PSYC355 Final Study GuideLanguage- Is language special?o Chromsky- “language organ” “universal grammar”o MacWhinney- neural, cognitive, and social factors that have evolvedo Universalityo Self- motivatingo Relation to disorders that affect thinking in general - Language Developmento A stunning achievement, unmatched by any other specieso Language is a system with complex structure at several levelso Routinely acquired by human infants and young children, requiring no explicit instructiono Babies are better at it than adults areo Nature Unique to humans Resilient and universal in humans Critical periodso Nurture We need a language model to learn it Strong role of the richness in the environment in children’s linguistic skill- Biological Basiso Localizationo Plasticity- Language: Levels of Structureo Language is the product of several converging streams in developmento Different components of language have different developmental historieso Communication & phonology (sounds) at birtho Lexicon (words) at 1 year oldo Morphology & syntax at 2 years- Communicationo Language is first and foremost a tool for communicationo Prelinguistic communication lays the foundationo Parents and infants each contribute- Prelinguistic communicationo Baby provides: Social signals (crying, smiling) Intense interest in social partners Intentional attempts to communicate (9-12 months)- Gaze alternation, gestures, persistence, pointing, vocalizationso Parent provides: Infant- directed speech (exaggerated pitch, communicates “emotional” messages, may simplify the input) Enforcement of turn- taking structures (protodialogues) Strong motivation to communicate and to treat infants’ actions as intentional and meaningful Engagement and support of joint attention- Lessons from Deaf Childreno Infant- directed signing similar to IDTo Deaf infants prefer watching infant-directed signing than adult- directed signingo Babblingo Biological basis of babies’ babbling? Non-linguistic motoric activity driven largely by the baby’s emerging control over the mouth and jaw Linguistic activity reflecting the baby hands that move to the rhythm of language - Phonology: perceiving the sounds of languageo Sounds of language carry information at several levels simultaneouslyo Prosody: pitch, loudness, rhythm (the melody of language) Emotion Speaker identity Speech acts (question, statement, command)o Statistical regularities Which sound units occur together reliably as words Which sound units can be combined in a languageo Phonemic structure Sound units that build wordso Infants listen to and learn about these channels of information from the start, even before birtho Inborn structure for phoneme perception Beyond just liking speech, infants are born ready to perceive critical structure within it Discrete to the ear but not physically discrete For adults there is no middle ground, speech sounds are perceived categoricallyo Categorical perception of phonemes is inborno But languages vary in the phonemic contrasts they useo Adults are insensitive to the phonemic contrasts that are not used in their native language- Wordso Symbolic- words stand for their referents, they’re not just associated with them (ex: smoke is associated with fire)o Arbitrary- words don’t resemble what they mean, they are paired arbitrarily with their referentso Conventional- words are shared by the group of language users, otherwise they would be uselesso First words at about 12 months, 40,000 by late childhood Babies at first communicate via single words or stock phrases Can convey a broad range of meanings in this way Small vocabularies (10-20 words) for a few months, then rapid accumulation of hundreds of words around second birthday Babies can comprehend much more then they can sayo Word Errors Overextensions- using a word to refer not only to the standard referent but to others as well (ex: doggie to refer to all 4 legged animals) Under extensions- limiting the use of a word to only a subset of its standard referents (ex: bottle only to refer to a baby bottle) Overlaps- overextending a term in some ways and under extendingit in others (ex: under extending an umbrella when folded up by referring to a kite as an umbrella) Overextensions are more noticeable but under extensions are more commono World Learning Baby provides:- Insight into the symbolic, conventional nature of words- Assumptions about the likely meanings of new words- Ability to recruit knowledge about people, the world, and the language system to make sense of new words Parent provides:- Adults provide the words to be learned- The more parents talk, the bigger babies vocabs are- Parents help babies make the right connections- Morphology & Syntax: the rules of languageo 2 distinct rule systems, both acquired beginning around 2 years of age, with prolonged development into later childhoodo Morphology- rules that govern building complex words from smaller unitsof meaning (morphemes)o Syntax- rules that govern building sentences from wordso Free morphemes (whole words)- can be combined to form compoundso Bound morphemes (sub-word unites)- derivational, inflectional, can apply them to novel wordso Spontaneous speech- over regularization (feets) Can’t be imitations from adult speech Show that young children have productive morphological ruleso Early sentences- even the first word combinations are not random concatenations: they are rule governedo Example: gorping- understand ruleso Rules are hard to learn Poverty o the stimulus- sentences one hears are insufficient to deduce the underlying rules, especially given imperfections an incompleteness in actual utterances No negative evidence- parents correct semantics not grammar, even when trying children are very resistant- The rules: nurture matterso Grammatical complexity of parent/teacher speech influences the complexity of children’s speech- hearing it helps you learn ito WHEN you hear it matters- critical period effects for grammaro Deprivation cases (example: Genie) selective impairments to grammaro Late learners- second language, signo Critical period for grammar Late first learners (deaf) Late second learners (immigrants) Age of first exposure determines how well the learner commands grammar Even after decades of using the language- Natureo Children invent grammar even when they are deprived of
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