HOW DO CHILDREN ACQUIRE LANGUAGE Before production of language Pre phonetic Pre synaptic Pre semantic Pre pragmatics Within their first year Larynx descends Phonemic awareness o 150 sounds per language Babbling First words the end of the first year By second birthday Syntax Rudimentary phrases just past the two word stage Preschool and elementary school Extralinguistic aspects of communication Egocentrism dissipates Language Deprivation Influence of nature and nurture on language o No strict critical period but a sensitive period o Genie Homesigners children who invent their own sign language The younger you are the better you will learn a new language Less is more theory THEORIES OF LANGUAGE ACQUISITION Imitation Account suggests babies hear language used in systematic ways and learn to use language as adults use it o Behaviorist view of language B F Skinner Verbal Behavior Chomsky thought Skinner s book was stupid Doesn t account for generative nature of language Ability to create a seemingly infinite number of sentences Proposed universal grammar NATIVIST ACCOUNT Children born with expectation of grammar essentially Chomsky s language acquisition device Innate and universal ability to acquire language Several issues with the universal grammar approach o Anthropologists have not found a single language universal o What is in UG Multiple researchers may not agree Alternatives to UG o o Experience based approaches Statistical Learning Social Pragmatic Account Specific aspects of the social environment structure language learning CONTEXT Requires assuming that infants have theory of mind
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