Psychology

LECTURE 7



A system of communication  Words and written symbols  A two-way process  Productive, complex, infinite  Functions 1. Influences behaviors 2. Escapes reality with imagination 3. Communicates info and emotions

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1. 2. 3.


Phonology – knowledge of language’s sound system (phonetics) Morphology – rules specifying how words are formed from sounds Semantics – meanings expressed in words


Free morphemes – stand alone words Bound morphemes – cannot stand alone, change meaning of free morphemes when added

Syntax – rules specifying how words are combined to produce sentences 5. Pragmatics – principles governing how language is used in different social situations  Also requires interpretation of nonverbal signals
4.
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 Broca’s


area: Portion of the cerebral cortex that controls expressive language.
Left frontal region

 Expressive

aphasia: Loss of the ability to speak fluently.  Wernicke’s area: Portion of the cerebral cortex that controls language comprehension


Left temporal region

 Receptive

aphasia: Loss of the ability to comprehend speech
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Motor cortex

Broca's area Primary auditory area

Wernicke's area

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 The


Learning (Empiricist) Perspective

Imitation, reinforcement and correction are responsible for learning language Evaluation of Learning Perspective
 



Imitation and reinforcement are important Syntax (grammatical correctness) not reinforced

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 The


Nativist Perspective

Humans are biologically programmed to acquire language




Language acquisition device (LAD) – activated by verbal input (Chomsky)  Universal grammar – common set of rules Language-Making Capacity (Slobin)

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

Figure 10.1 A model of language acquisition proposed by nativists.
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

Support for the Nativist Perspective
  



Presence of linguistic universals Language is species specific Brain Specialization and Language  Broca’s area – speech production  Wernicke’s area – speech comprehension Sensitive-Period Hypothesis – language most easily acquired - birth to puberty

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

Figure 10.2 As shown here, there is a clear relationship between the age at which immigrants arrived in the United States and their eventual adult performance in English grammar. Those who arrived early in childhood end up performing like native speakers of English, whereas those who arrived as teenagers or adults perform much more poorly.
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A Critical Period and Language Acquisition
280 276

270
260 250 240 230 220

210

Native 3-7 8-10 11-15 speakers Immigrants: Age (in years) on arrival in U.S.

17-39

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

Problems with the Nativist Approach
  

Other species show auditory discrimination early in life Doesn’t explain language development Overlooked the role of the environment

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 The



Interactionist Perspective

Biological and Cognitive Contributors
Biologically prepared to acquire language  Gradually maturing nervous system, develop similar ideas at same age  Biological maturation affects cognitive development, affecting language

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

Figure 10.3 Grammatical complexity increases as a function of the size of children’s productive vocabulary.
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

Environmental Supports
 



Language is a means of communicating Lessons from Joint Activities  Conversations require taking turns Lessons from Child-Directed Speech  Short, simple sentences (motherese)  Becomes more complex with language development Lessons from Negative Evidence  Respond to ungrammatical speech
 



Environmental Supports, continued


Expansion – corrected and enriched version Recast – new grammatical forms



Importance of Conversation  Must be involved in using language, exposure to speech is not sufficient
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Figure 10.4 An overview of the interactionist perspective on language development.
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

Early Reactions to Speech  3 days old, prefer mother’s voice  Can distinguish phonemes adults cannot  The Importance of Intonational Cues  Sensitive to cues from birth  7 months sensitive to phrase units Producing Sounds: Prelinguistic Vocalizations  2 months – cooing (vowel sounds)  4-6 months – babbling (vowel + consonant)  10-12 months – vocables – reserving sounds for particular situations



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



What Do Prelinguistic Infants Know about Language and Communication?  7-8 months, vocal turn taking  Gestures and Nonverbal Communication  8-10 months  Declarative – directing attention  Imperative – alter others’ behavior Do Preverbal Infants Understand the Meaning of Words?  12-13 months – yes  Receptive language (understanding) develops earlier than productive language (expression)
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



Holophrase – one word “sentences” Early Semantics: Building a Vocabulary

 

Vocabulary grows one word at a time Naming explosion – 18-24 months Talk most about manipulable objects Multimodel motherese – exaggerated sentences by an adult accompanied by an action explaining the words

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Table 10.1 Types of Words Used by Children with Productive Vocabularies of 50 Words. SOURCE: Adapted from Nelson, 1973.
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

Individual and Cultural Variations


 

Referential style – word refer to people or objects (Western cultures) Expressive style – personal/social words (Eastern cultures) Birth order influences language style

 Attaching
 

Meaning to Words

Fast-mapping – quickly acquiring a word after hearing it applied a few times Good at 13-15 months, better for understanding, difficult retrieving words from memory

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1.

