language and the mind prof. r. hickey ss 2006 language acquisition and related areas of development...
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Language and the Mind Prof. R. Hickey SS 2006
Language acquisition and related areas of development
Berenika Witan (TN) and Melanie Elskamp (LN Grundstudium)
Silvia Drechsel (LN Grundstudium), Jennifer Lang (LN Grundstudium) and Christina Franitza (TN Grundstudium)
Jessica Narloch (LN Hauptstudium) and Katharina Bremer (LN Grundstudium)
IntroductionFirst Language Acquisition unconscious learning of one´s native language
which takes place during the first 6-7 years of one´s life
very rapid complete does not require any instructions
Biological maturation and language acquisition the brain
- the areas and their functions
- speech comprehension and production
- human brain versus animal brain auditory and vocal tracts the case of Helen Keller and the importance of
senses stages of language development
The brain Where is the ability to use language
located? the obvious answer is “in the brain”
more specific: Neurolinguistics (the study of the relationship
between language and the brain)
Parts of the brain cerebral cortex / cerebrum
Broca’s area
Wernicke’s area
Motor cortex
Arcuate fasciculus
Cerebral cortex is divided into two hemispheres (two parts of
equal size), right and left
cerebral hemispheres are connected by fiber bundles (the most important is the corpus callosum, which connects the two hemispheres)
the cortex is the surface of the cerebral hemispheres
Broca´s Area located in the left hemisphere,
approximately above the left temple
called after its discoverer the French doctor Paul Broca
primarily involved in the encoding of speech (speech production)
Wernicke´s area located in the left hemisphere, just above the left ear
named after Karl Wernicke, the German scientist who discovered the area in the second half of the 19th century
Wernicke observed that damage to this part of the brain was found among patients who had speech comprehension difficulties
plays the major part in comprehension of speech
Arcuate fasciculus
a bundle of nerve fibersa bundle of nerve fibers
one of Wernicke´s discoveries one of Wernicke´s discoveries
forms a connection between Wernickeforms a connection between Wernicke´s area and Broca´s area´s area and Broca´s area
Reading aloud
To speak a word that is written:
- first the information reaches the primary visual cortex
- transmitted to Wernicke's area where it is processed into “stuff to speak“
- from there to Broca's area
- transmitted to the Primary Motor Cortex to “tell the mouth to start speaking“
posterior speech area,together with
Reading aloud
To speak a word that is heard:
- first the information gets to the primary auditory cortex
- transmitted to Wernicke's area, where it is interpreted
- from Wernicke's area,
information travels to Broca's area, then to the Primary Motor Cortex
Speech comprehension and speech production
Human brain versus animal brain
In comparing the brains of animals with those of humans the most noticeable difference is in the part of the brain which developed last in the course of evolution, the cerebral cortex. In humans the cerebral cortex has increased in size and complexity to become the largest part of the brain.
Human brain versus animal brain
The case of Helen Keller – the importance of senses
born in 1880 ill at the age of 19 months became deaf and blind Anne Sullivan became her
teacher teacher’s tasks
- to instill discipline in the girl - to teach the girl language
Helen’s breaktrough – the famous scene by a water pump
Importance of senses deaf children don´t progress to babbling they don´t receive auditory feedback (they
can´t hear themselves while speaking) at the beginning of language acquisition
blind children cannot associate names of objects with objects
they have to learn through the sense of touch
Stages of language acquisitionalready in the womb language melody
4 days Phonological discrimination
0.0 – 3 months Organic sounds, crying, cooing
4 – 5 months beginning of the babbling phase
10 – 12 months The first comprehensible words. After this follow one-word, two-word and many-word sentences. The only word stages is known as the holophrastic stage; Telegraphic speech refers to speech with only nouns and verbs.
...
2.5 years Inflection occurs, negation,interrogative and imperative sentences
3 years A vocabulary of about 1000 words
5 years The main syntactic rules have been acquired
These divisions of the early period of first language acquisition are approximate and vary from individual to individual.
Conclusion biological maturation strongly affects
language acquisition biological specializations include the brain,
the vocal and auditory tracts senses are very important while acquiring
language there are different stages of language
acquisition
Linguistic and cognitive development
We are going to introduce you to the cognitive aspects of first language acquisition and to bilingualism.
I will focus on diseases as the answers to the question why some people are not able to speak properly, but we will also give you a short introduction to several other areas of this field.
