Lecture 15Critical PeriodIn language acquisition Humans must be exposed to language during a specific maturational state in order for language to be fully acquiredHas to be acquired between birth and puberty (12 years)Evidence for Critical Period: First Language Acquisition“Feral Children” Victor and Geniebiologically not capable of acquiring languageEvidence for Critical Period: First Sign Language AcquisitionDifferences in when they were first exposed to ASLFrom birth (native learners of ASL) vs. between 4 and 6 (early learners of ASL) vs. after 12 (late learners of ASL)Critical Period in 2nd Language AcquisitionPrior to age 16, the earlier the age of learning a 2nd language, the better the performanceAfter age 16, no relationship between age at learning and performanceFor Pronunciation:0-5 year olds have same pronunciation as native speakers5-15 year olds the earlier the age at learning, the better the performance15 and on no relationshipWhy are children better at language learning than adults?1. Language is special and separate from all other abilitiesChomsky’s “innate knowledge of grammar”2. Language is not special, and capability to learn it changes with age precisely because big kids are better than little kids (less is more hypothesis)Language learning declines with age of acquisition because cognitive abilities increaseChildren’s limited processing capacity leads them to learn only component parts of the linguistic input; adults’ large processing capacity leads them to learn the whole complex stimulus3. Children and adults occupy different environments-Young children receive richer L2 input than older children and than adults-Cultural identification plays a role in L2 acquisition-Recovery from childhood brain damage is successful only by age 5-Maybe there’s a sensitive period (more likely)Lecture 16Nativism:Learning to talk is like learning to wait (you may not be able to do it from the start but there is a biological blueprint for its development that unfolds with maturation); language is special and different from other human abilitiesNature vs. Nurture Debate:NurtureChildren learn sounds by imitation and parental reinforcement (phonology)Child directed speech, amount of language contribute to vocabulary growth (vocabulary)Statistical learning –regularities in language lead the child to analyze speech into wordsNatureNon-human primates cannot learn grammarAll children are capable of learning any language, therefore they must possess the “blueprint” for all possible languagesAnatomy and physiology of the vocal tract leads to the sound babies produce; as motor capacity develops, so does phonology (phonology)Lexical constraints (vocabulary)Grammar is learnedBehaviorist approach to language learningImitation, classical conditioning and operant conditioning principles are used to account for language learningEx: successful linguistic attempts get rewarded; unsuccessful attempts get ignored or punishedGrammar is innateLearnability Problem: There is too much ambiguity between what children hear and its meaningNo Negative Evidence: the corrective feedback that parents give to their children if they mess up their grammar-Domain-specificity: language is separableChomsky’s Theory:Special part of the brain is devoted to languageIt is genetically specified, and similar across all humansIt evolved to be distinct from other cognitionUniversal Grammar: Principles and components of language that respond to specific linguistic experienceLanguage Acquisition Device: A collection of grammatical principles that are universal across languages; takes the input and uses it to produce the particular grammarPidgins: languages that develop due to contact between speakers of two different and mutually-comprehensible languagesUsed to communicate contentLack grammarCreoles: Pidgin learned as children’s first language the mother tongue of a communityHas grammarEx: Nicaraguan Sign Language(ISN) kids had to find a way to communicate and they created a pidgin and it passed on through generations and generations and grammar was developed-possibility of a language gene-evidence pro nature includes the learnability argument, lack of negative evidence argument, creaolization of languages and the possibility of the “language” geneLecture 17Interactionist Approaches to Language Acquisition Piaget1. Language as an Outcome of Cognitive DevelopmentCognition drives languageLanguage is seen as a skill that develops as a result of cognitive maturation, through the interaction between the child’s cognitive abilities and the linguistic environment2. Language as an Outcome of Social-Cultural Environment VygotskyA child’s development is determined by the social interaction and collaborative problem-solvingZone of Proximal Development: The distance between the actual development level as determined by the independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidanceScaffolding: The help provided by the caregiver to get the child to the “potential” development level3. Social-Interactive Approach Elizabeth BatesLanguage is a product of interaction between product and the environmentChild Directed Speech is fundamentally necessary for language acquisition4. Usage-Based Theory of Language Acquisition Mike TomacelloTwo sets of skills are important for language development1. Intention-Readingability to share and follow attention of other peopleability to direct attention of others2. Pattern-Finding (Categorization)Ability to form categories of similar objects and eventsLecture 18-rate of acquisition- some children are faster than others-manner of acquisition – different children acquire different aspects of language firstSpeech SegmentationAnalytic vs. Gestalt ChildrenAnalyticWord babiesAcquire sounds and syllablesGestaltTune babiesAcquire longer, phraselike unitsWord LearningExpressive vs. Referential ChildrenExpressiveFocus is on people (pronouns, function words, and social expressions predominate)Think language is for talking about oneself and other peopleReferentialFocus is on objects (nouns predominate)More likely to engage in joint attention with their caregiversThink language is for organizing objects and for talking about objectsGrammatical DevelopmentNominal vs. Pronominal ChildrenNominalCombine two content wordsEx: “Mikey go” “give juice”PronominalCombine a function word with