1 Prepared by: Laila al-Hasan

2 language Acquisition This lecture concentrates on the following topics: Language and cognition Language acquisition Phases of development From sound to meaning Driving forces of language acquisition

3 Prepared by: Laila al-Hasan language Acquisition Stages Full sentences Telegraphic speech Two-word utterances One-word utterances Babbling Vocal play Comfort sounds Vegetative sounds ________________________________________________________________________________________ Clear boundaries? Strict sequence? Same length?

Central stages in language acquisition 4 Prepared by: Laila al-Hasan 1. Early vocalization [ 0-6 months] 3 stages can be identified: [0-2 months] Vegetative sounds such as crying, burbling or sucking noise [2-6 months] Comfort sounds such as cooing and laughing [4-7 months] Vocal play where children produce speech like sounds where interestingly vowels emerge before consonants.

5 Prepared by: Laila al-Hasan 2. Babbling [6-12 months] Lasts for 6 -9 months. There are 2 types of babbling: Reduplicated babbling: Syllable sequences such as [bababa] ( the repetition of vowel- consonant patterns, the same syllable is repeated several times) Non-reduplicated babbling: Where children produce utterances like [badaga] and similar syllable combinations First signs of comprehension accompany this stage where children learn the association between situations and the strings of sounds.

6 Prepared by: Laila al-Hasan 3. One word utterance phase[10-18 months] Children use names for objects, actions or emotions and pick up thematic roles played by words such as [ agent- action – object] Then, a phase of vocabulary burst: acceleration in the rate of vocabulary growth.

7 Prepared by: Laila al-Hasan 4. Two-word utterances [16-24 months] Words are combined into more complex constructions and the child gradually uses sentence like structures, first of all in two word utterances where two words are combined expressing various semantic relationships such as [ Agent- Action : Daddy run] [24-30 months] a morphosyntactic burst where we notice an enormous increase in inflectional and functional elements.

8 Prepared by: Laila al-Hasan 5. Telegraphic speech[20-30 months] 3 or more word combinations with a few functional words or inflectional elements like : milk all gone 6. Full sentences[ months…..] increasing utterance length and utterance complexity.

9 Prepared by: Laila al-Hasan language Acquisition Stages of Development Phonological development: how the child develops the sound system of the language he is exposed to Morphological development: the acquisition of words Syntactic development: the acquisition of the grammatical rules Semantic development : stages of developing the mental lexicon

10 Prepared by: Laila al-Hasan Phonological Development Simplification Consonants: Omit the final consonant: ball- bo Reduce consonant structures: stop – top Syllables: Reduction of syllable complexity: tomato- mato Substitute more difficult sounds with easier ones- a reduction of the onset syllable: ship – sip

11 Prepared by: Laila al-Hasan Morphological Development Without being told about the functions of particular morphs, the vast majority of children end up using the correct forms. The order of acquiring functional words and inflectional morphemes is constant across children. Present progressive Spatial propositions Plurals & possessives Determiners Past tense (in different form s)

Syntactic development 12 Prepared by: Laila al-Hasan One-word-utterance Two-word-utterance Telegraphic speech From this point onward, language development proceeds at a rapid pace, within only a few months children acquire inflectional morphology and function words. Full sentences of various length and complexity. Before they turn 4 most children would have figure out the most salient grammatical patterns of their language.

13 Prepared by: Laila al-Hasan Semantic Development “The mental Lexicon” is central in language processing and language acquisition.

14 Prepared by: Laila al-Hasan Driving Forces of Language Acquisition 1.Positive evidence 2.Imitation 3.Reinforcement 4.Child-directed Speech 5.Innateness

15 Prepared by: Laila al-Hasan Positive Evidence Exposure to language is needed, but may not be necessarily direct Comprehension precedes production in language acquisition

16 Prepared by: Laila al-Hasan Imitation Children reproduce what they hear. Counter argument: Mistakes: children make mistakes that adults wouldn’t produce Child: mama isn’t boy, he a girl Child: daddy wented home Creativity: children produce novel utterances. Imitation problems: Adult: he’s going out Child: he go out

17 Prepared by: Laila al-Hasan Reinforcement Strengthening and shaping particular behaviour. There are two types of reinforcement: 1.Positive reinforcement: when adults support the utterance 2.Negative reinforcement: when children break the rules Child: she holded the baby rabbit Adult: no, she held the baby rabbit.

18 Prepared by: Laila al-Hasan Reinforcement Counter argument: Adults correct the meaning rather than the form. The occurrence problem Acquisition stages: go>went>goed, wented >went

19 Prepared by: Laila al-Hasan Child-Directed Speech (CDS) Motherese or baby talk-, essential properties: Phonetically different : secondary articulation feature i.e. labialization Slower and shorter Simplified Inflections Vocabulary Baby words Clearly segmented

20 Prepared by: Laila al-Hasan Innateness Nature vs. Nurture debate Language capacity is present from birth Special- purpose language acquisition device & Universal Grammar