Psycholinguistics: The Psychology of

Language

Language Acquisition

Language Acquisition

• Before age 5, most kids know the grammar of a language

• Kids can put two sentences together, ask questions, negate a sentence, use pronouns, and form infinite sentences before they can add 2+2.

• No one teaches children the rules of language.

How do children acquire language?

• Early theory: children learn language through imitation, reinforcement, and analogy– Children listen and imitate what they

hear– Discredited: language is too complex to

be learned through imitation• Current theory: language is a

complex cognitive system that can’t be “learned” (Chomsky 1959)

How do children acquire language?

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

Do children acquire language through

imitation?• Imitation is involved to some extent– English-speaking children learn milk while

Spanish-speaking children learn leche• However, children don’t hear holded, but

they’ll still say it, and things like– Two foot (two feet)– What the boy hit? (What did the boy hit?)– Other one pants (other pants)– Mommy get it my ladder (Mommy got my

ladder)– Tooths hurt (my teeth hurt)– Where I can put them? (Where can I put them?)

Do children learn language through correction and reinforcement?

Do children learn language through correction and reinforcement?

Child: Nobody don’t like me.Mother: No, say “Nobody likes me”Child: Nobody don’t like me.[Dialogue repeated eight times]Mother: Now, listen carefully; say

“Nobody likes me.”Child: Oh! Nobody don’t likes me.

Do children learn language through correction and reinforcement?

Child: Want other one spoon, Daddy.Linguist / Father: You mean, you want the other

spoon.Child: Yes, I want other one spoon, please, Daddy.Father: Can you say “the other spoon”?Child: Other…one…spoonFather: Say “other.”Child: OtherFather: SpoonChild: SpoonFather: Other. Spoon.Child: Other. Spoon. Now give me other one spoon?

Do children learn language through correction and reinforcement?

• Parents rarely correct children’s grammar– They’re more likely to correct factual

information or mispronunciations• Parents sometimes recast children’s

grammar to make it correct:– Child: It fall.– Mother: It fell?– This can be helpful, but doesn’t happen

often enough to make a big difference.

Do children learn language through

analogy?• Analogy: hearing a sentence and using it as a model to form other sentences.

• This happens sometimes:– I painted a red barn. Can be changed to– I painted a blue barn. And– I painted a big barn

• However, it doesn’t always work– You can say I painted a red barn.– You can say I painted a barn red.– You can say I saw a red barn.– But you can’t say I saw a barn red.

• A child will never say I saw a barn red.– The analogy theory doesn’t tell the whole story

Do children learn language through input?• Child-directed speech (CDS): baby

talk or motherese• Theory: children learn language because

we simplify language when we speak.• CDS is not actually simpler

– Do you want your juice now? (Questions)– Mommy thinks you should sleep now.

(embedded sentences)– Pat the dog gently! (Imperatives)– We don’t want to hurt him, do we?

(Negatives with tag questions)

Shortcomings of these theories

• Children acquire language through rules, not a set of sentences.

• Place too much emphasis on environment

• Don’t explain how children can create sentences they’ve never heard before.

• Don’t explain why children go through stages of learning language

• Don’t explain why children make some errors but not others. (I saw the barn big.)

The innateness hypothesis

• “We are designed to walk. . . . [The idea] that we are taught to walk is impossible. And pretty much the same is true of language. Nobody is taught language. In fact, you can’t prevent the child from learning it.”– Noam Chomsky, 1994

The innateness hypothesis

The innateness hypothesis

• Children figure out rules of grammar from the language they hear around them.

• Developmental stages are the same across all languages.

• Deaf children go through the same developmental stages as hearing children.

• Children learn the language that surrounds them, regardless of genes. A non-genetically Chinese child who hears only Chinese will learn the language as well as a genetically Chinese child.

The innateness hypothesis

• Innateness hypothesis: children are equipped with a template for language (the Universal Grammar), and the template helps the child construct the grammar for her language.

• Children are not born with the capacity for any one language, but for language in general.

The innateness hypothesis

• Example of the Universal Grammar: In all languages, sentences change when converting from a statement to a question.

• English yes/no question:– Tanaka is eating sushi.– Is Tanaka eating sushi?

• Japanese yes/no question:– Tanaka ga sushi o tabete iru– Tanaka ga sushi o tabete iruka

The innateness hypothesis

• Explains why children learn language so easily and quickly.

• Explains why children all learn languages in the same steps.

• Children don’t start from scratch. They just have to find the right materials to fit the patterns they already have.

• Predicts that all languages will conform to the principles of Universal Grammar.– Linguists don’t know what all these principles

are yet.

Stages in Language Acquisition

• How do we test babies?– Children suck on pacifiers more quickly

when introduced to new or varied things. (Scientists have special pacifiers that measure this.)

– Children will turn heads in the direction of familiar sounds and words.

Stages in Language Acquisition:0-6 months• Children can differentiate between

different phonemes that sound similar, even if the difference doesn’t exist in their native language.– Will decrease sucking when hearing ba-ba-ba

repeatedly– Will increase sucking when it changes to pa– Japanese babies can tell the different between ra and la, but their parents can’t.

– English-speaking babies can tell the different between a dental t and a retroflex t even though these distinctions don’t exist in English

Stages in Language Acquisition: 0-6 months• The human brain is equipped to

distinguish sounds that matter in language from sounds that don’t.

• Babies don’t show the same reaction when presented with differences in sound that don’t matter in any language– Loud or quiet speaking– Male or female speaking– With or without a cough

• Babies can learn any language they are exposed to.

Stages in Language Acquisition:

6 months• From 0-6 months, infants can differentiate between any phonemes.

