Post on 05-Jan-2016
LI 2023 NATHALIE F. MARTIN
LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
References
References:Language files (7th ed). Cipollone, Keiser & Vasishth
Contemporary Linguistic Analysis (5th ed) O’Grady & Archibald
http://www.ling.upenn.edu/courses/ling001/acquisition.html
Introduction
Language acquisition is the process by which the language capability _________ in a human.
First language acquisition concerns the development of language in _________ , while second language acquisition focuses on language development in _________ as well
IntroductionOpinion
According to you, what does a child need to learn in order to “know” his or her language?
1. Innateness Theory2. Imitation Theory3. Reinforcement Theory4. Interactionist Theory (or Constructivism)
Three general theories of language acquisition:
IntroductionOpinion
According to you, how does a child learn a language?
Theories of language acquisitionINNATENESS THEORY
Children have the _________ _____ to differentiate phonemes, extract words from the stream of language, and process grammar.
Rowe & Levine (2012). A Concise Introduction to Linguistics, p .237.
Theories of language acquisitionIMITATION THEORY
Children learn grammar by _________ the words and sentences of their language
Problems with this theory: Children produce many things that are not found in
_________ _________ Children make consistent ______that cannot be
attributed to mispronunciation and which still are not ever heard in the adult grammar.
Children can produce and understand _________ _____
Theories of language acquisitionREINFORCEMENT THEORY
Children learn to speak like adults because they are taught to do so: Through _________ and _________ when speaking
“correctly”. Through _________ when making “mistakes”
Problems with this theory: Adults don't seem to correct children's grammar as
much as we might think, neither do they praise them for using proper adult grammatical constructions.
There is little evidence that reinforcement has any great effect on the language development of the child
Theories of language acquisitionINTERACTIONIST THEORY
Children "invent" the rules of grammar for themselves Though it is based on the _________ _________ Innate ability to _________ _________
Only approach that explains how children Produce _________ _________
Ex: Past tense - goed* or hitted* Generate _________ ______that they have never heard Seem almost impervious to correction from adults
Theories of language acquisition INTERACTIONIST THEORY
Irregular verbs acquisition - Past tense:Children acquire some irregular past tense
forms quite early through memorizationThen the child starts to notice a general
“rule” for past tense formationThis results in ______________(ex: goed*)Finally the child realizes that “went” is an
_________
Phonetic developmentPhonological developmentMorphological developmentSyntactic developmentSemantic development
Aspects of Language Acquisition
She Sure Knows a Lot About Language !!!
http://vimeo.com/16404771
IntroductionQuestions
What does one need to learn in order to learn a language?
When do you think an individual begins learning language?
Acquisition:PHONETICS
Aspects of Language AcquisitionPhonetic Acquisition
Beginning to learn language involves: Learning how to _________ the necessary
speech sounds Learning to _________ make sense of the
speech sounds Ex: Figuring out what are the phones &
_________ of one's language
Aspects of Language AcquisitionPhonetic Production
Aspects of Language AcquisitionPhonetic Acquisition
In the womb: Perception of ________ ________ ________(rhythm and intonation)
From birth: Perception ________
Six months of age: ________ stage
Vocalization (Cooing)
For an example of a baby vocalization/cooing:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKu_rUsIP
HM&feature=related
Aspects of Language AcquisitionPhonetic Acquisition
Babbling is a stage when babies: Produce ________ sequences of ________
________ Practices the difficult sequences of ________
gestures (jaw and tongue and velum movement, along with voicing control)
Example: Repeating CV syllables (mama, papa)
* At this stage there is no clear association between babbling and meaning
Contemporary Linguistics:
p.313
Babbling
For an example of babbling: Vowels:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DDZbQ_OJWw
Syllables: http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=7RqUTJAfy48&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZw2
NsqkFBo&feature=related
Aspects of Language AcquisitionPhonetic Acquisition
Difficult soundsAnalysis
Why do you think certain sounds are easier to produce for children?
What makes a sound hard to pronounce?
What about allophones?
