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CHILD DEVELOPMENT II: Language Development (Aspects of Language (Phonology…
CHILD DEVELOPMENT II: Language Development
Language
A system of symbols used to communicate with others or in our thinking
Aspects of Language
Phonology
The sounds of a language
The study of the sounds of a language
Example: Chat = ch-a-t
Phoneme
The smallest distinct sound in a particular language
Example: go has two phonemes; g and o, whereas check has three phonemes; ch, e and ck
Morphology
The formation of words
The way words are formed from the sounds of a language and how these words are related to other words
Example: Walked = walk-ed
Morpheme
The smallest unit in a language that has a meaning
Example: Cats have two morphemes; cat and s. Cat is an animal and s means more than one
Syntax
The grammar of a language
Grammar - how words are put together to make sense
Example: She chatted while she walked
Semantics
The meanings of words and sentences
The study of the meanings of words
Example: Chat = talk in a friendly and informal way
Pragmatics
Use of language in different social situations
The rules that guide how we use language in social situations
Example
To a child: See a choo-choo
To an adult: The train is coming
Language and the Brain
Broca’s area
The part of the brain that is involved in the physical production of speech
located near the motor centre of the brain thatt produces movement of the tongue and lips
Muscles of speech
Wernicke’s area
The part of the brain that has to do with understanding the meaning in speech
located near the auditory center of the brain
Written and spoken language comprehension
The capabilities of these two regions do not develop at the same time. Infants understand words before they can say them.
Comprehension of language precedes production of language. Wernicke first then Broca
Receptive language
ability to understand words or sentences
Expressive language
written or spoken language that we use to convey our thoughts, emotions, or needs
Theories of Language Development
Behaviourism and Social Cognitive Theory
Language is acquired through reinforcement/imitation
Nativism
Innate brain function
a theory of language development that hypothesizes that human brains are innately wired to learn language and that hearing spoken language triggers the activation of a universal grammar
Universal grammar
A hypothesized set of grammatical rules and constraints proposed by Chomsky that is thought to underlie all languages and that is hardwired in the human brain
Overregularisation
a type of grammatical error in which children apply a language rule to words that do not follow the rule or pattern
Example: adding an s to make the plural of an irregular noun like foot
Interactionism
Biological readiness together with social stimuli
a theory of language development that proposes that the child's biological readiness to learn language interacts with the child's experiences with language in the environment to bring about the child's language development
means that language is created socially, in the interaction between infant and adult
describes the development of a child's language as the result of the child's social engagement with others
Recast
Repeating what children say but in a more advanced grammar to facilitate learning
Cognitive Processing Theory: Statistical Learning
Statistical computation
the theory that leaning language is a process of "data crunching," in which the actual process of learning words and their meanings relies on the computational ability of the human brain
Transitional probability
The likelihood that one particular sound will follow another one to form a word
How Adults Foster Language Development
Shared Attention, Gestures and Sign Language
Further enhances if the child is interested
Example: asking the child to name something he or she is interested in (looking at it) instead of something else entirely
Child-Directed Speech
Speech that is tailored to fit the sensory and cognitive capabilities of infants and children so that t holds their attention; includes speaking in a higher pitch with exaggerated intonation and a singsong rhythm and using simplified vocabulary