What I am going to tell you…When does the process of language acquisiton
start?Do inborn speech abilities exist?Stages of language acquisition – and what if the
child does not acquire language in time? / Loss of speech…
Problems concerning first language acquisitionPossible diseases and their effectsThe MASA Syndrome as an example for a disease
which includes aphasiaExamples of speech disabilitiesHelp for people with speech disabilitiesSummary
When does the process of 1st language acquisition start?
1st word?
– No, that is too late.
1st interaction with others?
– Better.
Already in the womb?
– Maybe…
At the age of 12 months a child can listen to language, understand it and utters his or her first words, i. e. starts to speak.
Do inborn speech abilities exist?Assumption:
Knowledge -> structure of language in general
-> genetically encoded-> called: Language Acquisition Device
Stages of language acquisition – and what if the child does not acquire language in time? / Loss of speech…Progression from the babbling stage to that
of the multi-word sentence. Up to the age of about 7 a child has usually acquired all structural features of his or her mother-tongue.
But what if the child shows any retardation and does not start babbling or speaking in time? Or if one loses his or her ability of speaking through illness or accident?
Problems concerning first language acquisition
Can be due to either pathological processes or as a result of lacking interaction between the child in question and her / his family etc.
I want to focus on diseases which lead to a later and / or irregular development of speech abilities.
Possible diseases and their effects
Diseases etc.: Effect(s): aphasia
Stroke Impairment of thebrain
External injury Imp. of the brain
Tumor Press. on speech areas-> imp. of the brain
Genetic disord. Imp. of the brain
The MASA Syndrome as an example for a disease which includes aphasiaExample of a genetic disease which
includes aphasia -> MASA Syndrome
M-ental retardationA-phasiaS-huffling gaitA-dducted thumbs
Point mutation: Xq28 -> structural change of L1CAM proteine for nervous cell adhesion -> no adequate growth of brain
MASA Syndrome includes aphasiaExample: André, born in
November 1998Learns words slowlier /
forgets words after learning them, has to hear them much more often to learn them
Articulation problems (hypotone mouth area plus problems to differentiate sounds)
Can meanwhile… say most simple and some more difficult words
Multi-word sentences but dysgrammatical (eg. missing irregular verb forms)
Examples of speech disabilitiesTip of the tongue -> not necessarily pathological;
sudden block in lexical retrieval, released again for no reason
Ex: „Thilvia“ (Silvia)Slips of the tongue -> involuntary and
unintended switching of elements among words of a sentence
Ex: „Dondonlerry“ (Londonderry)Speech delay -> normal comprehension but
retarded speech productionStammering -> abnormalities in grammatical
smoothness and rhythmEx: „ We´rrre S-silv-vvia a-and J-j-jen-ny.“
Help for people with speech disabilitiesSpeech training -> for all kinds of speech
difficulties
Includes -> pronunciation training -> vocabulary training
-> comprehension training etc.
Is taught (trained) by special experts and should be practised at home as well.
Can help but not every affected person will be able to speak adequately in the end – depending on the cause of the speech problems.
What can we learn from speech disabilities? As people with speech disabilities usually
go through exactly the same stages of language develoment, we can see that the hierarchy of these stages must be inborn.
In fact, it can be assumed that if you take a representative cross-section of every language on Earth, you get what must be innate.
… Moreover, if one of the faculties
concerning language shows irregularities, we can see what the persons concerned to to compensate that (e.g. non-verbal communication), i. e. in how far this is possible or not.
The main conclusion is that every stage has to be completed before the next one can be taken.
So what we learn from language disorders is… Human beings learn from the general to the
particular: You have a set of structure plus a set of words, an
idea what to say -> then you take the words, put them into structures and thus create a sentence made of these items.
This implies that when you hear language you store it in modules – such of words, of grammar and syntax -> and you can use these items to build new sentence constructs whenever you need them as soon as you have internalized the individual modules.
