Week 6: Language Acquisition

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Week 6Language Acquisition
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The object of study

• Language acquisition is the study of the
  processes through which humans acquire language.
• By itself, language acquisition refers to first
  language acquisition, which studies infants'
  acquisition of their native language, whereas
  second language acquisition deals with
  acquisition of additional languages in both
  children and adults.

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Language and communication

• It is a commonly held view that language evolved
  as a tool for communication.
• 1. Human language can be seen primarily as a
  socially, or culturally determined tool for
  communication.
• 2. Alternatively, language can be seen primarily
  as a cognitive mechanism for structuring
  utterances and perhaps also thoughts.

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Acquiring language

• One of the complexities of acquiring language is
  that it is learned by infants from what appears
  to be very little input.
• This has led to the long-standing debate between
  the two different groups of scholars

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• Nativist theories Chomky is the preeminent name
  hereplace the distinctiveness of language in
  specific genetic endowment for a specifically
  genetically instructed language module. Under
  that view, there is minimal learning involved in
  acquiring a language.
• Empiricists like Hobbes and Locke argued that
  knowledge emerge ultimately from abstracted sense
  impressions.

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• The precise form of language must be acquired
  through exposure to a speech community. Words are
  definitely not inbron, but the capacity to
  acquire language and use it creatively seems to
  be inborn. N. Chomsky calls this ability the LAD
  (Language Acquisition Device).

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Co-evolutionary theory

• There are also co-evolutionary proposals
  Language is not an instinct and there is no
  genetically installed linguistic black box in our
  brains. Language arose slowly through cognitive
  and cultural inventiveness.
• Language began as a cognitive adaptation and
  genetic assimilation. Cognitive effort and
  genetic assimilation interacted as language and
  brain co-evolved.

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• Human language is made possible by special
  adaptations of the human mind and body that
  occurred in the course of human evolution, and
  which are put to use by children in acquiring
  their mother tongue

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A Critical Period forLanguage Acquisition

• Critical Period Hypothesis Exposure to language
• before puberty is necessary for language
  acquisition.
• Children with delayed exposure to languageThe
  Wild Boy of Aveyron. Genie
• Sample utterances by Genie
• Mike paint.
• Applesauce buy store.
• Small two cup.
• I like hear music ice cream truck.
• Think about Mama love Genie.

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Milestones inLanguage Development

• Language Stage
  Beginning Age
• Crying!
  Birth
• Cooing!
  6 weeks
• Babbling!
  6 months
• Intonation patterns!
  8 months
• One-word utterances!
  1 year
• Two-word utterances!
  18 months
• Word inflections!
  2 years
• Questions, negations!
  2 1/4 years
• Rare and complex constructions! 5
  years
• Mature speech!
  10 years

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Pre-Verbal LanguageDevelopment

• Crying Non-linguistic Though some language
  specific elements.
• Cooing Non-linguistic. Exercising the
  articulatory apparatus. Imitation and the
  beginning of turn-taking.
• Babbling here infants are clearly producing
  syllable like sounds. No meaning attached to the
  babble. Syllables are often found in repetitive
  sequences (babababa). Children clearly utilise
  their babling to tune their vocalisation to the
  sounds of the local language.
• Babbling as part of the biologically determined
  maturation of language abilities.
• Babbling drift Around 9-14 months infants
  restrict their babbling to native language
  sounds.

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First words

• Shortly before their first birthday, babies begin
  to understand words, and around that birthday,
  they start to produce them. Words are usually
  produced in isolation this one-word stage can
  last from two months to a year.
• Children's first words are similar all over the
  planet. About half the words are for objects
  food (juice, cookie), body parts (eye, nose),
  clothing (diaper, sock), vehicles (car, boat),
  toys (doll, block), household items (bottle,
  light), animals (doggie, kitty), and people
  (mama, dada, baby).
• There are words for actions, motions, and
  routines, like (up, off, open, peekaboo, eat, and
  go, and modifiers, like hot, all gone, more,
  dirty, and cold.

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The Influence of Experienceon Phonological
Processing
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Lexical Development

• Children start producing their first words around
  12
• months.
• Words are used holophrastically A word stands
  for
• an entire sentence.
• By 24 months they have an expressive vocabulary
  of
• between 50 to 600 words.
• Experience matters for vocabulary growth.
• Privileged children hear about 2,100 words/hour.
• Disadvantaged children hear only about 600
  words/hour.

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Syntactic Development

• 18-24 Months Two-word utterances
• 95 of utterances Correct word order.
• Telegraphic speech (few function words).

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Syntactic Development

• How do children fit long thoughts into two word
  utterances?
• Children appear to use vertical constructions of
• utterances (Moskowitz, 1991).
• Breaking thoughts down into two-word utterances.
• Child Tape corder. Use it. Use it.
• Adult Use it for what?
• Child Talk. Corder talk. Brenda talk.
• Adults use horizontal constructions.
• - Complete word-by-word specification of thoughts.

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• 24-48 Months Complexity and length of utterances
  increase rapidly. gt normal conversation.
• How do children achieve this rapid increase in
  sentence complexity and length?
• .

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Childish creativity

• Despite the obvious impact the environment has on
  the
• choice and general direction of mother-tongue
  learning,
• children are prone to come up with all kinds of
  words
• and expressions which they have never heard in
  their
• environment.
• Daughter Somebodys at the door.
• Mother There is nobody at the door.
• Daughter There is yesbody at the door.