• At 6 months, infants can only hear phonemes that are different in the language they’re exposed to.– Japanese 6-month-olds can’t differentiate

between ra and la• Before 6 months, babies are learning

the sounds of language in general.• After 6 months, they focus just on the

language(s) they have to learn.

Stages in Language Acquisition:

6 months – 1 year• Babbling• May include sounds that aren’t

heard in the household– “nnnnnda!” --Myka Lewis, 7 months

old– “Ngeeeee!” --Asher Lewis, 6 months

old– Raspberries, Bronx cheers, lip smacks

and pops

Stages in Language Acquisition:

6 months – 1 year

Stages in Language Acquisition:

6 months – 1 year• Not linguistic chaos– The 12 most frequent consonants in the

world’s languages make up 95% of the consonants in infant babbling

– Early babbles: consonants and vowels repeated (mama, dada, gaga)

– More sophisticated babbling by 1 year• “Fishees!”—Myka Lewis, 10 months old• Adults can distinguish between English,

Cantonese, or Arabic babbling.

Stages in Language Acquisition:

6 months – 1 year

Stages in Language Acquisition:

6 months – 1 year• Intonation of babbling sounds like sentences– Gagagagaga?– Deee!

• Babbling of deaf babies is random and nonrepetitive

• Hand gestures of hearing babies are random and nonrepetitive

• Deaf babies exposed to sign language produce more than 12 different hand motions repetitively and in patterns. (Clip)

Stages of Language Acquisition

6 months – 1 year• Humans are born to practice sounds that produce meaning

• At a certain stage in development, babies will focus on the language they are exposed to.

• This stage occurs at about the same time for everyone, so it’s probably biological.

• Babbling is the earliest stage of language acquisition, not “prelinguistic” as once thought.

Stages of Language Acquisition:

1 year• Children start to use the same string of sounds for the same meaning

• Children realize that sounds are related to meaning.

Stages of Language Acquisition

1 year

Stages of Language Acquisition:

1 year• Holophrasic stage: – Babies only say one word per phrase,

but that word conveys a more complex message:• Down (Put me down.)• Cheerios (I want Cheerios)

• Babies use “vertical construction” (a series of one-word sentences) over “horizontal construction” (a multiword sentence)

Stages of Language Acquisition:

1 yearBrenda: Car [ka]. Car. Car. CarLinguist: What?Brenda: Go. Go.Linguist: [Undecipherable]Brenda: Bus [baish]. Bus. Bus. Bus. Bus. Bus.Linguist: What? Oh, bicycle? Is that what you said?Brenda: Na.Linguist: No?Brenda: Na.Linguist: No, I got it wrong.[The linguist later figured out that Brenda heard a car,

and it reminded her that she went on a bus yesterday, not a bicycle.]

Stages of Language Acquisition:

1 year• “Baby sign”– Some people claim deaf babies develop

signs before hearing babies speak– These people developed “baby sign

language” • Designed to help babies communicate needs

to parents before they can talk (milk, hurt, mother)

– Not clear if these are real words or pre-linguistic gestures

– More research needed

Stages of Language Acquisition:

1 year• First words– 1-syllable consonant + vowel sounds first (“da”

= dog)– Labial sounds first– Mama, Baba– In most languages, the baby word for “mother”

is a variation of mama– In most languages, the baby word for “father”

is a variation of baba• Can hear the distinction between sounds

even if they can’t produce them– Ring and wing, mouse and mouth

Stages of Language Acquisition:

1 year• Overextension: children interpret a word to have broader meaning than it does– Sock = any undergarment that is put on over

the feet (shoes, underwear)– Ball = anything round (apple, pumpkin)– Dog = anything furry with four legs– Papa = all men

• Underextension: children interpret a word to have a more restrictive meaning than it does– Bird = only the pet canary, not all birds or

pictures of birds

Stages of Language Acquisition:

1 year• Children overextend and underextend to figure out rules of word meaning

• The form-over-color principle– Children will group things by shape, not

by color• The whole-object principle

– Children will apply a word to a whole object, not its parts, unless told otherwise

Stages of Language Acquisition:

1 year• Children categorize words to help them remember new words– 14 words per day for the first six years

of their lives– 5,000 words per year for the first six

years• Syntactic bootstrapping

– Using verbs you already know to learn new nouns

– Mommy drinks water. Mommy drinks _______

Stages of Language Acquisition1-2 years• Overgeneralization: Acquiring the

rules of grammar, then applying them to other things.– Walk walked, carry carried– Conclusion: run runned, bring bringed

• Language doesn’t develop normally if they don’t overgeneralize– Looking for patterns– Will learn exceptions in the next stage– Some children go through this stage quickly,

others take a while

Stages of Language Acquisition:

1-2 years• The two-word stage: combining two words to form a meaning– Actor-action (Cat sleeping)– Possessor-possessed (Mommy sock)– Action-object (Drink milk)

Stages of Language Acquisition:

1-2 years• Children use vertical construction and two-word constructions to convey complex ideas.

Brenda: Tape corder. Use it. Use it.Linguist: Use it for what?Brenda: Talk. Corder talk. Brenda talk

Stages of Language Acquisition:

2+years• Telegraphic speech• No three-word phase• Sentences made up of content

words, not function words– Dog follow Jamie school.– Brenda eat soup lunch.

Stages of Language Acquisition:2 + years• Function words: last words to be

acquired– The dog followed Jamie to school.– I ate soup for lunch.

Some things to note

• All children acquire language at different rates

• All children move through the stages in the same order, but differ in how long they stay in certain stages

• The rate at which children move through each stage has no correlation with intelligence