + Affricate=/ʧ//ʤ/

Palate-Alveolar + Fricative=

Palate-Alveolar + Fricative=/ʃ/ /ʒ/

Pragmatic Development

Pragmatics: the part played by language in social situations and relationships Politeness strategies- positive and negative face Turn-taking awareness Egocentric: children perceiving world from their point of view Register: children need to learn what language is appropriate for what situation Halliday's functions (1975): instrumental, regulatory, representational, interactional, personal, heuristic, imaginative (p.41) Deb Roy's son learnt context of words' use through where in the house exposure occurred: "water" (kitchen), "bye" (hallway)

What is the question development that occurs from 15-18 months?

QUESTION WORDS ACQUIRED The first wh-question words appear, often in the following order: • What • Where • Why • When

Sociocultural

Related to socio-cultural ideas.

Child Directed Speech (CDS) Grammar

Repeated sentence frames: 'that's a...' More simple sentences Fewer complex sentences and passives Omission of past tense and inflections More command questions and tag questions Use of recasting where child's vocabulary is put into a new utterance

Reduplication phonological error

Repeating a whole syllable: 'dada', 'mama', 'dumdum'

What are the arguments for social interactionist?

Routine / rituals seem to teach children about spoken discourse structure such as turn-taking Pragmatic development suggest that children do learn politeness + verbally acceptable behaviour Role-play + pretend play suggest that more interaction with carers can affect vocabulary Halliday's research into the functions of language supports the importance of social interaction Vincent, a hearing child born to deaf parents, learned to communicate using sign language. As a hearing child he enjoyed watching television but he ignored the sounds. He did not start to speak until he went to school, where people talked to him.

Cognitive Theories Jean Piaget & Lev Vygotsky

See language acquisition as part of a much wider development of understanding and knowledge in children. Differ from nativists in that many nativists see language acquisition as separate to cognitive development. Piaget Children needed to understand a concept before they could use the language terms that referred to that concept. E.g. a concept like the past would have to be grasped before a child could start to use the past tense, and a con- cept like seriation understood so that items could be placed in a series, before a child could use comparatives and superlatives. Object permanence: once a child has realised that everything has a separate identity and life of its own, even when they can't see it, there seems to be a leap made in conceptual understanding that affects language development. "Naming explosion" in the 3rd year of a child's life might be linked to this. Pronoun use might also be linked to this conceptual leap forward- children start to recognise the symbolic function of words and the power they now have to name all those objects around them. Vygotsky Language as having two separate roles: one for communication and one for the basis of thought. He saw language in this second role as being a very helpful tool for developing understanding, and believed that language and thought became very closely related after a relatively short time. Sandra Waxman research, 1990, seems to show that language labels, e.g. different nouns and adjectival phrases, can help children recognise differences between and within categories more clearly, so in this sense language does help cognition.

Child Directed Speech (CDS) Phonology

Separate phrases Speak slowly Exaggerated sing-song intonation Exaggerated difference between questions, statements and commands Higher and wider range of pitch

Holophrases

Single words can express a more complex idea and intention. Intonation, facial expression, gesture or movement will enable children to communicate more than just the words. Caregivers play an important role in interpreting what the child is trying to say.

Clause structures

Subject, verb, object, complement, adverbial

What were the three stages of children's formation of negative constructions that Ursula Bellugi came up with?

Stage 1 (2 - 3 word stage)- Uses a negative particle ('no' or 'not') at the beginning or end of an utterance- RELY ON WORD 'NO' INITIALLY No wipe finger No the sun shining More no Wear mitten no Not a teddy bear Stage 2 (3 - 4 word/telegraphic stage)- Moves 'no/not' inside the utterance I can't catch you I no want envelope He not little I don't want it No pinch me! Stage 3 (4 + words/post-telegraphic stage)-Attaches the negative particle to an auxiliary verb or the verb 'to be' I gave him some so he won't cry I am not a doctor No, I don't have a book Third year: 'don't' 'can't' More negative forms acquired: 'didn't' 'isn't' Ability to split up verb phrase with negative element

What did Ursula Bellugi find about pronouns in 1971?

