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Lecture 7- Language Development (Babbling (Why (pick up forms of a…
Lecture 7- Language Development
Infant-directed Speech
How infants understand messages
when infant reaches for the toy, hear good/bad words and approval/prohibition tune
regardless of content of words, approval tune-->smiled, played longer; prohibition tune--> frowned & didn't play
object placed in front of 9mth old infant
Over time
13 mths-->both. Confused by mismatch as they now understand both tunes and meaning of words
18 mths-->understand based on words
5 mths-->understand based on tunes
Characteristics
Adult-directed speech
Staccato, disconnected contours
Narrow pitch range
How it helps acquisition
Larger pitch range
Smooth, connected pitch contours-->easier to track
Higher pitch-->higher pitched tones easier to hear
Exaggerated contours express emotion, soothe infants & attract attention
Babbling
4-6mths-->better control of vocal tracts, babbling with occasional syllables (deaf babies also babble vocally at this age)
2-4mths-->cooing & laughing-->still not communicative
7-8mths-->canonical babbling with real syllables, initially duplicated then later variegated
0-2mths-->a lot of noises but all reflexive & unintentional-->not communicative
12mths-->jargon babbling with native-language intonation, still use syllables instead of words
Why
pick up forms of a language observed
continuous process in learning first words and first signs
try out their equipment
appearance of communicative intent
engage in turn-taking
respond to pointing-->understand communicative gestures
emerges arnd 9mths
First words & sentences
After two-word stage
but occasionally overgeneralise (eg runned, feets)
do children understand function words?
Gerken & McIntosh (1993)
4 conditions: Grammatical, missing function word, ungrammatical, nonsense
children were more accurate when they heard correct function word
2yr old (mean length of utterance=1-2), Picture pointing task
even 18 mths old showed similar results but did preferential looking task instead cos too young to be able to point
though child's telegraphic speech lack function words, they understand function words
begin to use function morphemes (the, is , ing)
Beyond First Words
Two-word stage
Able to express semantic relationships
able to understand word order which is learned since word order differs across diff languages
Telegraphic speech-->only content words, no function words
Hirsh-Pasek & Golinkoff (1996)
children look longer at video that matches the word order
shows that even 1 word speakers can understand word order
16-18mth old hear "cookie monster is tickling big bird" or "big bird is tickling cookie monster"
18-30mths(1.5-2.5yrs)
1.5-2yrs old
vocabulary spurt
Fast mapping
Woodward et al (1994)
then present another new object without attaching labels "Look at this, see this?"
24hrs later when presented with both objects and asked "where's the toma", children able to consistently choose the correct object
13mth olds: experimenter attaches label to a new object eg. "look, it's a toma"
also, if experimenter says the name of the object without pointing and gazing at it, child won’t understand where to focus attention at and won’t understand name of the object
able to quickly connect new words with underlying concept
First words
content words (ball,toy) instead of function words(although, or, the)
12-14mths: one word at a time (holophrases),vocab develops slowly
why 1st word mama/papa are similar worldwide?
one of the first words babies produce are during social interactions & parents assume it means them across cultures
Nelson (1973)
51% are category names for things; the rest are actions, social, routines, modifier words
this only applies to English, but other languages have cultural variability
Thompson & Chapman (1977)
children able to identify correct pic for the word
understand difference between cow and dog, they just struggle with production of words
tested infants with pics of words known to be overextended
Critical Periods & 2nd language acquisition
why are old learners worse
Environmental effects
older learners taught explicit grammar rules instead of learning through exposure
don't teach with child-directed speech
we try to make explicit comparisons to our first language (translating)-->will cause some errors & not as proficient as native speakers
we don't teach older learners in ways that resemble early language acquisition
Biological effects
could be associated with brain reorganisation at puberty
possibly the learning mechanisms stop operating once a certain age has been reached--> critical period
Conclusions
children are better at learning finer grammatical details than adults
should start young when learning another language
Johnson & Newport (1989)
Test: Listened to English sentences & had to determine whether they were grammatical or not
the older they started learning English, the worse they performed on finer points of grammar
Korean & Chinese adult immigrants with various years of exposure to English (3-39yrs)
Skill was predicted by
age of acquisition
NOT
length of exposure to language
Finding words
Statistical learning
Saffran, Aslin, Newport
then infants heard either words (tokibu) or non-words that occurred sometimes but not as predictable words (batoki)
8mth old showed novelty preference, listening longer to non-word than word trials
listened to 4 3syllable words repeated in a random order with no pauses for 2 minutes eg. (gikobatokibugopilatokibu)
Hence, infants able to keep track of which sounds occurred in a row where repeated, predictable sequences begin to sound like they belong together as words
8mth old given headturn preference task
infants can keep track of which sounds predictably occur tgt in same order
Mandel, Jusczyk, & Pisoni
Repetitions of own name (Jerald) vs similar sounding name (Jackie)
infants listened longer to own name-->Even 4.5 mth old represent & rmb sound patterns of words, as long as they hear them very often
4.5mth old, Headturn Preference task