Praxis II: Language

At approximately what age do children begin to give names to things

Between one year and eighteen months, most commonly around the age of one year

observations that support Chomsky's theory

Children learn from experience the probability that one word will follow another.

Nativist theories include: Name 2.

Chomsky's transformational grammar or generative grammar and the theories of Jerry Fodor and Eric Lenneberg. These theories view the acquisition of language as being based more on inherent abilities or mechanisms than on environmental influences.

MacWhinney's Competition Model is a language development theory that is

Emergentist. Such theories claim that language acquisition is a cognitive process emerging from the interactions of biology and the environment.

theory/theories of language acquisition emphasize(s) nature over nurture

Generativist theories

Since the 1980s, linguists and psychologists influenced by Piaget

Have found the role of learning processes more important. Piaget believed that children learn by interacting with and acting upon their environments, and that in so doing, they construct knowledge (constructivism). These beliefs are compatible with placing more importance on learning processes than on inherent structures, such as a language acquisition device (LAD) and a universal grammar, which are emphasized by nativist theories. While most theories recognize the interaction of nature and nurture to some degree, those subscribing to Piaget's models have come to feel since the 1980s that learning processes play a more important role than previously realized. Social interactionist theory and emergentist theories place more emphasis on the interactions of both.

By 10 months

In addition to naming things, children also begin to use symbolic gestures (e.g. shrugging to indicate "I don't know" or spreading the arms wide to indicate "big" or "a lot") at the end of the first year.

People in the southern United States tend to pronounce the words "pin" and "pen" the same way while people in the northern United States do not because

Of homophony with nasality in some dialects

Parts of Chomsky's transformational grammar. There are 4.

Surface structure, deep structure, Hidden assumptions, structural changes

What are Chomsky's transformations?

Transformations also change statements into questions ("why you not go" becomes "why didn't you go?"), add "-'s" to make a proper noun possessive ("Tommy ball" becomes "Tommy's ball", etc. With the elements "John" + "kiss" + "Mary," two different surface structures such as "Mary kissed John" and "John was kissed by Mary" have the same deep structure and the same meaning.

At seven months

a baby may recognize and remember individual words, but may not recognize the same word uttered by different speakers.

What is social interactionism, emergentist and empiricist theories of language development?

all focus more on the interactions between nature and nurture rather than emphasizing either one over the other.

What is an empiricist theory?

arose as a reaction against nativist theories which emphasized the innate nature of language acquisition. These include relational frame theory, social interactionist theory, statistical learning theories, and functional linguistics. Empiricism recognizes the interaction between nature and nurture, but puts more emphasis on the role of learning, or nurture, and finds that the inherent, or nature, part is a general cognitive learning mechanism.

Between four and six months

babies begin to distinguish the main vowel and consonant sounds of their native languages in speech they hear.

Between six months and one year

children can recognize words within the flow of speech they hear.

Between 18 and 24 months

children start speaking in two- and three-word phrases, often called telegraphic speech, and can understand the meanings of verbs based on the contexts in which they are used.

What is Chomsky & Lenneberg's Generativist theory?

emphasize nature over nurture. They posit the existence of innate abilities (nature) such as a language acquisition device as being more fundamental to language development than environmental influences (nurture).

Between birth and four months

infants cry and make cooing noises, and they attend to emotional tones and rhythms in speech they hear.

What is relational frame theory?

is based on operant conditioning and therefore emphasizes the role of the environment in language learning.

What is Chomsky's surface structure?

is the expression following those transformations, which does observe grammatical rules. For example, a deep structure might be something like "me + go." The mind performs transformations to reflect the subject of a sentence rather than the object, and the tense of a verb, to produce a surface structure like "I went."

What is Chomsky's deep structure?

is what Chomsky said was the original form in which we conceive a linguistic expression, which often does not follow rules of grammar. Compliance with those rules involves structural changes or transformations.

What are Chomsky's hidden assumptions?

or biases are knowledge that nativist theorists like Chomsky believe are inherent and allow children to ascertain rapidly what is/is not possible in their language's grammar, and to achieve mastery of the grammar by the age of three.

What is a behavioral theory?

such as Skinner's find language acquisition to be a form of operant conditioning in which linguistic behavior is shaped by the consequences of verbal responses