CHOMSKYAN REVOLUTIONThe impact on
PSYCHOLINGUISTICSin the 1970s
Noam Chomsky
“Children have an innate faculty that guides them in their learning of language”
Klima & Bellugi (1966)
Slobin (1970)
Brown (1973)is the person who had developed the first study on L1 morpheme acquisition.
STUDY OF language ACQUISITION in young children
Found that children all over the world go through SIMILAR STAGES and use SIMILAR CONSTRUCTIONS
LANGUAGE STAGE CRYING
Receptive Language
Even new babies are aware of the sounds in the environment.
The babies cry if there is an unexpected noise.
Loud noises wake them, and they become "still" in response to new sounds.
BEGINNING AGE BIRTH
Expressive Language
Newborn babies make sounds that let others know that they are experiencing pleasure or pain.
The baby can distinguish mother's voice from another woman's voice.
Your baby's first attempts to communicate her needs and emotions
FIRST LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
FROM SIX WEEKS TO THREE MONTHS
Crying and Fussing* A baby runs the vocal apparatus.*Babies express
welfare and discomfort.* Babies use
“crying” voluntarily.
*They distinguish some sounds:
/pa/ /ma/ /ba/ /ga/* They use nasalized
consonants: nga, nga.
FROM FOURTH TO SIX MONTHS
Piaget says: At this stage a child changes form circular primary reactions to circular secondary reactions.
Coos and guttural noises produce effect around babies.
Sounds should be understood, interpreted and answered by the mother.
SEVEN AND EIGHT MONTHS
A child performs multiple spontaneous vocalizations.
Alternating vocalizations between mother and child will allow early access to language.
ONE – WORD UTTERANCES 1 year
Functions of the word: w ord refers to object ex. Ba for bottleGrammatical function Ex. ba for I want my bottle Social function: ex. Bye - hi
Children often make overextension the meaning of the words they know ex. Generalization dog for lambs, cats and cows as well as dogsUnderextension : there are many numbers of the samething in the world ex. Lots of cars in the world.
Vocabulary of more than 50 words
HOLOPHRASTIC: The word that carry meaning of the whole sentence
Two word utterances18 months
Holophrastic phrases
Couple of words put toghether which have no grammatical concept.
Two content words are used: nouns and verbs
- Agent + action baby
sleep- Action + object Kick ball- Entity + location teddy bed- Possessor + Possessive mommy
book
Children increase to 8 - 10 new words per week
Mini – sentences
with simple semantic relation
PLURAL FORMS
Sheep - sheeps Bread - breads
This is a bird Now there´s
another one There are two of
them.There are two……? birds
ERROR CORRECTION
Children don´t correct errors of adult overt
They correct errors on the basis of they have leart the forms individually.
EX. Susan go home - David play toyThe acquisition of certain structures are predictable .Function words and function morphemes appear.
Simplified form to acquire morphemes1. Present progressive- boy singing2. Prepositions - dolly in car3. Plural – candies4. Past irregular – broke5. Possesive – baby´s book6. Past regular – wanted7. Auxiliar be – he is running
THIS SHOE ALL WET, CAT DRINK MILK, AND DADDY GO BYE BYE.
WORD INFLECTION 2 YEARS OLDSPEECH BECOMES
TELEGRAPHIC : it means utterances commonly used when sending a telegram
BY 3 YEARSSPEECH IS USUALLY FLUENT AND CLEAR
* Use 3-5 word sentences* Ask short questions (what or
where)* Have a vocabulary of about
900-1000 words
* Engage in simple sentences* Combine four or more words* Talk about things that have happened away from home,
preschool
Speak clearly and fluently in an easy-to-listen-to voice.
Have a vocabulary of about 1500 to
2500 words.Use sentences of 5 or more wordsUnderstand simple (who, what and
where questions.Can answer simple
questions about them.
Can construct long and detailed sentences
Most sound are pronounced
correctlyUse adult – like grammar
BY 4 YEARS
BY 5 YEARS
COMPLEX CONSTRUC
TION
Know common opposites
Pronounce words clearly
Speak in complex and compound
sentences
BY 6 YEARS
BY 7 YEARS
Recognize sounds, patterns,
meaning and uses
Reccognize more words
by sight
Their vocabularies continue to grow
Can apply reading
comprenhension strategies
Their writing is more
developed and
engaging
BY 8 YEARS
KNOWLEDGE OF TEXT
STRUCTURES
BY 9 YEARS
Reading skill with strong fluency and
comprehension
Writing skill with accurate sentence
structure and punctuation
Critical thinking
starting to emerge
More complex sentences
usedIncreased in vocabulary
BY 10 YEARS MATURE SPEECH PATTERNS
Have speech patterns that are nearly at an adult levelDevelop an understanding of multiple meaning and relationships between words
CHARACTERISTICS OF FIRST LANGUAGE ACQUISITION (1970) Children go through stages. Children have individual progress. The stages are similar across
languages. Child language is systematic. A child do not need to correspond
to adult. Children are resistant to correction.