LANGUAGE ACQUISITION HOW CHILDREN LEARN LANGUAGE ANIMALS AND LANGUAGE

Transcription

1 LANGUAGE ACQUISITION HOW CHILDREN LEARN LANGUAGE ANIMALS AND LANGUAGE

2 THE DEVELOPMENT OF SPEECH PRODUCTION Adapted from Jürgen Handke, 2012

3 STAGES IN LANGUAGE ACQUISITION (LA) 1. Phonological development 2. Morphological development 3. Syntactic development 4. Semantic development

4 PHONOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT 0-6 months EARLY VOCALISATION PERIOD (crying, cooing, gurgling, sucking, blowing, spitting) - Acquisition of the language s sound pattern, intonation pattern - Sensitivity to the phonetic system (vocal tract and lungs) 6-10/12 months BUBBLING (using vowels and consonant-vowel syllables) reduplicated: ba-ba, pa-pa, ma-ma, de-de Non-reduplicated: ba, ma, pa - Simplification/reduction: mato-tomato, top-stop, лон-камион

5 MORPHOLOGICAL - SYNTACTIC DEVELOPMENT I walking One word utterance (4-18 months/ average 10 months) by 3 years of age - differences have largely disappeared - name objects (mama-mother, лон-камион) - make a request (mama-i want my mum) I drink daddy beer Two-word utterances (around 18 months of age)-mainly nouns, verbs and adjectives - request, warn, refuse, brag, question, answer and inform request> сака ладо (сакам чоколадо), купи лон/ кола (купи ми камион/кола), want cookie, brag> има баге (имам/ми купија багер), question > има матика? (имаш мастика?), refusal > не тсака спие (Не сакам да спијам) Three-word utterances telegraphic stage (very rare use of function words, lack of inflections) e.g. Тете сака матика (Тете сакам мастика), не сака одиме надор (Не сакам да одиме надвор), баге итура земјата (Багерот ја истура земјата)

6 FUNCTION WORDS AND INFLECTIONS Roger Brown (longitudinal study with three children), order of morpheme acquisition: 1. Present Progressive e.g. Girl playing 2. Prepositions>in, on e.g. Ball in water 3. Plural e.g. cars, boys 4. Past Irregular e.g. came, went 5. Possessive e.g. Jack s, Ann s 6. Articles e.g. a dog, the dog 7. Past regular e.g. jumped, hugged 8. Third Person e.g. talks, sings (regular), does, has (irregular) 9. Auxiliary be e.g. You are playing (regular), I m, You re (contracted) Why these morphemes should have been acquired in this order?

7 1. Why might the Plural and Possessive be learned before the third person? -same sound forms /s/, /z/, /iz/, same sound rules Plural and possessive-meaning & information: Third person more involved with the grammatical requirements-serves less vital communicative needs 2. Why might the Present (Progressive) be learned before the Past (Regular or Irregular)? The child hears speech at the same time when objects, events and situations in the world are experienced (the present tense is the basis for the child s learning the past tense) 3. Why might the Past Irregular be learned before the Past Regular? The sound changes from present to past are much more noticeable for the irregular verbs (go-went, singsang v.s. jump-jumped), sound difference is first noticed before it can be learned 4. Why might the Auxiliary be be learned in the regular form before the Contracted form? complete syllable and word-easier to hear (stress and pitch)

8 DEVELOPING COMPLEX SENTENCES With 2y.6 months, children produce full sentences of various types and increasing complexity (morphosyntactic burst ) Before they turn 4, most children have figured out the salient grammatical patterns of their language (10 words per day) Bellugi and Klima, the acquisition of negation (6 months to pass through the three periods) Period 1 neg. marker + U No money, Not a teddy bear Period 2 appearance of aux. + neg. marker I don t want it, You can t dance, I no want chocolate Period 3 the child has a clear idea of when do is inserted Peter can t have one, This not ice-cream, You didn t caught me, I am not a doctor

9 SEMANTIC DEVELOPMENT Connecting words to meanings speech understanding precedes speech production Children understand more than they produce (they respond appropriately e.g. commands) Some skip the early stages of speech and speak directly in sentences (e.g. Einstein, Carlyle) Language learning may occur without production but not without understanding Abstract words (feelings: hunger, pain, joy; complex ideas: honesty, truth, lie) -observe speech, along with situations and events in the physical environment and then relate them to experiences and processes in the mind - Must make inferences from complex situations in order to extract such ideas

