"When I was a baby I kept a diary. Recently I was rereading it. It said: Day One: Still tired from the move. Day Two: Everybody talks to me like I'm an idiot." Steven Wright - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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"When I was a baby I kept a diary. Recently I was rereading it. It said: Day One: Still tired from the move. Day Two: Everybody talks to me like I'm an idiot." Steven Wright

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Title: "When I was a baby I kept a diary. Recently I was rereading it. It said: Day One: Still tired from the move. Day Two: Everybody talks to me like I'm an idiot." Steven Wright


1
"When I was a baby I kept a diary. Recently I
was rereading it. It said Day One Still tired
from the move. Day Two Everybody talks to me
like I'm an idiot." Steven Wright
2
  • LING1000/LING7100First Language
    AcquisitionLecture A
  • Readings
  • Chapter 10. Language acquisition. In Fromkin,
    V., Rodman, R., Collins, P. (1997) An
    introduction to language. Sydney Harcourt Brace.
    pp 409-451.
  • Chapter 4. The acquisition of language. In
    Cairns, H. S. (1999). Psycholinguistics An
    introduction. PRO-ED Studies in Communicative
    Disorders. Austin, TX PRO-ED. Pp 77-89.

3
7A.1 Biological preparedness for language
  • Human infants are specially tuned to hear human
    language from birth.
  • New born infants can hear sound distinctions
    that are not distinctive, or phonemic, in their
    native language.
  • Part of this biological preparedness is
    Universal Grammar (UG), which is a
    language-making capacity that specifies the
    general form of human language and guides the
    child in the acquisition of the target language.

4
  • .
  • Part of this biological preparedness is
    Universal Grammar (UG), which is a
    language-making capacity that specifies the
    general form of human language and guides the
    child in the acquisition of the target language.

5
7A.2 Early language acquisition from sounds to
babbling
  • In the first six months the infant's
    vocalisations are primarily soft coos and gurgles
    and do not resemble genuine language.
  • At about 7 months true babbling begins. The
    infant starts to make sounds that exhibit
    language-like features. These sounds are single
    syllables consisting of stop consonant (p, b, t,
    d, etc) and a vowel like "ah".

6
7A.2 Early language acquisition from babbling
to language
  • At first the babbles will be a string of
    similar syllables, ba, ba, ba. Eventually this
    will become more varied, baga, bada, and will
    start to sound like phonemic segments. This is
    called segmental babbling.
  • The vocalisations will also have sentence
    intonation, with the infant appearing to engage
    in a "conversation" that has no semantic content.

7
7A.2 The one-word stage
  • The first words are not produced until 12-18
    months, although infants as young as 9 months can
    recognise individual words from a string of
    speech
  • The first words often sound like babble,
    although they are consistently used to refer to
    one thing.
  • This is called the one-word, or holophrastic,
    stage because each word conveys as much meaning
    as an entire phrase.

8
Processes at the one-word stage
  • During the early one-word stage that child may
    underextend the meaning of a word, using it too
    narrowly. For example, a child might learn the
    word birdie in reference to the family budgie,
    and not use it to refer to other birds.
  • The child will also overextend the meaning of a
    word by applying it too widely, as in the case of
    a child using the word doggie to refer to all
    four-legged animals. Overextension appears to be
    limited to production.

9
7A.3 The two-word stage
  • When the child has learned about 50 words, a
    vocabulary spurt occurs and the infant starts
    producing two-word utterances from which the
    grammar of the language is developed.
  • Fast-mapping. A child will hear a word once or
    twice, learn its grammatical class, but will have
    only a vague idea of what it means.

10
Lexical learning principles
  • At the two-word stage the child is aided by a
    number of lexical learning principles.
  • The whole object principle.
  • The only one name principle.
  • The principle of extendability.

11
Lexical learning principles
  • The whole object principle. The child assumes
    that the word used to name an object refers to
    the whole object. For example, doggie will refer
    to the whole dog, and not to the dog's tail,
    ears, etc.

12
Lexical learning principles
  • The only one name principle. The child assumes
    that there is only one name for each object. When
    someone points to a dog (a word a child already
    knows) and says tail, the child will assume that
    it is a word for a part of the dog, or may refers
    to the type of dog it is, etc.

13
Lexical learning principles
  • The principle of extendability. The child has
    the expectancy that individual words will refer
    to categories of similar things.

14
7A.3.2 The two-word stage and the emergence of
grammar
  • At the two-word stage the infant starts
    producing utterances with very basic grammatical
    structure.
  • a chair baby cookie
  • a rice that Daddy
  • more apple a feet
  • more milk want juice
  • doggie allgone pull car

15
Features of two-word stage grammar
  • English-speaking children obey English word
    order restrictions, with subjects preceding verbs
    (doggie allgone) and verbs preceding objects
    (pull car).
  • Few function words are used.
  • No bound morphemes are used by English
    children, but use of inflections by children
    learning highly inflected languages (e.g.,
    Italian).
  • Subjects are often omitted.

