Language Development

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University of British Columbia *

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Linguistics

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Jan 9, 2024

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Language Development What is language? Human language  Species specific & species universal Only humans have it the way humans have it -unique to humans Three critical parts: Symbols  Arbitrary pairings between the words we speak and the things we refer to**  Consensus - sounds that map out (represent) objects in the world  System of symbols Generativity  Where you get structure in grammar  Allow you to combine words you’ve never heard together before, and make sense of it  We have a structure that allows us to take words that we know, and combine them in unique ways to express ideas Recursion  Meaning is not lost from change in utterance  Our grammar allows us to retain meaning even if the order in which we express words changes Parts of Language Phonemes  Smallest units of sound recognizable as speech rather than random noise  Helps us distinguish words from one another  Consonants and vowels  Not all languages use all phonemes  Subset that gets used by different languages Morphemes  Smallest meaningful units of language Syntax  The rules governing how words are combined to form meaningful phrases and sentences  Syntactical rules differ across languages Principles and parameters -**** - Chomsky Principles that govern

Pragmatics Are part of language that do not consist of sounds or words, but can nonetheless change meaning  Can include elements such as:  Context  Intonation  Facial configuration  Body language No evidence of pragmatics in non-human animals When do children learn language? Pragmatic Development Children develop an understanding of pragmatics from early infancy (E.g., response to pointing), And continues throughout lifespan  Joint attention (Vygotsky) Phonological Development  Before birth to adolescence  Discriminate different phonemes  Learn to differentiate (perceive) sounds of native language  Learn to produce sounds of native language  Much perceptual phonological development complete by 10 months Semantic Development  Birth throughout lifespan  Very high rates of acquisition after 10 months through early school age  Requires segmenting of speech  Mostly nouns Syntactic Development  "Telegraphic speech" - often two-word utterances  "More milk", "eat cookie"  Abbreviated speech - signals more  Grammatically correct expression/statement  Pronouns in the third year (24-36 months)  Development slows by 5-6 years of age Sarah - typically developed Ruth - born deaf (same trajectory, but off set,) Nim - chimp - never gets past point of producing more than one utterance

Evidence for critical period  Comparing adult second language learners to child second language learners  Evidence from ASL learnings  Comparing those who learned in adulthood vs childhood (20-50)  ASL instruction most beneficial as soon as child identified as being deaf Quinean Reference Problem All labelling inherently ambiguous  Hearing a label doesn't immediately tell you what it is - doesn't tell you if it's the name of the object, a feature of the object, etc.. What gets us to figure out what words refer to (when they learn language?) Kids have a bias that help funnel what could be the meaning - word learning constraints (biases) that limits what is possible to be referring to Whole-object bias : Bias - When we hear a novel word, we assume it's referring to entire object Mutual Exclusivity - each label applies to one and only one object; each object has one and only one label Each label has only one reference When children hear a novel word (in both contexts of familiar and unfamiliar object), they will think it will refer to the object they don't know  Basic Level bias Superordinate: (Mammal) Basic: (Rabbit) Subordinate: (Arctic Hare) When we hear a novel word, we do not think of it to be a superordinate or subordinate level - we think of it in a basic level  Linguistic Context

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 Grammatical/syntactical cues: Looking at grammatical cues to infer meaning - type of word "This is gavagai" "He is gavagaying"  Pragmatic Cues  Pointing - orienting children toward what is being referenced 4 Hypotheses for Language Development Behaviourist Account (i.e., Watson, consistent with Constructivism) All about reinforcement - kids learn language through reinforcement  Caregivers support language learning through reinforcement  Parents correct children when they make mistakes  Parents reward children when they are correct Nativist Account (Chomsky - Modularity hypothesis -specific part of the brain to learn language)  A dedicated language module has evolved in humans (modularity hypothesis)  Specific brain areas are used for language  Universal grammar  All (typically developing) children acquire language  Evidence from Nicaraguan Sign Language - reinforces idea of universal grammar - kids who made up their own grammatical structures without being exposed to another system/language Connectionist Account: We have. The ability to process information like computer - on multiple levels  Opposite of nativism  Children learn language the same way that they learn everything (general- purpose associative learning mechanisms)  Computer simulations show that some features of language can be learned with repetitive input  Parallel processing allows for a lot of information to be processed at once (e.g, processing word form, meaning and grammar) Statistical Learning Account  Children sensitive to the statistical probabilities of the input  Not language specific (i.e., not evolved specifically for language learning), but used in service of learning language (conditional probabilities  Can learn rules as well as sound (phoneme patterns)  Don't think learning language is reason why we have this ability - but (same as connectionist and behaviouralist)

Other Key concepts On word learning  Fast mapping: How much input we need to learn the meaning of a word - expose a child to a word once, or twice and they learn it - very fast learning  Syntactic bootstrapping: Using syntax to figure out meaning - using syntactical cues On conversations:  Collective monologues: Seen in early childhood - engage in turn taking conversation, but no shared meaning. Children are talking to each other, taking turns, but each about their own individual topic Vygotsky: Kids might be talking to themselves, even when no one else is around - helps them organize themselves Key Concepts Phonological development Semantic development Syntactic development Quanian Reference Problem Biases Theories of language development Which theory thought x Key points highlighted on slides Quiz Questions  When does phonological development begin? Before birth  Provide an example of generativity  Provide an example of Recursion  Show that you understand the concept of symbols  Chomsky best supports which view of Language Development? Nativist Accout Describe one way in which behaviourist and connectionist accounts of language development differ Connectionist - rewards don't matter behaviourist - all anout reinforcement There is developmental change with respect to how noun labels lead to the whole object bias between 5-7 years of age T/ F Developmental differences in language learning were not seen in class

What is the QRP? Provide example to demonstrate why that's the case Provide 3 examples of how we solve the QRP (name the bias) Name the bias - given a situation Draw a graph illustrating the development of explicit race bias as discussed in your reading Baron & Banaji 6-10 show race bias Adults don't Broad patterns What was the primary research question explored by Gelman & Heyman? And, what was the main conclusion from their study When you hear noun labels, you are more likely to essentialize Rhodes: how using action oriented or identity oriented language leads to *** What was the primary research question explored by Gonzalez? What were the main findings of the study reported by Gonzalez, et al.

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