10 WHAT FACTORS PLAY ROLE IN THE LA? THE DRIVING FORCES OF LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT А. Positive evidence - exposure to language/ meaningful context (direct or not) B. Imitation Counterarguments: 1. mistakes (e.g. Mummy wented there), 2. creativity, 3. imitation problems : Оде надор (Ајде да одиме надвор) C. Reinforcement > positive (Great, Excellent) and negative (мајка: Не оде надор... туку одиме надвор ) Counterarguments: - Adults concentrate on meaning, not form (Конот вика мjау...-не вика коњот, мачето вика мjау); - some utterances are understood before they are produced - only utterances that occurred can be reinforced

11 CHILD-DIRECTED SPEECH (CDS) Parentese (Motherese) - use of regular vocabulary and syntax - slower and shorter Baby talk - phonetically different (clearly segmented, higher pitch) - simplified (inflection, vocabulary, syntax) INATENESS Language capacity is present from birth Universal grammar (Special language acquisition device), setting certain parameters Nature v.s. Nurture

12 Nature (Nativism) Perception for speech sounds is better than perception for other sounds. Congenitally deaf children will learn sign language at about the rate that normal children learn spoken language, and will progress through roughly the same stages. Children are not exposed to as rich a variety of speech as they are able to develop. Parts of the brain seem to be specialized for language processing. Nurture (Empiricism) Language is not a genetic gift, it is a social gift. - Frank Smith Under Behaviorism, B.F. Skinner proposed that language was learnt mainly through the principles of reinforcement and conditioning just like that for any other stimuli. Skinner suggested that a child imitates the language of its parents or carers. Successful attempts are rewarded because an adult who recognises a word spoken by a child will praise the child and/or give it what it is asking for. Successful utterances are therefore reinforced while unsuccessful ones are forgotten.

13 ANIMALS AND LANUAGE

14 Vicki: baby female chimp (psychologists Cathy and Keith Hayes, 1940s, baby son Donald) learned 4 words in 3 years: mama, papa, up, cup Washoe: baby female chimp (psychologists Allen and Beatrice Gardner- sign language) : chimps do not possess the vocal apparatus for human speech learned 130 signs in 4 years, displayed 2- and 3-word utterances Go sweet, Open food drink after that time did not advance beyond its very elementary level (1 ½ -2 year-old child): compared to hearing-impaired children low performance Lana: the computer chimp (the Rumbaughs, artificial language Yerkish: seven colours and nine geometrical shapes represented mainly objects and actions-displayed on a large keyboard: press and make a request Please Tim give ball -learned hundreds of sentences ) > limited language acquisition ability Nim Chimpsky: chimp (Terrace 1970s, modified form of sign language, chimps are capable of learning only a few of the most elementary aspects of language - its demands can adequately be taken care of with single words) Sarah: a magnetic token chimp (David Premack University of Pennsylvania: manipulated with 130 magnetic symbols : names of colours, fruit and actions) some syntax was acquired Give banana but on an elementary level Koko: the signing gorilla (Francine Patterson, 1970s, make new words to describe new objects by combining previously known ones.) E.g. eye-hat for mask, white-tiger for zebra, finger-bracelet for ring. After 4 ½ years-132 words, In 14 years -500 words

15 Dolphins: taught to force air through its blow-hole in such a way that it would allow them to imitate human speech sounds. 1979, 2 dolphins- gesture-based language and sound-based language Vocabulary of 30 words, mainly names of objects, actions and modifiers-sounds controlled under water Learned to carry out a number of commands acquired the word order : could differentiate between pipe hoop fetch (take the hoop to the pipe) and hoop pipe fetch (take the pipe to the hoop) Birds: parrots can use a number of phrases and sentences Other animals: sound signals, smell signals, visual signals

16 Conclusion: Animals have rudimentary language ability - lower language ability than their intellectual ability Lack of creativity Chomsky: animals are born without a special language ability, an ability that is little related to intelligence