Stage 1- The child uses his/her own name, eg., Tom Play Stage 2- The child recognises the I/me pronouns and that they are used in different places in a sentence, eg., I play toy; me do that. But the two forms are not always distinguished grammatically. Stage 3- The child uses pronouns according to whether they are in the subject or object position in a sentence, eg., I play with the toy; give it to me

What are the arguments against Nativism? Nurture

Studies including Genie + feral children support critical period hypothesis- language needs to be acquired within a certain time frame Stop overgeneralising and learn to use language correctly as with irregular verbs Need input to give them more skills than grammar for example magnetic understanding Children who have been deprived of social contact can't achieve complete communicative competance

IPA Symbols

TIP: Make sure I know my way around them. In exam I will get a sheet of them.

HALLIDAY'S SEVEN FUNCTIONS OF CHILD'S LANGUAGE PRACTICAL PURPOSES 1 INSTRUMENTAL

The 'I want' function: language is used to get and satisfy personal needs, e.g. asking, pleading, stating, demanding: David (aged 14 months) points to the refrigerator door and says 'door' (his favourite yoghurt is kept there).

Comprehension

The ability to understand language which might differ from how much an individual can produce.

18-24 months 2-word stage Over a year

The baby starts to string words together in twos. Beginning of syntax: a vital move towards being to communicate fully. Usually in correct order syntactically - 'daddy gone' Again context/listeners' best guess aids the meaning as the child lacks the syntactic elements necessary to make meaning explicit. Grammatical function words omitted - focus on key words Omission of inflectional affixes, (possessive 's', third person 's', past tense 'ed') Braine, 1963, - pivot schema

What did Bloom, 2004, argue about Katherine Nelson's Categorisation of First Words, 1973?

The frequency of nouns may just reflect the high proportion of nouns in the English lexicon since nouns outnumber verbs 5:1

Production

The language that people can produce which might be different from what people can understand

Pragmatics

The part played by language in social situations and relationships Role of context in interpreting meaning - things mean what they mean given the context they're used in

Socialisation

The process by which children learn the customs, attitudes and values of a social group, community or culture.

SEMANTICS

The study of meaning in language

GRAMMAR

The study of morphology and the constituent elements of phrases, clauses and sentences USEFUL GRAMMATICAL TERMS: Syntax (word order) Clause elements (subject, verb, object, complement, adverbial) Clause linking (conjunctions) Pronouns (subject, object) Auxiliary verbs Possessives Inflections

PHONOLOGY

The study of the sound system of English, its pronunciation and the ways in which, through prosodics, speakers can shape meaning by varying sound

LEXIS

The study of vocabulary and word classes

PRAGMATICS

The way that meanings are influenced by/dependent on context; the key pragmatic principles of deixis, co-operation and politeness

Which are the cultures where CDS is not used?

There are some cultures around the world such as Papa New Guinea and Samoa, in which interaction with CDS is not believed to take place, BUT those children still learn language in the same way.

Why are plosives and bilabials or produced at the front of the mouth the first consonants a child is likely to use?

These consonants are produced without the use of the teeth - not yet formed in babies and young children - and which make use of strong lip muscles formed through the sucking mechanism

What links are there between the first consonants a child is likely to use?

They tend to be plosives and often bilabials or produced at the front of the mouth

What did Thiessen et al, 2005, and Henrichs, 2010, find?

Thiessen et al (2005) and Henrichs (2010) have found a positive correlation between interaction with children at an early age and their subsequent educational and/or linguistic achievement.