SummarySo what we´ve learned now is:-> the process of first language acquisition starts
from birth (first interactions)-> speech abilities are inborn->there are certain stages of language acquisition-> there can be difficulties in language acquisition
due to different causes – and we can learn from them
-> speech training can help (at least improve the situation)
Conclusion
-> Inborn faculties such as Language Acquisition Device-> Usually normal LA through interaction -> brain disorders can cause aphasia-> in case of genetic disorder, certain diseases (eg. tumors) or accident (injury) resulting speech disabilities-> can be treated through special speech training
Introduction Jennifer LangBilingual Language Acquisition Linguistic & cognitive development
Bi- & Multilingualism - This is the acquisition of two or more languages from birth
or at least together in early childhood.- The ideal situation where all languages are equally
represented in the child’s surrounding(s)- & where the child has an impartial relationship to each
is hardly to be found in reality so that: of two or more languages one is bound to be dominant
Why study Bilingual children? growing importance of bi –and
multilingualism:
* increasingly internationally oriented word
* increased interest in crosslinguistic studies of language acquisition
Some facts about it early childhood bilingualism is a very
widespread phenomenon
(nearly half of the world’s population is bilingual)
—it can show us more clearly the limits of language acquisition
+potential for language learning in early childhood
.
early separation of
early capacity to focus on & analyze the structural properties of language
[high level of linguistic awareness]
Word
Referent
Factors which may affect the acquisition of a particular language
cognitive development personalitycontrolled in a bilingual population
Bilingual child - ideal subject for crosslinguistic research
- investigate relative impact of: language specific factors more universal factors(= in acquisition)
children very early (from before the age of two) very simultaneous very regular continued …exposed to more than one language
Input …wishes that the child do not mix up the
two languages
…different hypotheses what system the bilingual child has
( “what is the best source of input…”)
1 person =1 language Input ?
The initial single system hypotheses …This view off early bilingual development
has been discredited… more & more evidence suggest that
bilingual children do not differ much from monolingual children
…also pay a lot of attention to the input they receive
they soon notice that this input differs depending on
The initial single system hypothesis creation of a system that is quite different
from each of the child’s input system
.
who is talking ? where ? In what situation ? tend to talk like the people around them
Many options !
From the start: Morphosyntax appears to be language-specific
Insights about bilingual children development At a very young age bilingual children are
skilled conversationalists who easily switch
languages according to interlocutor. Bilingual situation
methodscomplications immense complexity
involved
.
Earlier studies: Question: separate v. nonseparate
development
Studies of today: major insight: In order to answer the question whether the
bilingual child uses language-specific rules or not one can only take as a basis for analysis
related constructions which differ in the input languages
Last but not least: 2.) Step Sociolinguistic situation ! Is a great contributor to the actual
language production of the bilingual child
A baseline for “normal” bilingual development has not yet been established
What is part of “normal” development in bilingual children,…
What is a deviant ---monolingual children?
Introduction There are some children who grew up in
isolation of language for different reasons Here are some examples with the focus on
the way how these children learned language (after their isolation )
Victor Victor was found in the woods in Aveyron,
France in 1800 He was about 11 or 12 years old, as it was
assumed He appeared to be a “wolf child“ (only
wore a “tattered shirt“) He did not speak, only made “guttural
animal-like noises“
Victor 2
Jean-Marc Gaspard Itard cared for him and developed a special speech programme
Victor had to repeat some words or speech sounds, e.g.“Li“, or “lait“ and made him touch his neck to feel how the vocal cords vibrate
Itard told Victor how to spell “lait“ and other words using “cut-out letters“
Victor- 3 Victor realized “the relation between
written symbol and object“ He was able to use the cards and even to
write some words himself from memory He was able to say easy words as “lait“,
but did not acquire any further speech ability and that was why, in the end, Itard gave up on him
Victor 4 While learning how to read and write
Victor “went through some of the same problems of overgeneralization that ordinary children go through in learning language “
Genie Genie was discovered in the late 1970s in
the United States. She was 13 ½ years old She had been locked in a small room by
her father for 12 years, being mistreated and without being spoken to
In consequence of that she did not speak
Genie 2 Being cared for now, she learned many
new words during the first months She needed much time to understand
many things said to her, even 5-10 minutes to understand commands and carry them out
Genie 3 Genie went through the several stages
children go through when learning a language
She made “good progress in speech production“, but this progress was “very slow“
Her language ability remained below normal
Genie 4 It is not clear why Genie did not achieve
the “normal level“ of language and to what extend the trauma she went through influenced her ability in learning language, what psychological aspects may have disturbed her learning process
Isabelle Isabelle was discovered in 1938 in
Columbus, Ohio, in the USA She was 6 ½ years old She had been locked with her deaf and
mute mother in a room after birth; her mother only communicated through gestures
When Isabelle was found she did not speak and did not try to do but still used gestures
Isabelle 2 Mason, the assistant doctor of the speech
clinic where Isabelle was, helped her After one week Isabelle first tried to
vocalize sounds 3 months later Isabelle produced
utterances
Isabelle 3 1 year later she could listen to stories and
retell them, including complex structures, e.g. “What did Miss Mason say when you told her I cleaned the classroom?“
20 months later Isabelle was able to speak in full length sentences and in asking “intelligent“ questions
Isabelle 4 Isabelle got through the same stages as
other children do but more “rapidly“, as her speech development is described
Helen Helen Keller got deaf and blind because of
an illness when she was 19 months old Before that she had already got through
the first stages of language acquisition, but then was isolated from language
When she was 7 years old her parents engaged Anne Sullivan Macy to teach her
Helen 2 Macy taught her speech by touch; (Macy
spelled the word for the object she referred with her fingers into Helens‘ hand)
Macy also taught Helen how to speak by “directly touching the voice articulators (mouth, lips vocal cords etc. )“
Helen 3 Keller learned to speak, but with a
“strange voice“; she learned to read Braille and to write.
