Introduction to language acquisitionLecture 1 (September 2)Human language is a communication systemCan be compared to the communication system of bees, birds and dolphins but none of them can communicate more than the concept of “here and now” that humans canHuman language has 3 componentsSymbolic system: Language is representative in natureWords refer to objects, but are not inherently tied to themE.g the sounds in dog have nothing to do with “four legged, furry mammal”We as humans decide what words mean, as long as everyone agrees on the meaningGenerative system: New words; new sentences.New words can be added to refer to new objects; new sentences can be produced to describe new situationsRule-governed system: Language is organized around non-arbitrary rulesWords go together in a sentence for a particular reason, it is not randomGrammar; man bites dog means something different than dog bites manPrimates possess a complex communication system similar to ours which include vocal cries, however they cannot learn all aspects of human language such as grammarLecture 2 (September 4)Phonology is a description of the patterns of sounds that occur in a languagePhoneme is the smallest linguistic unit that can signal a difference in meaning (e.g., cat vs. mat – they only differ in one sound /k/ and /m/ so in English they are considered phonemes)Words that differ in only one phoneme are minimal pairsEg., book and shook, time and dime ; however time and dome are NOT minimal pairsMorpheme is the smallest unit of meaning in a language; they are indivisibleFree morphemes – independent morphemes that can stand aloneE.g., cat= free morpheme; separateBound morphemes – markers that cannot stand alone; attach to free morphemes in the form of suffixes, prefixes, and infixesE.g., (ness) in happiness; (s) in booksDerivational morpheme (a type of bound morpheme) – morphemes that change the word’s meaning or the part of speechE.g., (ly) can be added to an adjective to create an adverb (sad  sadly)Inflectional morphemes (a type of bound morpheme) – morphemes that do not mark meaning; instead they modify the free morpheme to fit the grammatical structureE.g., (s) can be added to a verb to indicate 3rd person singular (walk  walks)English only has eight inflectional morphemes – s (plural); -s (possessive) ; -s (3rd person singular) ; -ed (past tense) ; -en (past participle) ; -ing (present participle) ; -er (comparative) ; -est (superlative)phonemes differentiate meanings of words, but do not have meanings themselveswords can be organized by:phonological networks – words that sound alike are close to each othersemantic categories – grouping of “things” based on their similarity in meaningsyntax is the study of rules that govern the structure of sentences  syntactic rules are the rules that words follow when combined into sentencespragmatics are the social uses of languageanything you say has a purpose – communicative intentGricean cooperation principlesQuantity = don’t say too little, don’t say too muchQuality = tell the truthRelevance = contribute relevant information within the conversational contextManner = be direct and logical, avoid ambiguityRegisters are different ways of speaking in different situationsCognitive precursors to language and pre-linguistic communicationLecture 3 (September 9)Sensitivity to sound develops around 8 weeks, however hearing is functional at birthVision is the last developed sense in uteroPaying attention to edges allows children to segment the continuous flow of visual informationStripes represent a border between the object and the worldThe ability to organize and store the information or input is the development of memoryHabituation is the infant’s stable decrease in the attention to the repeating stimulusCognitive development 1Babies come into the world with these 3 abilitiesAbility to discriminate contrasts – the ability to perceive objects as separable entitiesAbility to follow movement – things that move together belong together = principle of common fate3-D view of the world – allows infants to gauge distances and relate object size to object distance and allows infants to put information from different sensory modalities togethercognitive development 2three cognitive skills are fundamental to language acquisitionobject permanence – babies know that objects exist even when they are no longer visible, basic understanding of this concept happens around 6-8 months of age. The fundamental ability to understand that words can refer to things that may not be immediately visiblecategorization – infants split up things into categories of new and old and will pay more attention to the new things than the old things. 9-10 months children randomly group objects, there is no rhyme or reason. At 12-18 months they have systematic groupings of objects. At 2-3 years of age they can extrapolate from category to individual objects based on an objects functionproblem solving or development of means-end relationships – casual reasoning = linking cause and effect. At 3 months they don’t understand that for something to happen they need to act upon it, the idea of “why” is lost upon them. At 12 months they learn the difference between physical and psychological causationphysical causation – I want something to happen so I need to do something about itpsychological causation, I want something to happen so it doesLecture 4 (September 11)Early ways of communicating:Eye contact – 4-6 weeks of age the concept of mutual gaze appears. Mutual gaze is when the infant and care takes are looking at each other; first sign of attention. At 8 weeks an infant follows an object with his/ her eyes. At 4 months an infant follows the mother’s eye-gaze towards an object. At 9 months the idea of joint attention appears. Joint attention is when the child and the care taker pay attention to the same thing; indicates that children understand other people’s intentionVocalizations – 0-6 weeks ; crying is reflexing and non communicative just as burping or sneezing is. 6-8 weeks infants start cooing which is a sign of content. Babies are starting to segregate their communication because a coo is different than a cry. Around 16 weeks they have their first laughter which is often in presence of other peopleGestures/ pointing – prior to 8 months is reaching/ grasping, this is non communicative. At 8 months infants look at the caretaker