INPUT - Bruner

This theory is a more recent contribution to the language development debate. The idea is that parent/carer-child interaction is the key factor in language development.Children are exposed to the same maternal features of motherese, and this teaches children all they need to know.How they develop depends entirely on the contribution (or 'input') made by parents and other carers. (This clearly has many overlaps with Skinner's ideas, but focuses more on the actual language of parents/carers rather than the fact they might reward children's usages) In criticism... When a child advances another stage in its acquisition of language, it is hard to be certain about whether this has been caused by parent/carer input. It does not seem essential that adults address children in a particular way, because children reared in cultures where adults do not alter their speech when addressing children still succeed in acquiring language.

IMITATION -Skinner (1957) Verbal Behaviour

This was the often held view before the 1960s.Children start life as a 'blank slate'.They gradually develop language by imitating what they hear around them in their environments.Adults encourage babies when they do things correctly, and this motivates the child to repeat the behaviour.The pattern therefore is IMITATION (child says something they've heard) and REINFORCEMENT (adult rewards them). The idea is rather similar to teaching animals (Skinner had been looking at rats and pigeons) to perform tasks: if we do something and it has positive, pleasurable consequences, we are more likely to do it again.This is called behaviourism: conditioning a behaviour until it becomes automatic. In support... Children are certainly influenced by what they hear around them: the fact they develop regional accents shows this. In criticism... All children seem to pass through the same stages of language development at virtually the same time.If the environmental conditioning was the only thing occurring, there would be far greater variation in this. Children's virtuous errors (eg goed, taked, mouses, foots).They have never heard these, so they can't be imitating. Children's inability to imitate adults' grammatical constructions exactly: me want other one spoon, passives, telegraphic speech. Children's understanding of grammar means they can understand and produce an infinite number of sentences: they are not restricted to just the ones they have heard spoken by others. Lenneburg (1962) researched a boy who couldn't speak for neuromuscular reasons (therefore couldn't imitate and be rewarded), yet had normal comprehension of language. Cases of abused children (like Genie) show there must be more to language development than simple imitation.Such children never master grammar.Imitation could only therefore be relevant before the critical age. In reality, would adults be correcting children's language all the time if grammar/pronunciation were wrong?Would their feedback be more on the truthfulness of what said?

Things that we as communicators need to know in order to converse successfully

Turn-taking - when to talk/when to listen Expectations for listening - eye-contact, body language Politeness expectations Implied meanings in what other say Understanding sarcasm Understanding humour Understanding implications of other's prosody Understanding semantic fields (what a word is likely to mean in a particular context)

Child Directed Speech (CDS) Lexis and semantics

Use of concrete nouns and dynamic verbs Adopt child's own words for things- diminutive forms - doggie Frequent use of child's name and absence of pronouns

Velar + Plosive=

Velar + Plosive=/k/ /g/

What are Virtuous errors?

Virtuous errors are a key feature of a child's linguistic development. These are 'errors' or 'mistakes' children make (in the sense they aren't Standard English) as they develop grammatically, but they are perfectly logical. This is sometimes also referred to as over-generalisation of a grammatical rule. Virtuous errors show that children are involved in an active learning process. They only end up as errors because English has so many irregularities.

Vegetative From birth - 4 weeks Pre-verbal

Vocal practice through crying at times of hunger/pain. Reflex action & involuntary. Gradually over several months babies learn that their noises entail a response.

How are consonants produced

When the vocal tract is either blocked or so restricted that there is audible friction.

What is the question development that occurs from 2 years old?

Wh- question words used with others, e.g. Where Mummy? What that? More complex questions gradually formed, e.g. Where's daddy going?

Under-extension Semantic Development

When a baby restricts the number of referents of a word, usually to the original context in which the word was learned. E.g. a child uses white only to describe snow and is mystified when her father uses the same word to refer to blank pages in a book or using 'car' only applying to their mother's car.

Mismatch/predicate Statements Over-extension Semantic Development

When a child makes a connection based on what is normally the case but isn't the case on this particular occasion: A child says 'doll' when looking at an empty cot This can seem to be a complete mislabelling but could be linked to the fact that the doll could usually be found in the cot

Over-extension Semantic Development

When a word is extended to other objects and given a broader, more general meaning than it should have. There are three different types of overextension.

