* WHAT IS LANGUAGE?Sign language, non-verbal, facial expressionsCan define a culture. Different cultures have different languages and ways of expressing thingsCommunication; honey-bee dance.Sometimes twins can develop a language between them that nobody else understands.Spoken & written language* Generally, language is a system of symbols and rules used for the purpose of communicationshas sounds (phonologly)has meaning (semantics)has structures (morphology/syntax)has social rules (pragmatics)* Specifically, language refers to spoken form of the language – spoken language (oral/auditory communication)* Symbols needs to be Abstract, arbitrary*Without a clear set of rules a system cannot be considered a language*Social Rules; culture*Our words/sounds are sets of symbols. Very abstract symbols. Our numbers are as well.*Language requires a high level of abstract thinking*WHAT IS READING?De-coding, sounding out the letters to form a wordMapping between written symbols and your sound symbols*Reading refers to the process of mapping spoken form to written form (visual form) of the language.Oral Words to printed out/kaet/ > c a t*Reading shares many language properties (sounds, meanings, and stuctures)*English language is hardest/worst to learn because so many words mean the same things*Reading is a learned behavior*WHY STUDY LANGUAGE AND READING DEVELOPMENT?Can communicate with others, tell when something in a child/adult is not functioning or developing correctly, understand how to teach/help* Learning to speak and reading is an important part of child development*Language and reading serve a wide range of purposes for the developing childhelps children interact with othersexpress their wishescontrol others behaviorexplore and understand their environment*Many children are having language and reading difficulties (4 in 10 in America have reading difficulties)*National Reading Panel; charged by Congress via National Institute of Child Health and Human Development – NICHD and the Secretary of Education*National Research Council (NRC) Committee on Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children*CONTEMPORARY LANGUAGE AND READING RESEARCHPsycholinguisticsLinguists and psychologists combined to study language or reading – whether the linguistic systems described by the linguist systems described by the linguist has psychological reality in the mind of speakers or readersEX: linguists say: kiss > kiss (+ es)Psycholinguists: how do children acquire? How do adults do?*LANGUAGE RESEARCH METHODEquipmentVoice recorderVideo recorderTranscription of the dataWriting out as exactly as possible everything that is said, or use a transcriberCHILDES: Child Language Data Exchange System – computerized child language data baseCLAN: Child Language Analysis – computer software to code the dataObservations: observe children’s language and reading activities in a natural settingUse standardized language and reading measures (ex: Woodcock Reading Mastery Test; 1987)Experiments: Design your own language and reading tasks for children, then record language and reading performances for analyses.Longitudinal approach: study over a period of some weeks, months, yearsCross-Sectional approach: study simultaneously many children in each of different age groups**What is phonology?The study of the sound system of the language. The sounds that the language uses, as well as the rules for their combinationThere are around 200 sounds used in languages throughout the world. No on language makes use of all 200 soundsEnglish has over 40 different sounds*What is the relationship between letters and sounds in English? (between phonology and the actual spellings)Letters are the written symbols for soundsEnglish has 26 letters for over 40 soundsAs there can be no one-to-one correspondence between letter and sound – “a”: about, fat, fate, farm, fall, says… (the a is pronounced differently in different words)Linguists therefore refer to words as being made up of speech sounds or segments rather than lettersThe IPA is a means of representing the 200 sounds found in languages, including the over 40 found in English (p. 64)*Classifying Speech SoundsTwo major categoriesVowelsSounds made with an unobstructed vocal tract (about 16), ex: /ae/ in cat, /I/ in bidConsonantsSounds made with the constricted vocal tract (24), ex: /p/ and /t/ in putConsonants are further classified by:Place of articulationMade with lips: bilabialPlace tongue on or near the ride of gum between teeth: alveolarLabiodental, interdental, glottal, palatal, verlarManner of articulation“stop” consonants: p, b, t, d, k, g, upper and lower press“fricatives”: produced by airstream friction in the mouth; f, v, s,z“nasals”: produced through nose: m,n“glides”: more constriction than vowels-semivowel: j,w“liquid”: more constriction than glides, no friction: r, lVoicing“voiced”: produced through vocal cord vibrations, otherwise “voiceless”: p-b, t-d, f-v, s-z**What is a Phoneme?Phonemes are defined as the contrasting sounds in a languagePhoneme is the smallest sound unitHas no meaning by itself (in general)Changing a phoneme will turn on word into anotherEx: lot:rot - /l/ & /r/ are two distinct phonemes**What is a syllable?A phonetic unit larger and more stable than phonemeA syllable consists of an onset and a rime, and a rime in turn consists of a vowel and final consonant (s)Onset (initial consonent) > Syllable > rime > combines vowel & final consonantEx: Cat = one syllable word onset= c rime= at*Suprasegmental featuresSuperimposed on the sequence of vowels and consonantsTwo major features: pitch (tone), stressTONE: same sequence of phonemes with different tones in meaningSTRESS: content words have stress in one of their syllables*Phonotactics: Are there words that are impossible?Blink or bnick?Phonotactics – are the rules that govern permissible sound combinationsTrue and plot but not rtue or lpotNo two stop consonants at the beginning, pbLearning the rules of phonotactic arrangment is an important component in phonological development*Phonological Development StatesEarly perception of speech soundsInfants (1-4 months) can discriminate sound pairsEx: /b/ and /p/ in bah, pahInfants (3 days) can identify and prefer listening to own mothers voiceInfants can also discriminate sound pairs not used in their native language (before 6-8 months)Suggests born with this sound distinction abilityInfants gradually lose their ability to