Aspects of Language AcquisitionPhonetic Acquisition
Handout
Aspects of Language AcquisitionPhonetic Acquisition
Aspects of Language AcquisitionPhonetic Acquisition
Developmental order in babbling: Generally ________ before ________ ________ before other consonants _______before alveolar, velar and
alveopalatals Lastly ________
Perception of phonemic contrast begins in word-initial position
Contemporary Linguistics:
p.314 ...
Acquisition:PHONOLOGY
Experiments on Babies
Research on how infants acquire language in a video featuring Toby Mintz, associate professor of psychology and linguistics at the USC College of Letters, Arts & Sciences, and USC College undergraduate Ashlee Welday.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZAuZ--Yeqo
Aspects of Language AcquisitionPhonological Acquisition
18 months: Link between sound and _________ Memorizes single words as chunks and not
pay much attention to _________ differences Ex: doesn’t necessarily understand
that /b/ and /d/ are different phonemes in English
Aspects of Language AcquisitionPhonological Acquisition
Later phonological acquisition: Perception of phonemic _________ Perception of CV & _____________ structure Understanding of _________
Babies naturally delete unstressed syllables in words. For example: “nana” [nAny] for
“banana” [benAny]
1. SYLLABLE DELETION:2. SYLLABLE SIMPLIFICATION:3. SUBSTITUTION:4. ASSIMILATION:5. MAINTENANCE OF THE SAME
CONSONANT/VOWEL
Acquisition:Early Phonetic Processes
Aspects of Language Acquisition Early Phonetic Processes
Syllable deletion:Telephone /ˈtɛləˌfoʊn/ - /foʊ/Helicopter /ˈhɛlɪˌkɒptər/ - /ɛlkɒt/
Syllable simplification:Stop /stɒp/ - /tɒp/ Small /smɔl/ - /mɔ/
Aspects of Language Acquisition Early Phonetic Processes
Substitution:Sing / sɪŋ / - / tɪŋ /Shoes / ʃuz / - / tud /Ship / ʃɪp / - / sɪp /Look / lʊk / - / wʊk /Jam / dʒæm / - / dæb /
Aspects of Language Acquisition Early Phonetic Processes
Assimilation:Tell / tɛl / - / dɛl /Pig / pɪg / - / bɪg /
Maintenance of the same consonant/vowelDoggy / ˈdɒgi / - / ˈdɒdi / or / ˈgɒgi / Baby / ˈbeɪbi / - / ˈbibi /
Aspects of Language Acquisition Early Phonetic Processes
Charlie / ˈtʃɑrli / - / ˈtʃɑ:li /
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OBlgSz8sSM
Aspects of Language Acquisition Early Phonetic Processes
All / ɔl / - / ɔ /The / ðə / - / ə /Time / taɪm /
http:// http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8aprCNnecU
Aspects of Language Acquisition Early Phonetic Processes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=E8aprCNnecU
Thought / θɔt / - / tɔt / Saw/ sɔ / - / tɔ /Pussy / ˈpʊsi / - / ˈpʊdi /Cat / kæt / - / tæt /
Acquisition:VOCABULARY &
SEMANTICS
Aspects of Language AcquisitionSemantic Acquisition
Semantic acquisition is how children acquire _________ & _________
Children need to learn: Nouns (Concrete vs. abstract) Verbs Adjectives Pronouns Articles Etc.
Contemporary Linguistics:
p.317 ...
Aspects of Language AcquisitionSemantic Acquisition
To learn word meaning children basically have to make guesses about what words mean
Example …
Aspects of Language AcquisitionSemantic Acquisition
For example: A child is exposed, for example, to a poodle in the street and sees mommy or daddy point to it and say "doggie". Even if the kid associates "doggie" with that object, there are a number of routes that the child can logically take. The child might see a squirrel and say, "doggie", clearly having taken the word "doggie" to mean something more general that it does in the adult grammar. Or, the child might see a dog, say a “labrador”, and not say anything, failing to associate the word "doggie" with anything beyond poodle-ness. This trial and error process seems to be how children acquire word meanings.