24-36 months / 2 years Telegraphic Stage Over a year

Word classes are missed out : function v content words Some utterances will be complete: 'Lucy likes tea' 'daddy is asleep' Some have missing elements: 'daddy home now' Telegraphic stage because the utterances resemble an adult telegram where all but the key words are omitted. Nouns, adjectives and main verbs tend to be the included elements in these 'sentences'. Determiners, auxiliary verbs and prepositions beginning to develop but not consistent Wider range of structures used: interrogatives, imperatives, simple statements Growing accuracy with pronouns Understanding of anaphoric reference.

First words

Word classes: nouns (concrete), verbs, adjectives Grammatical function words absent in early stages of language acquisition Children are creative in forming novel words: compounding, plate egg, conversion, you scale it, affixation, unsqueeze Parents celebrate such creativity: BBC Radio 4 Word of Mouth (2016), Michael Rosen's son's "bear-poo", contributors "snotrills", "crooks and nannies" Deixis emerging: point to places, objects Lexis likely to be affected by contextual factors: environment, activity, idiolect, register Predictable pattern: naming things, actions, modifying things, personal/social- Katherine Nelson, 1973- but seems more a reflection on English generally- Bloom, 2004

What did the linguist Michael Halliday study in 1975?

Young children's acquisition of language. He proposed there were seven 'functions' that spurred a child to want to learn language.

Aside from CDS, in what other ways might adults hamper their child's language development?

not paying attention (too busy, on iphone..), regional accents

5. ADVERBIAL (A)

these give us additional information about time, manner, frequency or place - Answer questions like how? when? where? how often? - Can be adverbs or adverbial phrases: The cook ate quickly / in a hurry She chopped the potatoes at the table They are busy in this restaurant every Friday

What are some possible environmental factors that could have an effect on a child's language?

• Age of a child • Who participates in interaction • Location of an interaction (a place where child is more/less comfortable....) • Time of interaction (time of day, other events occurring) • Activity (what is going on during an interaction) • Relationship between children (friends, siblings.... - issues of power) • Relationship with adults (close relative, distant relative, child minder, teacher... - issues of power) • Purposes of speakers • Gender of speakers (conversational research, socialisation etc) • Cultural influences (characters from television, reading books, social experiences

The production of consonant sounds is affected by which three key areas?

• Manner of Articulation: How the airflow is controlled- PLOSIVE, FRICATIVE, AFFRICATE, NASAL • Place of Articulation: Where the sound occurs, e.g. use of lips/teeth/roof of the mouth etc or a combination- BILABIAL, LABIO-DENTAL, DENTAL, ALVEOLAR, PALATE-ALVEOLAR, VELAR • Voice: If the sound is voiced/unvoiced- whether or not the vocal chords are vibrating or not vibrating

What are the gramatical features of child directed speech?

• Repeated sentence frames: 'that's a...' • More simple sentences • Fewer complex sentences and passives • Omission of past tense and inflections • More command questions and tag questions • Use of recasting where child's vocabulary is repeated back, sometimes put into a new utterance

Clause Analysis

• Sentences are made up of clauses. • Clauses are the smallest meaningful unit of a sentence. • Clauses can be made up of a number of components: Subject, Verb, Object, Complement and Adverbial • But as a minimum, a clause must contain a Subject and a Verb

What are the phonological features of child directed speech?

• Separate phrases • Speak slowly • Exaggerated sing-song intonation • Exaggerated difference between questions, statements and commands • Higher and wider range of pitch

What are the lexical and semantical features of child directed speech?

• Use of concrete nouns and dynamic verbs • Adopt child's own words for things e.g diminutive forms - doggie • Frequent use of child's name and absence of pronouns

What are the three main types of word formation by children?

• affixation: adding a prefix • conversion: noun to verb • compounding: word association