Language DevelopmentLecture Notes: 11/25/14Acquiring L2 in Childhood● Different from simultaneous bilingualism● More like adult L2 acquisition● Often accompanied by a silent period (very little production in L2; mostly listening● If L2 is the language of community, its acquisition is often accompanied by attrition (loss)of L1, or reversal of dominance (from L1 to L2)● Enormous individual differences (unlike in L1 acquisition) due to aptitude and socio-cultural influencesHow do bilinguals process language?● Language-switch?○ When bilinguals want to speak.understand in L1, they switch L2 off○ When they want to speak/understand in L2, they switch L1 off● In parallel?○ When bilinguals are speaking/listening/reading in L1, they are also accessing their L2○ When bilinguals are speaking/listening/reading in L2, they are also accessing their L1Some demonstrations of parallel processing: Stroop Task● On the Stroop task, you are presented with color words in a different color ink● Want to name the ink, not read the wordWhy is this happening?● Because you cannot help but read the word● The word you read and the word you have to produce overlap● You have to ignore the word, and it takes time to do that, which is why you are slower with incongruent trials cognitive Consequences of Bilingualism● Metalinguistic awareness○ By virtue of learning two labels for each object, bilingual children learn the arbitrariness of language earlier than monolingual children○ E.g., “In this game, the way to say “we” is to say “spaghetti”. How would you say “We are good children?” Children have to say “Spaghetti are good children.”○ Bilingual children are more reliable on this task● Phonological awareness○ By virtue of exposure to two phonological systems, bilingual children pay more attention to the phonological characteristics than monolingual children○ E.g., Counting the number of sounds in a word and phoneme substitution tasks (“Take away the first sound from “cat” and put in the first sound from “mop.”)● Executive function/Selective attention○ By virtue of having to select one language and de-select the other language, bilingual children learn to focus on relevant dimensions and ignore the irrelevant ones earlier and better than monolingual children○ E.g., Card-Sorting Task■ You need to sort cards along with one dimension (e.g., shape)Ways to Raise Children Bilingually● One person-one language: Each parent speaks their L1 to the child○ Supposedly, the preferred way to teach children two languages○ A child associates each language with each parent, and learns to separate the two languages from early on● Non-dominant home language: Parents speak L1 to the child; the community speaks L2○ Common in immigrant families● Mixed languages: Parents are bilingual and mix languages when speaking to the child○ Most frequentWhat is intelligence?● Very difficult to measure● Some believe in a single general intelligence factor that underlies performance on all cognitive tasks● Some believe that specific skills constitute intelligence, including memory, verbal comprehension, number facility, etc.● Some believe that there are “multiple intelligences” (e.g., musical intelligence, interpersonal intelligence, emotional intelligence, etc.)● And some believe that it is pointless and in fact harmful to claim that we can “measure intelligence”. Stephen Jay Gould wrote the book The Mismeasure of Man, in which he argues that it is silly to investigate○ “The abstraction of intelligence as a single entity, its location within the brain, its quantification as one number for each individual, and the use of these numbers to rank people in a single series of worthiness, invariably to find that oppressed and disadvantaged groups- races, classes, or sexes- are innately inferior and deserve their status.”Some history of intelligence testing● Early in the 20th century, universal education was instituted in France● The French ministry of education was concerned with the problem of educating individuals classified as “idiots”● No objective method existed that would diagnose this condition, or for deciding whether the child would benefit from ordinary instruction● A commission was appointed, headed by Alfred Binet● The task was to develop psychological and physical diagnostic measures for determining retardation● Binet used complex tasks, and relied on age-graded norms (i.e., task difficulty was differentiated by age at which a typical child was able to successfully complete it)Verbal IQ● Similarities: “In what way are an apple and a pear alike?”● Vocabulary● Information●