Aspects of Language AcquisitionSemantic Acquisition
Overgeneralizations (or overextensions):Overgeneralizations are cases in
which a child gives a word a ____________ ____________ that it has in the adult grammar
E.g. Using the word "fly" to include specks of dirt, dust, small insects, and bread crumbs
Contemporary Linguistics:
p.320
Aspects of Language AcquisitionSemantic Acquisition
Underextensions:Underextensions have the opposite
effect. In this case, it might help to think of them as cases in which the child is being ____ ________
E.g. A child who calls “a ball” “a ball” only when it is under the sofa
E.g. Underextended the word "fruit" as to exclude olives
Contemporary Linguistics:
p.320
KIDS SAY THE DARNDEST THINGS !!!
My cousin's daughter looked at my feet the other day and saw the state of my torn shoes.
She looked over to her mother and said: "Mommy, look. She had broken feet!“
Classic example of overextension of “feet” :)
Language AcquisitionVovabulary Acquisition
Acquisition:MORPHOLOGY
IntroductionExample of Child’s Speech
• CHILD: My teacher holded the baby rabbits and we patted them.
• ADULT: Did you say your teacher held the baby rabbits.
• CHILD: Yes. • ADULT: What did you say she did? • CHILD: She holded the baby rabbits and
we patted them. • ADULT: Did you say she held them tightly? • CHILD: No, she holded them loosely.
Aspects of Language AcquisitionMorphological Acquisition
Plurals:Plural suffix is acquired __Then there is overgeneralization as
the child is building a grammar (Ex: sheeps, foots)
Aspects of Language AcquisitionMorphological Acquisition
Suffixes
Example: Church kids
Aspects of Language AcquisitionMorphological Acquisition
Acquisition:SYNTAX
Aspects of Language AcquisitionSyntactic Acquisition
Holophrastic stage (12 to 18 months):The stage where children use a
________ to express a whole ____________ (i.e. one-word sentences) They will use sentence intonation to show that they are asking a question or expressing surprise
Two-word stage (18-24 months): This stage tends to combine important words with
crucial semantic relationships Examples:
agent + action = baby sleep action + agent = kick ball action + locative = sit chair (locative means something
that locates an action or entity) entity + locative = teddy bed possessor + possession = Mommy book entity + attribute = block red demonstrative + entity = this shoe
Aspects of Language AcquisitionSyntactic Acquisition
After the two word stage: There isn't really a three word stage
The child then: Gradually starts to move beyond just
using ____________ (like nouns and adjective and verbs without the inflected endings)
Begin to acquire ____________ like inflectional affixes
Aspects of Language AcquisitionSyntactic Acquisition
Aspects of Language AcquisitionSyntactic Acquisition
Telegraphic stage (24-30 months) Is called telegraphic because has the
same format as a telegraph
The stage in a child’s language acquisition in which children’s utterances are ____________ than two words but lack bound morphemes and most functional categories
Aspects of Language AcquisitionSyntactic Acquisition
Examples of telegraphic stage: "I can see a cow" repeated as "See cow" (Eve at 25
months) "The doggy will bite" repeated as "Doggy bite" (Adam at
28 months) Kathryn no like celery (Kathryn at 22 months) Baby doll ride truck (Allison at 22 months) Pig say oink (Claire at 25 months) Want lady get chocolate (Daniel at 23 months) "Where does Daddy go?" repeated as "Daddy go?"
(Daniel at 23 months) "Car going?" to mean "Where is the car going?" (Jem at
21 months)
Order of acquisition of negatives Negating a sentence with “no” in front
E.g. “No I drink juice“ Inserting negative words in their sentences
E.g. "baby no sleep" or "baby can't drink“ Consciousness of the fact that words like
"don't“, "can't" and "won't“ morphologically complex (ex: don’t = do not)
Use of words like "anybody" and "anything" "I don't want anything" instead of "I don't want
something"
Aspects of Language AcquisitionSyntactic Acquisition
Order of acquisition of interrogatives : Using of rising intonation
E.g. more milk?, Mommy go? Using auxiliaries in yes-no questions
E.g. “Can I have more?" Using “Wh-questions” & inversion
E.g. "Mommy, why you are mad?" instead of "Mommy, why are you mad?"
Aspects of Language AcquisitionSyntactic Acquisition
Aspects of Language Acquisition Syntactic Acquisition
http:// http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8aprCNnecU