Common Errors in Word Use  Overextension – overgeneralization  Underextension – using word for small range of objects Strategies for Inferring Word Meanings  Use of social and contextual cues  Processing constraints  Object scope; Mutual exclusivity; lexical constraint Syntactical Clues to Word Meaning  Syntactical bootstrapping – learning meaning from sentence structure  Noun – object  Adjective – characteristic of object  Causation – action word
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3.

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Table 10.2 Some Processing Strategies, or Constraints, That Guide Young Children’s Inferences about the Meaning of New Words.
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 Telegraphic
  

speech – 18-24 months

Simple sentences, containing only critical words (no grammatical markers) More common in languages where word order is more important than grammatical markers A Semantic Analysis of Telegraphic Speech

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

Table 10.3 Similarities in Children’s Spontaneous Two-Word Sentences in Four Languages. SOURCE: Adapted from Slobin, 1979.
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1.
 

A Semantic Analysis of Telegraphic Speech
Follows some grammatical rules Context is also vital for understanding meaning

2.
 

The Pragmatics of Early Speech
2 year olds – good at vocal turn-taking Prefer to talk about unshared information Monitor responses to clarify meaning Understanding need to be polite




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Preschool period (2 ½-5) sentences complex and adultlike  Grammatical Development


become

Development of Grammatical Morphemes




Grammatical morphemes – modifiers give more precise meaning to sentences  ‘s’ for plurality; ‘ed’ for past tense  ‘ing’ for present progressive Grammatical Morphemes - continued  Acquired in a specific order  Overregularization – overextend new grammatical morphemes


Relatively rare

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

Table 10.4 Samples of One Boy’s Speech at Three Ages.

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

Table 10.5 Order of Acquisition of English Grammatical Morphemes.
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

Figure 10.5 A linguistic puzzle used to determine young children’s understanding of the rule for forming plurals in English.

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

Mastering Transformational Rules


Transformation grammar – rules for creating variations of declarative sentences  Asking questions
 

Yes/no – rising intonation Wh- questions (who, what, where, when, why) Negative before sentence Move negative inside sentence Combine negative with auxiliary verb Age 3 - clauses, conjunctions first, embedded sentences next 5-6 good grammar



Moving auxiliary verbProducing Negative Sentences
 





Producing Complex Sentences
 

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





Semantic Development  2-5 understand and express relational contrasts  Big/little; tall/short; in/on; here/there  Frequently misinterpret passives Development of Pragmatics and Communication Skills  3 year olds – illocutionary intent – real meaning may be different than literal meaning of words  3-5 – must tailor messages to communicate effectively Referential Communication  Ability to detect ambiguities in others’ speech and ask for clarification  Preschool – fail to detect linguistic ambiguities  Generally successfully guess  Assume own uninformative sentences are clear  Better in natural environment than lab
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 Later



Syntactical Development

Middle childhood – syntactical refinement
Subtle rules, complex structures

 Semantic



and Metalinguistic Awareness

Rapid vocabulary growth –
Morphological knowledge – meaning of morphemes to determine new words Add abstract words





9 to 11 – recognize and make inferences

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



Metalinguistic awareness  Thinking about language and comment on properties  Grammatical awareness  Phonological awareness – linked to reading achievement Further Development of Communication Skills  Dramatic improvement in referential communication skills by 6 or 7  Less egocentric, more role-taking  9 - 10 years old – more clarification for ambiguous information
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

Table 10.6 Typical Idiosyncratic Descriptions Offered by Preschool Children When Talking about Unfamiliar Graphic Designs in the Krauss and Glucksberg Communication Game.
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 What


Role Do Siblings Play in the Growth of Communication Skills?
Promotes effective communication




Siblings less likely to adjust speech, but then more likely to monitor and fix ambiguous messages Less likely to interpret ambiguous message from younger sibling – forcing them to adjust

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

Table 10.7 Important Milestones in Language Development.
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 LANGUAGE
 

AND...

Bilingualism and Cognition Self-Regulation




Private speech – children’s vocalized speech to themselves that directs behavior Inner speech – form of private speech



Cultural Socialization

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






Exposure to 2 languages prior to age 3, proficient in both Preschool children, often learn second language to proficiency in 1 year Cognitive advantages
Score higher on IQ tests, metalinguistic awareness, better selective attention

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 English-only
 

instruction

Causes LEP children to struggle academically Do not acquire sufficient level of skill in English

 Two-way
 

bilingual education

Half day in English, half in second language Beneficial for both students with limited English proficiency and students fluent in English

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Learn both at • No problems with language development the same time • Good at both by preschool

One, then the other

Takes 3 to 5 years to be as good as same-age native speakers of second language

Both offer cognitive advantages of bilingualism • Attention, reasoning, concepts, flexibility • General language skills
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