UMD PSYC 355 - CHAPTER 6: DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE AND SYMBOL USE

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CHAPTER 6: DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE AND SYMBOL USELANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT- Language – systematic and conventional use of sounds or signs for the purpose of communication or expression- Nature vs. Nurture debate:o Nature- language acquisition is innate. What parents do does not patter it is in their genetic endowment o Nurture- oral communication skills were learned by parents, and mammals could be taught as well. - Components of Language: 1. May have difficulties perceiving some of the sounds that the speaker is uttering- phonenomes-elementary units of sound used to produce languages and distinguish meaning- phonological development- first step in childrens learning of language is to master the sound system of their language 2. Semantic development- learning the system for expressing meaning in language including word learning. - Syntax- how words from different categories can be combined  3. Syntactic development- acquiring the rules for combining words in a given language 4. A full understanding of the interaction with the stranger would necessitate some knowledge of the cultural rules for using language. - Pragmatic development- acquiring knowledge about how language is used. - Metalinguistic- knowledge about language including itsproperties and how it is used (adults). - What is Required for Language?o Human Brain- key to full fledged language development is species specific in that only humans acquire language in their environment and species universal in that virtually all young humans learn language.  Brain language relations- for the 90% of right handed peoplelanguage is primarily represented and controlled by the left hemisphere of the cortex- Brocas aphasia- difficult producing speech or grammatical structure (left front)- Wernickes aphasia- have no problem producing speech but what they say makes no sense and have problems with language comprehension. (auditory cortex) Critical period of language development- language developsreadily and after which language acquisition is much more difficult and less successful.- (Chinese and Korean immigrant study) Influenced by the age at which indivuduals began learning but not by the exposure to the language. (most proficient is before age of 7)o Human Environment- children must also be exposed to other peopleusing language Infant directed talk- the distinctive mode of speech that adults adopt when talking to babies and very young children. - Emotional tone- More slowly - Facial expressions- Process of Language Acquisition- involves both listening and talking, comprehending what other people communicate and producing intelligible language of your own. o Speech Perception- first step in language learning Prosody- characteristic rhythm, tempo, cadence, melody, intonational patterns and so on in which a language is spoken Categorical perception- perception of speech sounds as belonging to discrete categories Voice onset time (VOT)- length of time between when air passes through the lips and when the vocal cords start vibrating Young infants actually make more distinctions among speech sounds than adults do and can distinguish between phonemic contrasts made in all the languages in the world. o Developmental changes: Born with the ability to recognize mother voice and native language 6 months able to connect words they hear frequently with objects 8 months able to associate novel words with novel objects Distributional properties- the phenomenon that in any language, certain sounds are more likely to appear together than are others. - Cocktail party effect- sensitivity to ones nameo Preparation for Production- 6-8 weeks reflexive sounds to gain motor control Babbling- 6-10 months usually 7. Producing syllables made upof a consonant followed by a vowel that are repeated. - Hearing the sounds is important- Deaf infants silent babble around 8 months- Intersubjectivity- two interacting partners share a mutual understanding o Joint attention- patents following the baby’s lead looking at and commenting on whatever theinfant is looking at (pointing)o First Words: Recognition- name first (4 months), then associating words with their name, then 7-8 months they recognize new words and remember them for weeks Comprehension:- Reference- start associating words and meaning (6 months)- Production- first words between 10-15 months. Based on AMOUNT that they hear- Word Learning- rapid growth from 18 months to 1st grade- Children’s contributions- guided by assumptionso Fast mapping- process of rapidly learning a newword simply from hearing the contrastive use of a familiar word and unfamiliar word. o Pragmatic cues- aspects of the social context used for work learningo Linguistic context- how words appear in order to help infer their meaningo Grammatical categoryo Syntactic bootstrapping- grammatical structure of whole sentences to figure out meaningo Putting Words Together: practice First sentences- by the end of 2- Telegraphic speech- first sentences that are usually two word utterances Grammatical rules- - Overregularization- errors in which children treat irregular forms of words as if they were regular “growed up”o Conversational Skills- private speech becomes internalized Collective monologues- conversation between children that involves content of each childs turn having little or nothing to do with what the other child said Narratives- produced by 5 year olds and are descriptions of past events that have the basic structure of a story. - Bilingual Development:o Couse of development- similar to monolingualso Rate of development- slightly behind mnolinguals but if they are looked at separately they are comparable or even better when both are taken into account. (aware of dual exposure o Advantages- greater cognitive control early on, better executive control (puppet study.)- Nativist Views: Plato and Kant- language is too complex to arise from experience alone so there must be some preexisting innate structures that enable children to acquire it Chomsky- using a language requires knowledge of a set of highly abstract unconscious universal grammar rules which are common to all languages. (have inborn knowledge) Pinker- language is a distinct piece of the biological makeup of our brains. - Modularity hypothesis- human brain contains an innate self contained language module that is separate from other aspects of cognitive functioning. - Interactionist Views-


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UMD PSYC 355 - CHAPTER 6: DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE AND SYMBOL USE

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