Developmental Psychology 350
Lecture 8
10/4/00
Outline - Language Development
Precursors to language
Sequence of accomplishments
Initial word learning
Evidence of rule learning
Communication effectiveness
Theories of language development
Language Development
Why do babies around the world start talking around their first birthdays?
Why does "baby talk" sound similar for most 2 year olds?
How early do children learn linguistic rules?
Perceptual and Cognitive Precursors to Language - Kuhl
Recognition of prototypical sounds
Induction of categories (magnet effect)
Mapping sounds to meaning
Integrating sights and sounds
Producing distinctive sounds
All occur before first birthday
Precursors to Language
Maturational changes
Brain growth
Vocal apparatus
Perceptual development
Dependency
Nonverbal interactions
Mental representation & memory
Imitation & intentions
Concepts about people and objects
Sequence of Language Acquisition
Articulating sounds
crying, cooing, vocal play, babbling
holophrases, 2 word combos, telegraphic speech
semantic, syntactic,morphological, transformational
- Communication accuracy
- Metalinguistic awareness
Early Words
Foundations for first words build on familiarity and experience of:
• sensorimotor schemes
• object concepts
• social interactions & elicited imitation
• easy to articulate
• distorted phonetically
• representational
Types of First Words
Nominals - general & specific names
Action words - go, up, give
Modifiers - big, blue
Personal/social words - thank you, bye-bye
Function words - in, why
Early Word Meanings
Over-extensions
Under-extensions
Invented words
How can we explain these words?
Imitation or cognitive hypotheses?
Constraints on Word Learning
Child assumes words refer to categories of objects, not just one thing
Child assumes that words refer to distinctive categories of objects (mutual exclusivity)
Two Approaches to Language
Referential speakers
mostly nouns, faster vocabulary acquisition, often first-born children
personal-social words, self-oriented speech
Match between child & adult is critical
Correlates of Early Language Dev
Early comprehension - pos
Question-asking - pos
Spontaneous talk while playing - pos
Repetition/imitation - neg
Amount of TV viewing - neg
Time spent with other children -neg
Mother’s frequent commands - neg
Evidence for Rule Learning
Syntactic regularities
Semantic expressions
Sentence comprehension
Morphological rules (e.g., tenses, plurals)
Transformational rules
Communication rules
Semantic Relations in 2 Word Speech
Reference Operations
To name, notice, demand, indicate non-existence
To indicate actions,possession, location, attributes
Agent-Action
Agent-Object
Action-Object
Sentence Comprehension
Clues for understanding provided by:
Child-directed speech (motherese)
Recasting, echoing, expanding, labeling
Subject -Verb-Object order (S-V-O)
Minimal distance principle
Plausible occurrence
Early Morphemes
present before past tense (-ing before -ed)
specifying meaning (in, on, the, a)
plurals and possessives (-s & -es; ‘s)
irregular verbs before regular conjugations
auxiliary verbs & contractions (is, were, ‘ve)
shows specification of time, number, space, possession, & induction of rules
Sequence of Question Transformations
Daddy go? (rising intonation)
Where Daddy go? (Wh+ words)
Where Daddy did go? (aux verb inserted)
Where did Daddy go? (transposed order)
Language & Communication
Are young children egocentric communicators?
Piaget - yes
Referential communication research - yes
Developmental research - no
Learning to Communicate
Gaining & holding an audience
Adapting messages to situations/speakers
Providing relevant responses
Providing feedback as listener
Metalinguistic Awareness
Phonemic awareness - rhymes, syllables, initial consonants
Mental verbs - distinguishes thoughts/intentions of self and others
Concepts about print/literacy
Roles of speakers & listeners
Functions of Early Language
Labels and categories specify referents
Words mediate memory
Promotes problem-solving
Communication accuracy
Promotes early literacy
Theories of Language Development
Biological theories
Chomsky - LAD, Universal Grammar
reinforcement/correction, imitation, expansions
- Social-cognitive interaction theories
pragmatics, communication goals, functional speech acts, Vygotsky’s internal speech
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