child lang acquisition Flashcards
(40 cards)
outline behavioural theory
Skinner
Children learn lang from their environment
Humans born as a “blank slate” - “tabula rasa”
Mimic lang - positive reinforcement
Taboo lang/accent/dialect/familect
Test-rats and birds- could be taught task through encouraging
Problems- Children may over apply rule- virtuous erros + children often unable to repeat adults lang
Outline innateness/nativist theory
Chomsky
‘Poverty of the stimulus’
Inbuilt knowledge- lang acq device (LAD)- universal grammer/pattern
relates to Pinker thoery - prinicples - setting the parameters
Virtuous errors- words not learnt from environment shows rule based learning
Problems - His work was theoretical, he didn’t study real children.
Outline cognitivism theory
Piaget
Mental cognitive development =1st then lang forms
Child must understand the concept before using the language
eg, seriation - child is able to compare objects in regards to size. After they are capable of this - can use comparative adjectives “bigger” and “smaller” according to Piaget signalled by the inflectional bound morpheme -er
Over/under extension
Receptive> productive lang - fis phenomenon berko gleason
Naming insight causes word spurt
However lack of evidence as hard to know what a young child actually knows
Outline social interaction theory
Brumer and Vygotsky
ZPD( Zone proximal development) and MKO (more knowledgeable other) key to child speech acquisition
Lass ( Language acquisition support system) - scaffolding
Evidence - Accommodation (convergence) in motherese/parentese in CDS (child directed speech)
Problems - MKO focused
Aitchison proposed CDS ‘ hinders’ child language development
Define pre-speech
Stages of develeopment before a first word is produced. Biological noices>cooing>vocal play>babbling>melodic utterance
Define LASS + theorist
Language acquisition support system - a childs social support network; the caregivers and help they provide towards speech acquisition
Bruner
Define MKO + theorist
More knowledgeable other - anyone who interacts with a child who has more knowledge of speech
Vygotsky
Define CDS/ caregiver language
Child directed speech - linguistic features used to accomodate children
Define the baby talk register + theorist
A list of typical CDS features
Ferguson
Prosodic features - High pitch , slow raate
Grammar - short utterances, telegraphic style- omission of closed word classes (pronouns, determiners, conjunctions, and prepositions)
Lexis- kin terms “mummy”, Infant games ‘peekaboo’, pet names and terms of endearment (hypocarism)
Phonetics - cluster reduction ( when a child simplifies a cluster of consonant sounds into a single sound or a more manageable combination of sounds. (e.g. “poon” for “spoon”, “tuck” for “truck”) ), reduplication (dog-dog)
Discourse- Questions, repetition
Define The Motherese Hypothesis + theorists
Newport, Gleitman and Gleitman
The idea that the special restrictive properties of caretaker speech play a casual role in language acquisition
- not generally accepted today
Define LAD + theorist
Language acquisition device - instinctive mental capacity enabling acquisition and production of speech
Chomsky
Define Universal grammer + theorist
Set of principles upon which all languages build
Chomsky
Define virtous error+ theorist
A nonstandard utterance from a child based upon logical conclusions about grammer and morphology
Chomsky
Define receptive and productive vocabulary
Receptive - lexis a child can understand
Productive - Lexis a child can produce
Define holophrasis
Where a single word represents the meaning of a potentially longer utterance
Define over and under extension + theorist
Rescorla
Over- overly broad (mis)use of a lexeme based on percieved similarities/relationships; divided into categorical, analogical and mismatch statements eg all animals known as sheep
Under- overly narrow (mis) use of a lexeme eg the family dog may be known as “dog” but not other dogs
What did Nelson say about Children’s first fifty words
She conducted a study of the first fifty words produced by 18 children, suggesting four categories for early lexis:
- Naming things or people: ball, Daddy, juice, milk.
- Actions or events: down, more, up.
- Describing or modifying things: dirty, nice, pretty.
- Personal or social words: hi, bye-bye. interjections
Define Stages of Child’s acquisition of vocabulary + theorist
Aitchinson
1) Labelling: linking sounds and objects 2) Packaging: understanding a word’s range of meaning 3) Network building: grasping conections between words
Define Taxonomy of Language Functions + theorist
Halliday (1978) proposed that there are 7 functions of a child’s speech. These are as follows.
Instrumental - used to express the needs of the speaker. For example, “I’m getting hungry”.
Regulatory - used to tell other people what to do. For example, “Take the dog for a walk”.
Interactional - used to form social relationships. For example, “Thank you for helping me with my homework”.
Personal - used to express opinions and feelings. For example, “I can’t stand country music.”
Heuristic - used to ask questions. For example, “Why is the sky blue?”
Imaginative - used to express creative language. For example, stories and jokes, “Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the other side.”
Representational - used to communicate information. For example, “I ate the food in the fridge”.
Categories of Children’s speech functions (Dore) (9)
Categorissation of the speech functions of 12-18 month old children. Labelling/ repeating/ answering / requesting (action)/requesting (answer) / calling / greeting / potesting/ practising
defing FIs pheneomenon + theorists
Concept of phoneme perception occuring earlier than the ability of the child to produce those phonemes.
It comes from an account of a child who called his plastic fish a fis but refused to accept this pronunciation from adults and was satisfied only when they called it a fish
Berko + Brown
Define telegraphic speech
Stage in children’s language develeopment where utterances are created without function words
Define word spurt
Highly productive phase of acquiring lexis triggered by a child’s newfounf ability to construct interrogative clauses
Define Stages of interrogative acquisition + theorists
Kilma and Bellugi
Stage 1 – Use of intonation to express a question being asked.
Stage 2 – The use of interrogative lexemes such as “what?” “where?” and after these “why?”.
Stage 3 – Changing the syntax to create more detailed questions.