16
7A.4 Beyond the two word stage
  • Around the age of 3 the child will gradually
    start to produce longer sentences.
  • This development is measured in the mean length
    of utterance (MLU), the average number of
    morphemes in the child's utterances.
  • The steady increase in MLU is related to the
    increasing use by the child of bound morphemes
    and function words.
  • The increase in MLU is also due to increasing
    working memory capacity in the child, which
    allows the production of longer utterances.

17
Acquisition of bound morphemes in English
  • Earliest to appear is the -ing marker on verbs
    signalling the present progressive form and the
    plural /s/ and the possessive /s/.
  • The function words in and on also appear, as
    do the, a, and a little later, an.
  • Acquired much later are auxiliaries and the
    copula, as well the third person singular /s/.
    These forms carry little communicative meaning.

18
Other features of early grammar development
  • The overgeneralization (in English) of the
    regular past tense verb (went ? goed) and plurals
    (foots and feets). This reflects the tendency of
    all children to make irregular processes in their
    language more regular.
  • Auxiliaries and copulas also start to appear,
    and with them the child begins to use subjects
    consistently.
  • Modals and negative modals such as can't and
    don't also appear. contractions like wanna and
    hafta are learned as fixed forms
  • Passive forms are rarely used but evidence for
    the beginning of movement rules (e.g.
    subject-auxiliary inversion) in question
    formation. Aux inversion first appears in yes/no
    questions ( Is doggie sleeping?) and later in
    Wh-questions (Why can't I go outside?)

19
Toward more complex grammar
  • At about 3 years the child will begin to
    produce complex sentences. A complex sentence is
    one with two verbs (e.g., Watch me draw circles).
  • I want Mommy ? I want Mommy get it.
  • I see you. ? I see you sit down.
  • I don't know who ? I don't know who it is.
  • More complex material is always placed at the
    right, or the end, of the utterance in English.

20
7A.5 Theories of child language acquisition
Imitation
  • A traditional view of first language
    acquisition held that the infant learned the
    language by imitating the speech of those around
    him. There is strong evidence indicating that
    this is not case
  • The child often produces forms that do not
    occur in the language, as in He goed to the
    store, and thus could not be imitated.

21
  • Even when the child tries to imitate adult
    speech, they are unable to do so if the speech is
    beyond his current grammar.
  • Adult He's going out. Adult That's
    an old-time train.
  • Child He go out. Child
    Old-time train
  • Adult Adam, say what I say Where can I put
    them?
  • Child Where I can put them?
  • Thus imitation alone cannot account for the
    rapid development of complex grammar knowledge.

22
7A.5 Theories of child language acquisition
Reinforcement
  • Reinforcement has also been proposed as a means
    by which the child learns the grammar. The child
    learns to produce correct sentences because he is
    positively reinforced when he says something
    right and negatively reinforced when he says
    something wrong.
  • There is evidence that reinforcement has little
    or no effect on learning.
  • Caretakers seldom provide positive or negative
    reinforcement.
  • When they do explicitly correct a child's
    utterance, it is usually concerns the factual
    nature of the statement and not the grammatical
    structure used.

23
  • There is little evidence that reinforcement has
    much of an effect on learning.
  • Caretakers seldom provide positive or negative
    reinforcement.
  • When they do explicitly correct a child's
    utterance, it is usually concerns the factual
    nature of the statement and not the grammatical
    structure used.

24
  • Even when explicit grammatical correction is
    attempted, it is often unsuccessful
  • 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.

25
  • Neither imitation or reinforcement alone are
    enough to account for child language acquisition.

26
First language acquisition
  • End of Lecture A.

27
Lecture B First Language Acquisition

28
7B.1 Language acquisition as rule-making
  • A theory of first language acquisition must
    account for the fact that
  • children make non-random errors
  • acquisition happens in a regular manner across
    diverse languages and settings
  • the basic grammar is learned quickly
  • acquisition comes about without formal
    instruction
  • acquisition happen regardless of the kind of
    interaction the child is exposed to when
    learning.

29
Child grammar development is systematic
  • The systematic nature is evident in the stages
    that many children go through in the mastery of
    negation (also over regularising the past tense
    ed)
  • Declarative I want some food.
  • Stage 1 No want some food.
  • No added to the beginning of utterance.
  • Stage 2 I no/don't want some food.
  • Unanalysed negative element inserted.
  • Stage 3 I don't want no food.
  • Negative element inserted negation spread, some
    becomes no
  • Stage4 I don't want any food.
  • Negative element inserted correctly some changed
    to any
  • Although not all children show exactly the same
    development as above, all show similar regular
    changes. Note that the child has never been
    exposed to these forms and thus could not imitate
    them. This rule-making must thus be driven by
    other processes.
  • Sign language also follows the same
    developmental pattern as spoken language.

