Week 6

Question 1

Acquistion vs. Learning: Acquistion

Answer 1

• Learning a first or native language
• Also applies to leaning two languages from birth

Question 2

Acquitstion vs. Learning: Learning

Answer 2

• Learning a second language after the first few years of life
• Tends to apply to leaning in a structured setting (e.g., a classroom)
• Also referred to as second language acquisition

Question 3

Innateness

Answer 3

• We are born with the ability to learn a language; acquisiton is spontaneous
• Young children have a natural “drive” to communicate using language
• Young babies are universal listeners - able to distinguish all sounds of human language

Question 4

Research methods: What are the two approaches of collecting data about what young children know?

Answer 4

Two approaches: naturalistic and experimental

Question 5

Naturalistic Approach

Answer 5

• Investigators observe and record children’s spontaneous utterances by for example diary study where a researcher keeps daily notes on a child’s progress
• Naturalistic studies tend to be longitudinal which means that data is gathered for the same subjects repeatedly over a period of time

Question 6

Experimental Approach

Answer 6

• Researcheers use specially designed tasks to elicit linguistic activities relevant to the phenomenon under study
• Typically cross-sectional which means they investigate and compare the performance of different children at a particular time of development
• Usually tests comprehension, production or imitation skills
  Example: repition task (e.g., a child who has not yet acquired auxiliaries will repeat ‘Tessa is barking’ as ‘Tessa barking’)

Question 7

What are the 5 stages in language acquisition?

Answer 7

1. First Sounds (0-6 months)
2. Babbling (6 month)
3. One-word (holophrastic after one year)
4. Two-word (emergence of syntax)
5. From telegraph to infinity

Question 8

First Sounds 0-6 Months

Answer 8

• Babies begin absorbing language while still in the womb
• Babies under the age of 10 months can distinguish between sounds that are not phonemic in their native language (e.g., English-speaking babies with (d) and (d^h)
• Babies ignore the non-linguistic aspects of the speech signal just as adults do
• Between 6-10 months, babies begin to lose the ability to discriminate between sounds that are not phonemic in their language

Question 9

Babbling

Answer 9

• Infants usually begin to babble around the sixth month
• Babbling seems to have a key role in language development

Question 10

One word (holophrastic)

Answer 10

• At this stage, children use use one word as a sentence after a year of babbling
• The words in the holophrastic stage serve three major functions:
  1. Linked with a child’s own action or desire for action
  2. to convey emotion
  3. to serve a naming function

Question 11

One word (holophrastic): Fis-phenomenon

Answer 11

• Children in this age comprehend and perceive many more phonological contrasts than they can produce themselves
• Fis-phenomenon (Berko and Brown, 1960):
• A child referred to his inflatable plastic fish as a ‘fis’, however, when adults asked him: Is this your fis, he rejected the statement, when he was asked ‘is this your fish? he respondded yes, my fis
• This chikld can distinguish (s) and (sh) in hearin them, but does not yet distinguish them in pronunciation

Question 12

Two-word phase

Answer 12

• By 2 years old, children’s word learning rate jumps to ‘one new word every two hours’ minimum (which tehy will maintain through adolescence)
• Syntax begins, by striniging together two words:
  All dry, All messy, All wet
• At this stage, there are no syntactic or morphological markers

Question 13

From telegraph to infinity

Answer 13

• 2-3 years old, produce utterances with more than two words
• These utterances generally contain words that carry the main message (content words), and function words and grammatical morphemes are left out. E.g., What that?