Her way to get there and the importance language has for her is described in her book “The story of my life“
Helen graduated from Radcliffe and became “an acclaimed lecturer and writer in the service of handicapped people“
Summary None of these children was able to learn
language without social contact Helen and Isabelle were able to acquire a
high stage of language, while Victor and Genie were not; the reasons are not clear
All these children went through the same stages of language acquisition
Contents
Language Socialization and Grammatical Development
1. Introduction
2. Children as Addressees (including Parentese and Baby Talk)
3. Children as Speakers (Expansion, Imitation, Correction)
4. Use of Grammatical Forms
• Grammatical form as frequent but inappropriate for child use
•Grammatical form as infrequent but appropriate for child use
1. IntroductionLanguage Socialization:
- children are socialized through language
- children‘s use of language within a community
Question: When, how and why do children understand grammatical forms?
Something to do with
- cultural influence
- social order
2. Children as AddresseesDifferences in Cultures
USA/ Canada/ Europe Other Societies
- simplify language - children not engaged as addressees until they can produce language
- use parentese/baby talk - think it‘s strange to talk to preverbal children
- children don‘t understand/respond
- overhearers of nonsimplified language
Children as AddresseesDifference in Simplification
US/European working/middle-class
Javanese/ Kaluli
- Simplification involves modifications (parentese)
- Restricted to self-repitition and discourse
- baby talk not to teach but to communicate
- try to teach
- Parents think child will be good in conversation
- Prefer children as observers and overhearers
Children as AddresseesQUESTION:
Which way is the more efficient one?
The outcome in term of the ultimate acquisition of grammatical competence is not substancially different across these two cultural strategies!
Parentese One way parents talk to children
- talk about environment, not about difficult topics:
- „The dog wants water!“
simple
- „ That psycholinguistic topic at university is very interesting!“
difficult
ParenteseOther aspects of parentese:
- sentences = short- vocabulary = simple- speech = slower- pitch = higher- words = stressed, exaggerated- more pauses
Parentese also children ( ~ age 4 ) produce simplified
language when they talk to younger children!
Importance of parentese?- children whose parents do not use parentese
would learn language anyway- but children who receive parentese will learn
language faster
Baby Talk- vocabulary and syntax = simlified/reduced- consonant + vowel syllable repeated:
pee-pee (urine)
choo-choo (train)
bow-wow (dog)
HERE: does not have to be realistic!
Baby Talk- often add „iy“ :
birdy for bird horsie for horse kitty for kitten
- names easier than „I“ or „you“ (shifting speaker)- „Mommy loves Tommy!“- „I love you!“
Baby Talk not important, but parents love it (reinforces social solidarity)
3. Children as SpeakersExpansion:
Different possibilities if child produces ungrammatical utterance:
1. Ignore utterance2. Indicate that utterance is unclear3. Reformulate
The ways of expansion vary from community to community!
