AO1 - Terminology (1)
Child Directed Speech - Expansion
When a caregiver develop or add detail to a child's utterance
What is reduplication?
Repeating (e.g. moo moo).
What does the Behaviourist approach say about language acquisition?
Children acquire language through imitation and reinforcement.
Limitations of Behaviourism - Virtuous Errors.
Mistakes made by children show that they are actively working out and applying rules of language. For example, a child who says 'drinked' instead of 'drank' is over-applying a rule. The 'mistakes' occur due to irregular verbs.
Universal Grammar - Chomsky
The notion that all human language possess similar grammatical properties which the brain is 'hard wired' to be able to decode and use.
Child Directed Speech - Recast
When a caregiver repeats the child's utterance but provides a corrected version
What are diminutives?
Adding a suffix (for example, doggy).
Halliday's Functional Language Model
Phase Two: 16-35 months
Heuristic - Language to investigate reality and learn about things, ask questions, explore.
Imaginative - Language to create one's environment, e.g. pretend play language.
Informative - Language to communicate new information about something, e.g. tell someone something.
Limitations of Behaviourism - Developmental Milestones.
The vast majority of children go through the same stages of language acquisition apart from extreme cases like Genie. The sequence of steps for language acquisition seems to be largely unaffected by the treatment the child receives.
Features of Child Directed Speech
1) Change in pitch
2) Slower and clearer speech
3) Repetition
4) Grammatically simpler sentences
5) Tag Questions
6) Use of nouns in place of pronouns
What is the difference between hypernym and hyponym?
Hypernym - A word that labels a category, e.g. 'fish'.
Hyponym - A word that belongs to a category, e.g. 'clownfish'.
what is assimilation?
One consonant vowel is swapped for another (e.g. 'borry' instead of 'lorry').
What did Skinner suggest?
Skinner suggested that a child imitates the language of its parents or carers. Successful attempts are rewarded (positive reinforcement) as the caregiver will praise the child for using the correct word. Undesirable behaviour is simply not rewarded (negative reinforcement).
Limitations of Behaviourism - Critical Period.
Children who have not acquired language by the age of about seven will never entirely catch up. For example, Genie. Lenneberg coined the term 'critical period' in reference to the period of early childhood when children must be exposed to social interaction and language in order to master it for themselves.
What was the Wug Test?
Jean Berko Gleason:
The Wug test was designed to investigate the acquisition of the plural and other inflectional morphemes in children. It aimed to show that children learn language through patterns and not imitation. A child was shown a bird-like drawing called a 'wug'. They were then showed another 'wug'. Children who successfully acquired the allomorph /s/ of the plural morpheme will respond with 'wugs'. 76% of 4 and 5 year olds responded correctly with 'wugs' meaning that children's understanding of morphology goes beyond what they have been taught.
Child Directed Speech - Mitigated Imperatives
An instruction given in a way that means that it doesn't appear as a command - but a more gentle suggestion (This is a politeness strategy).
What is consonant cluster reduction?
Reducing phonologically more complex units into simpler ones (e.g. from two consonant sounds to one).
What does the Innate Theory suggest about language acquisition?
Chomsky argued that children must have an inborn faculty for language acquisition. The process is biologically determined.
Limitations of Behaviourism - David McNeill.
Children are often unable to repeat what an adult says, especially if it is a structure the child has not yet started to use. For example, David McNeill proved this. Data - The child is asked to say 'Nobody likes me' several times by the mother but can only say 'Nobody don't like me' or 'Nobody don't likes me'.
What does the Interactionist Theory say about language acquisition?
This theory stresses the importance of language input from care-givers. Language can only be learnt in the context of interaction. Bruner suggests that the language behaviour of adults when talking to children (child-directed speech or CDS) is specially adapted to support the acquisition process. This is known as scaffolding.
Types of overextension (0-3 years)
Categorical - Name for one member of a category is extended to all members of the category.
Analogical - A word for one object is extended to one in a different category.
Mismatch Statements - Seemingly abstract sentences. Child makes a statement about one object in relation to another.
What is seriation?
There will be a point in a child's intellectual development when they can compare objects with respect to size. Piaget suggested that a child who hadn't yet reached this stage wouldn't be able to learn and use comparative adjectives like 'bigger' or 'smaller'.
What does the Cognitive Theory say about language acquisition?
Piaget argued that a child has to understand a concept before they can acquire the particular language form which expresses that concept. Language can't develop until cognitive development occurs. For example, a child can't use comparative adjectives like 'small', 'smaller' and 'smallest' until they understand the concept of size.
Limitations of Behaviourism - Bee (1989).
Bee found that while motherese can be used to explain how aspects of individual children's environments help or hinder them from talking, it doesn't explain the underlying causes of language acquisition.
Catherine Garvey (1977)
Catherine Garvey considered play to be important to language development as 'pretend play' provided the opportunity for lexical growth. Susan Ervin Tripp (1991) furthered this, with a focus on how children playing with other children allowed them to experiment with language in unfamiliar situations.
Most Early Years Foundation Stage Classrooms and learning environments (Nursery and Reception) are ow set up to facilitate this - with lots of opportunities for imaginative play - e.g. 'role play corner'.