An Introduction to Developmental psychology by A. Slater and G. Bremner (third edition) - Chapter 11
- 2250 keer gelezen
The human language is characterised by the following things:
Language consists of several systems, the pragmatic system, the phonological system, the syntactic system and the semantic system.
The pragmatic system refers to the abilities that enable us to communicate effectively and appropriately in a social context. It involves a variety of cognitive and social skills. Turn-taking is important in language because the speaker needs to become the listener and vice-versa after a while. Turn-taking is already present in infants, as is shown by proto-conversations, interactions between adults and infants in which the adults tend to vocalise when the infants are not vocalising or when the infant has finished vocalising. Proto-imperative occurs when infants point to an object and then alternate their gaze between the object and the adult until they obtain the desired object. Proto-declarative occurs when infants use pointing or looking to direct an adult’s attention towards an object. The pragmatic system consists of several parts:
Phonology is the aspect of language about the perception and production of sounds that are used in language. In order for effective communication to occur, children must learn which sounds are important in the language that they hear.
Children must learn to separate the speech stream into individual sounds and sound combinations. This is facilitated by infant-directed speech. Children prefer to listen to human speech than other environmental sounds. Adult speakers can discriminate between sounds that differ in a category, but can rarely discriminate between sounds in the same category. Infants are able to discriminate between phonemes. Even young infants engage in the categorical perception of speech sounds. Categorical perception may be an innate mechanism for interpreting sounds. The ability to discriminate possible phonemes diminishes with age. Children’s acquisition of the phonemes of their native language depends on both the innate predisposition for categorical perception of sounds and experience with sounds used as phonemes in their native language.
All children pass through the same phase of vocal production, which consists of the following phases:
Children are more likely to use words that they can pronounce correctly. This suggests that they are aware of the differences between their incorrect pronunciations and the correct ones. As children learn to produce correct pronunciations, they may produce phonological distinctions that adults cannot perceive.
Syntax deals with the manner in which words and parts of words are related to one another to produce grammatical sentences. Chomsky has suggested that the syntactic structure of every human language is the result of an interrelated set of elements. The s-structure (surface structure) corresponds to the spoken language and the d-structure (deep structure) is a more abstract representation of a sentence.
Between 10 and 18 months children begin to produce single word utterances. Children comprehend more than they can produce. Between 18 and 24 months, children begin to produce two-word utterances. Children are the most likely to use words that are highly salient in their environment. Children may be primed to learn patterns or rules and novel words early on. It is unknown how much children know during the two-word period or how they know it. After the two-word period, syntactic knowledge increases rapidly.
Overregularization refers to when a previously learned rule is applied in the wrong situation. The errors children make demonstrate that they are learning the syntactic rules. Children regularly make mistakes in plurals, past tense and they make creative overgeneralisation (e.g: using -ing after nouns, thus creating a new verb). An overgeneralisation is creating a new verb by treating a noun as if it were a verb.
Chomsky stated that children are born with innate knowledge of language. Language requires the ability to relate d-structures to s-structures. The environment only provides children with information about s-structures, so they have some knowledge about d-structures. The sentences that children hear are complex and often ungrammatical. Children receive little feedback about the grammatical correctness of their utterances and children acquire their first language relatively quickly and easily and this leads to the conclusion that children have innate knowledge of syntactic structures.
Parents barely correct their child’s wrong grammatical utterances and sometimes even reinforce it. When the child is corrected, it may leave the child confused. Chomsky claims that parents do not play a significant role in children’s syntactic development. Children hear a more simplified version of language.
In order to learn a word, children must hear it being used. Infants learn some of the words in their environment. The manner in which a child interprets a recently discovered word depends on the child’s existing semantic system, their knowledge of the world, the level of their cognitive skill and selective attention. The child who extends the meaning of a word too broadly is making an overextension error. An underextension error, extending the meaning of a word to too few instances, is also possible. Children make few of these mistakes.
There are several possible constraints to influence word meaning development, including the following two:
A semantic system is a system that categorises words in relation to their meaning. The development of the semantic system is facilitated by children’s acquisition of semantic relations. Words that fall in the far ends of the dimension (e.g: hot and cold) are learned before words that fall between the two extremes.
Before children begin to acquire words, they have formed concepts of the world. Children’s first words are most likely to be those that express these early concepts. Hearing a novel word causes children to search for the meaning of the word, which often results in new concepts being learned. Children use two strategies when faced with gaps in their semantic and/or conceptual system:
Join with a free account for more service, or become a member for full access to exclusives and extra support of WorldSupporter >>
This bundle contains a summary for the course "Developmental Psychology" taught at the University of Amsterdam. This contains the book: "An Introduction to Developmental psychology by A. Slater and G. Bremner (third edition)" and several articles.
The following
...This bundle makes use of the book: "An Introduction to Developmental psychology by A. Slater and G. Bremner (third edition)" and several articles.
The following chapters of the book are used:
- 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9 , 10, 11, 12, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21.
There are several ways to navigate the large amount of summaries, study notes en practice exams on JoHo WorldSupporter.
Do you want to share your summaries with JoHo WorldSupporter and its visitors?
Main summaries home pages:
Main study fields:
Business organization and economics, Communication & Marketing, Education & Pedagogic Sciences, International Relations and Politics, IT and Technology, Law & Administration, Medicine & Health Care, Nature & Environmental Sciences, Psychology and behavioral sciences, Science and academic Research, Society & Culture, Tourisme & Sports
Main study fields NL:
JoHo can really use your help! Check out the various student jobs here that match your studies, improve your competencies, strengthen your CV and contribute to a more tolerant world
2281 |
Add new contribution