Aantekeningen hoorcollege 10 - Development, Learning & Behavior - Universiteit Utrecht (2022/2023)

H C   10   -   J U N I   2 0 2 3

Language development

What is language?

  • A human system, used for communication. We use it to convey meaning, to express our thoughts and to transmit these thoughts and meanings to other people
  • Language is more then communication, it’s the primary method by which we do things together
  • Language is the accumulation of shared meaning – of common ground
  • Symbolic and arbitrary » he form of the word doesn’t tell anything about the meaning
    • Symbolic: the word is a symbol for the meaning
    • Arbitrary: there’s no relationship between form and meaning

Languages across the world

  • +/- 7000 languages in the world
  • Around 230 languages spoken in Europe
  • Vast differences
    • Number of consonants (6-122)
    • Word construction
    • Free or fixed word order

Components of language

  • Phonology: rules of speech sounds

    • Each individual speed sound is a phoneme (unit of sound) » often can be represented by one letter
    • Different pronunciation of a single phoneme are not different phonemes
  • Morphology: rules of word structure
    • Smallest unit of meaning » they represent a single meaning
  • Syntax: rules of sentence structure
    • Combination of words and morphemes into sentences
    • Example: word-order rules
  • Semantics: rules of language meaning
  • Pragmatics: rules of social language use

Phases in development

  • Prelingual period (0-12) months » learning the foundation of language, but not speaking yet

    • Phoneme inventories differ across languages
    • Until 8-10 months babies can distinguish phonemes, irrespective of which language
    • After this period, they can only distinguish phonemes in mother tongue
    • Tested with the habituation experiment
      • Training: different sounds = visual and verbal praise = learning association sound/praise
      • Test: different sounds » does the child predict the praise? If so, they can distinguish between sounds
  • First words, telegraphic (12-30 months) » they start to acquire their vocabulary
  • Complex sentences (30 months – 5 years) » grammar development, making full sentences
  • Completion stage (5 years and older)

Learning words

  • Recognize form (thus sounds) but also learn that the combination of sounds form a single word and that it refers to a certain referend in the real world
  • Word segmentation: learning to distinguish single sounds in a continuous word stream
    • Tested with statistical learning segments
      • Training: continuous speech stream of trisyllabic words, while focusing on transitional probabilies (the likelihood that certain syllables follow one another)
      • Test: familiar words vs. non-words » can 8 month old babies discriminate between words and non-words?
  • When learn children words:
    • 10-15 months » first words
    • 15-20 months » 50 words
    • 18-24 months » vocabulary spurt
    • There is a large individual variation » every child learns at its own pace
    • Difference between receptive (understanding) and productive (actually being able to use the words)
  • Way in which children might learn words quickly: fast mapping (mechanism to map form onto meaning)
  • Learning principles when learning words (with fast-mapping):
    • Mutual exclusivity: one label refers to one meaning and visa versa
    • Whole object: new labels (probably) refer to a whole object, not parts
    • Principle of contrast: if there’re two labels, they probably contrast in meaning

Learning grammar

  • Early/telegraphic phase: language without grammatical morphemes (e.g. ‘want ball’ or ‘doggy sleep’)
  • Next phase: productive grammatical system, demonstrated by growing sentences
  • Errors: Overregularization » applying a regular rule to a word that should change irregular

How do we acquire language?

  • It’s an interplay with different factors (inborn mechanisms and contextual factors
  • Two opposing theories:
    • Children are tabula rasa (‘a blank canvas’), they learn through stimulus-response (Skinner) » the input plays a big role
    • Children are born with innate language knowledge » universal grammar (Chomsky) » the input plays a very small role
    • Social mechanisms, general mechanisms (not specific to language learning), rich input (Tomasselo, Saffran) » we can apply the general mechanisms to language learning

Interactions with other domains

  • Social cognition:

    • Prelingual phase: gaze following and joint attention » babies look at gaze direction of interlocutors » supports language development
  • Cognitive mechanisms:
    • General mechanisms of word learning
    • Statistical learning: the extraction of distributional properties from sensory input across time
      • It’s a domain-general learning mechanism, which means that it’s also been used to detect regularities in non-language input
      • Supports language acquisition
      • acquisition of the literacy rules (e.g. ‘c’ can be pronounced as ‘k’ and ‘s’) is facilitated by statistical learning
      • Difficulties with statistical learning means often difficulties with learning to read and write
    • Mechanisms that facilitate input processing
    • Phonological short-term memory = the ability to temporarily maintain speech related information » a smaller phonological short-term memory is associated with a smaller vocabulary size
  • Individual differences:
    • For some children the acquisition of language is very difficult » developmental language disorder (DLD) » there’s no obvious cause for these problems
    • The age of which learning begins differs » critical period (in the first few years of life you can develop language, but after that time language acquisition is much more difficult) » There’s a genetically encoded predetermined time window to learn something
    • Explanations for age effects (brain maturation is not the only difference):
      • Environmental and input differences (external)
      • Having a first language and length of first language entrenchment (internal)
      • There are also late learners who acquire native-like mastery (it’s not impossible)

Interaction with contextual factors

  • Socioeconomic status

    • Thirty million word gap: children with a low SES learn around 30 million words less than children with a normal/high SES
    • SES is not only related to language input and vocabulary learning, but also to literacy skills later in life » higher SES = higher literacy skills
  • Parents role
    • Parents with higher level of education will be more engaged in children’s education.
    • Important question: is it possible to change parental behavior and interactions between parent and child, in particular in low-SES families?
  • Multilingualism
    • The input to a bilingual child is divided over two languages » what are the implications for their language development
    • The two languages are both active in the bilingual brain » what are the implications for their cognitive development?
    • There’s a huge amount of variation across bilinguals
      • Age of acquisition: simultaneous bilingualism (exposure to two languages from birth) vs. sequential bilingualism (exposure to two languages later in life)
      • Language exposure
      • Language distance, influence » how much support does the second language learner get from already knowing a first language? This support is called ‘positive transfer’
    • Relative amount of input in each language predicts development in that language
    • Cognitive development: Using multiple languages trains executive functions (regulating actions and thought, used for flexible behavior and adapt to current and changing goals in situations, etc.)

Take home message:

  • Language is a multicomponent construct
  • There are phases of language development but there is also much individual variation due to internal and external factors
  • Bilingualism may affect language and cognitive development

 

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