Children as Speakers Some adults do not respond = think that children don‘t
know what they say (aren‘t authors – just imitate)- sometimes caregivers speak to 3rd person as if the child was speaking (child = speaker without being author)
Others think children are authors of utterances
Cultural Gloss:Some communities offer a cultural gloss!
e.g. first utterance interpreted as meaning „mother“
Children as SpeakersExpansions: do not have to be right (maybe child did not
want to say „mother“) and do not have to fit (sometimes only cultural understanding of what child wants):
Child: „Baba!“
Mother: „Yes, you want a banana...b-a-n-a-n-a!“
Goal is not to make child an author of a unique personal message but to socialize infants into cultural appropriate persons
Children as SpeakersImitation:- children learn a lot by imitation: intonation,
sound, word order- doesn‘t include understanding of tenses - example: errors
mouses instead of mice
Children construct from rules they have in mind Rules have to be learned Imitation = limited aspect
Children as SpeakersCorrection:
- is not an important factor - parents rather respond to
truth value (child lying) social appropriateness (being polite) cleverness (praise child)
Correction is mostly unsuccessful! Repetition of corrected forms more useful!
4. Use of Grammatical FormsGrammatical form as frequent but inappropriate for
child use
Example 1: Samoan verb come = frequently used by adults but not by child Reason: - low status persons = physical
movement
- high status persons =direct lower status persons to carry out actions that require movement
Child understands intertextuality and does not use the verb because as a child it has a low status
Use of Grammatical FormsExample 2: Kaluli say like that = frequently used by caregivers who teach
language learning child only young girls (aged 2 to 4) use it when talking to
younger children, boys don‘t! Reason: boys do not feel responsible as caregivers
Reflection of understanding of gender appropriate behaviour!
CONCLUSION: children understand social and cultural intertextuality and act in role-appropriate manner!
Use of Grammatical FormsGrammatical form as infrequent but
appropriate for child use
Example 1: Kaluli Children say „having chewed give“ although
adults never say that (chew food themselves)
Makes clear that children do not only reflect ! They construct the language they need!
Use of Grammatical FormsExample 2: Samoan Children say „poor me/I“ although this form is not
being in their environment
Construct a speech act of begging to satisfy their desires!
Conclusion: The use of particular grammatical forms is linked to social and cultural norms!
Language & Socialization
• language effects socialization explicitely
e.g. parents give concrete directions to their children about what to say, when & how to say it
• content of socialization varies across cultures, nevertheless linguistic socialization always has the same goal:
promotion of communicative competences (ability to use language appropriately in the community)
Three distinctions in linguistic socialization:
1. Parents & other caregivers give instructions to their children about what to feel, think & do (social & moral rules)
Language is the medium to give those instructions:
e.g. commands, explanations or anecdotes as varieties of linguistic forms to convey social & moral rules
2. Parents teach children what to say (or not to say) in different situations:
e.g. speech forms including politeness, greetings, religious & holiday performatives like: “Thank you” or “trick or treat”.
3. Subtle & indirect aspects of linguistic interaciotn itself:
Certain features of interaction vary systematically & are correlated with individual or group variables:
e.g. parents interrupt girls more than boys; diminutives & terms of endearment are more directed to girls than to boys
Interactions like these express specific cultural & gender-based standards
Common contexts of socialization in Wester Society Behavioral & cognitive socialization at home Explicit linguistic socialisation (What to say) Indirect socialization at home (subtle cues) Fathers as conversational partners Mothers as conversational partners Sibling speech
Sibling speech:
As children get older they spend more and more time with one another (in conversations & other activities)
Opportunity to assume other roles than they assume talking to adult partners
Sibling-to-sibling conversation is more reciprocal They talk more about their own feelings (than in conversations
with their mothers e.g.) Children express more anger & distress toward siblings in
disputes Disputes are more focused on topics like rights & ownership Children use social rules as justifications more often in arguments
with siblings Children themselves act as socializing agents
Other contexts Language socialization in school Peers as conversational partners Television as a model
Television as a model Television is an attractive meduim with intrinsic appeal to
children Especially educational shows have a simple, redunant,
rarely disfluent language, that focusses on objects or events in the immediate context
Watching television must not be passive, if parents & children watch it together & afterwards talk about it
Children learn vocabulary from TV:Children who watch more educational TV have larger vocabularies than children who watch cartoons or sitcoms
The influence of TV on children‘s speech is little studied
Conclusion In verbal interactions with parents, siblings, teachers and
peers and through media like TV, children absorb many important values & beliefs of their community
Children are to some extent explicitely taught how to use language appropriately
1st language acquisition:Conclusion biological maturation strongly affects
language acquisition biological specializations include the brain,
the vocal and auditory tracts senses are very important while acquiring
language there are different stages of language
acquisition
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