lecture 4: language development Flashcards
(36 cards)
define the term language
comprehension and use of words and sentences to convey ideas and information which can be spoken, wirtten or signed
what is communication?
the transimssion of information between the source and receive using a signaling system.
is language uniquely human?
not necessarily- evidence of animals such as monkeys understanding and using symbols to communicate with humans using symbols to request e.g. kanzi
what is chomsky’s views of language?
believes that our brain before we ae born are designed to learn language.
humans and animals share what but not what
they share a broad sense of language e.g. facial movement but they do not share narrow sense of language such as pramatics and grammar.
what are the four components of language?
phenology, semantics, synatx and pragmatics
what is pehnology
units of speecg sounds that might exist in a language.
what is a phoneme?
smallest block of language
what are the semantics?
concerned with meaning- including words and word combinations.
phonemes dont convey… but together…
dont convey meaning but together create a word that then carries the meaning.
babies learn what type of word the fastest?
nouns- by 18m babies mostly just say nouns.
what is a morpheme?
smallest unit of linguistic meaning or function e.g. sheep, dog = sheepdog.
word learning biases
whole object constraint
what is shape bias
generalise to other objects that are the same shape rather than other attributes.
what is barrett’s multi-model?
kds over and under generalise word meaning.
what is syntax?
the structure of sentences
what is the gleitmans syntactic boot-stripping hypothesis?
sensitive to syntactic and semantic correspondences from ealry age- extract meanings.
how do we test for language development
observational studies of spontaneous speech and atificial language in experiments.
development of synatx at 18-24m?
2-word stage: move from word-gesture combinations to word-word combinations.
24m synatx development
longer utterances and increasing grammar
4 years syntax development
increasing complex grammar e.g. adding a plural s and past tense ed
what is pragmatics?
knowing how to use language approapriately in social situations.
what are the three aspects of pragmatics?
- using language for different purposes.
- changing language according to the needs of listener or situation.
- following rules for conversations and storytelling.
production: 10-12m
first word.