30
  • Although not all children show exactly the same
    development as above, all show similar regular
    changes. Note that the child has never been
    exposed to these forms and thus could not imitate
    them. This rule-making must thus be driven by
    other processes.
  • Sign language also follows the same
    developmental pattern as spoken language.

31
7B.2 Universal grammar
  • The evidence is strong that the infant is born
    with a innate capacity to learn the first
    language which is unique to humans
    (species-specific). Language acquisition is
    assumed to obey a biological timetable that
    specifies a period in which it can take place,
    that is, when the child must be exposed to
    language.
  • During this critical period, language learning
    is swift and relatively effortless. After this
    period the acquisition of grammar is difficult if
    not impossible.

32
  • This innate capacity is called Universal
    grammar (UG). UG provides the blueprint for the
    general form of language, specifying what human
    languages can look like.
  • UG also specifies how individual languages can
    vary. For example, a basic difference is whether
    a language marks grammatical information by word
    order (like English) or by inflection (like
    Spanish or Italian).
  • The UG parameters provide the child with
    possible alternatives to choose from when
    attempting to make sense of the target input.

33
The role of the environment
  • The linguistics environment thus serves as a
    trigger for the emergence of the innate UG
    knowledge by providing positive evidence for the
    learner. The child does not need to discover
    either the basic organizational features or the
    parameters through experience. It is already
    provided by UG.
  • Speech in the child's Universal Grammar Grammar
  • environment ? Acquisition Principles
    ? and
  • Lexicon

34
7B.2.1 Linguistic competence and language
performance
  • The child's underlying linguistic competence
    exceeds his productive ability.
  • Data from naturalistic production
    underestimates the child's competence, so
    researchers try to elicit evidence of this
    underlying knowledge through experimental tasks

35
7B.3 The innateness hypothesis
  • The child is assumed to be born with a
    language-making capacity that specifies the form
    that human languages can take and greatly
    facilitates the child's acquisition of the target
    language.
  • This biological capacity is different from the
    general cognitive processes that are used for
    learning and problem-solving in other domains
    acquiring a first language is fundamentally
    different from learning how to play chess or hit
    a cricket ball.
  • The view that the child is born with an innate
    language-making capacity is strongly supported by
    the fact that there is a critical period for
    first language learning. Estimates what that
    critical age is range from 7 - 15 years.

36
Evidence for a critical period
  • The study of other species, particularly the
    learning of birdsongs
  • Human children raised in early isolation from
    human contact and then later unable to master the
    language. These include the French case of
    Victor, 'the wild child of Aveyron' in the late
    1800s, and Genie, a more recent case in the US.
  • Empirical studies showing adult language
    learners are unable to develop the native-like
    intuitions of child learners.

37
7B.5 First language acquisition and social
interaction.
  • Social interaction also plays an important role
    in first language acquisition.
  • Researchers like Halliday approach the
    development of language as the mastery of the
    language devices and functions needed for social
    interaction.
  • The first four functions, which develop in the
    first year.
  • instrumental ('I want' function) object-oriente
    d used to satisfy material needs
  • regulatory ( 'do as I tell you')
    person-oriented used to regulate
    behavior
  • interactional ('me and you') used for getting
    along with others
  • personal ('here I come') used to express
    individuality

38
  • Soon after these four functions are established
    three more functions appear.
  • heuristic ('tell me why') used to learn about
    reality
  • imaginative ('let's pretend) used to create
    imaginary worlds
  • informative ('I've got something to tell you')
  • used to communicate content

39
7B.7 Can chimps learn human language?
  • The claim that human language is an innate,
    species-specific capacity has been challenged by
    researchers who have attempted to teach human
    language non human primates like chimps and
    gorillas. They have had limited success
  • Non-human primates are not able to make the
    range of sounds needed to express human language,
    so sign language and symbolic languages using,
    e.g. plastic tokens, have been used.

40
7B.7 Non-human primate language learning
All-Stars
  • Washoe was raised like a deaf child, and by the
    time she was 4 years old had learned eighty five
    signs. She was also able to put together simple
    'sentences' like baby mine, gimme flower, more
    fruit.
  • Kanzi was taught a language using plastic
    lexigrams that represent morphemes. Researchers
    reported that Kanzi's was able to create a
    grammatical expression ("dog go"). Little
    subsequent grammatical development was reported.
  • Nim Chimpsky learned about 125 signs in the
    four years of the study. Nim used only a basic
    grammar, showed no tendency to be more creative
    as he learned more, and little evidence of
    spontaneous speech.
  • Koko, a gorilla, learned several hundred signs
    and could string together sentences and even coin
    new words like finger bracelet for ring.

41
  • The chimps and gorillas showed great intelligence
    in mastering the communication systems taught.
    However, unlike human children, they showed
    little creativity or spontaneity in their
    language use, and were able to master only a
    basic grammar.

42
  • First language acquisition Week 7
  • End of Lecture B.
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