Differs among people who speak different languages Some languages contain sounds that don t occur in other languages Four Levels of organization in languages Chapter 8 Language Sentence Phrases Words morphemes Phonemes Auditory perception Language development Babbling stage 3 4 months Infants spontaneously utter random sounds Not initially an imitation of adult speech until 10 months One word Stage 1 2 years Speech mostly in single words Comprehended is higher than produced speech Two word stage Approaching age 2 Mostly two word statements Telegraphic speech go car Critical Period Current findings inconclusive for critical period There is a sensitive period for language acquisition With younger children learning is easier Bilingualism Pros Perform higher on language tasks Cons Ability to interact with and understand more people A greater metalinguistic insight awareness of how language is structured and used Use different brain areas suggesting that the brain may segregate different later learned languages into different regions Less proficient and require more brain involvement to master their second language if required later in age Language Acquisition The imitation account Babies mimic parents in language Nativist account children come into the world with some basic knowledge on how language works Social Pragmatics account Suggests that children infer what words and sentences mean from context and social interactions General cognitive processing account statistical learning Proposes that children s ability to learn language results from general skills that children apply across a variety of activities Children s ability to perceive learn and recognize patterns Factors affecting language comprehension Few people strongly deny that the earth is not flat Negatives Passives The book was dropped by Tom Nested structures The horse raced past the barn fell Ambiguity Children make nutritious snacks
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