Language Development: Issues and Methods January 13, 2010

Nature versus Nurture Remains the biggest debate.  Empiricism vs. nativism How much is built in? Chomksy’s three arguments are used to defend nativism. Most modern researchers hold to an interactionist p.o.v.  Not as effortless as Chomsky proposed.  Input is key.

Constructivism (Piaget) Opposes behaviourism as well. “Sharing the same enemy never obliged anyone to share the same crusade.” Piaget stipulates that inborn mental abilities work upon environmental input (e.g., speech to child), resulting in cognitive development. Language intricately tied to other cognitive structures (e.g., learning about people and things leads to subjects and objects). Brain learning, rather than brain maturation.

What is innate? Knowledge of language  Domain specificity  Modularity: dedicated sub-system, “mental organ” Process: Encapsulation, unconsciousness, speed, shallow outputs, and obligatory firing Biology: Ontogenetic universals, localization, and pathological universals  Can be nativist and not subscribe to modularity (Bates argues against based on brain plasticity and variations in language).

What is innate? Computational processes  knowledge  Domain general Rule learning  Apply statistical regularities to new input.  ABA rule versus AAB rule. Statistical learning  Infants can detect statistical regularities in input (e.g., vision, musical tones)  Infants can use stat learning for: Word segmentation, sound acquisition, grammar rules (see below)  So can monkeys and rats.

Example of stat learning Prettybaby  Golabupabikututibubabupugolabu

Other debates Continuity  Is change quantitative or qualitative? Communication and language  Formalists: rules and structure Chomsky.  Functionalists: social use The why of language. Cultural convention. Social interactionist.

Research Not going to cover design that much, assuming you know it. Only focusing on procedures and techniques.

Research methods: Production Speech samples.  Can be spontaneous or structured (imitation).  Min of 50 utterances.  Limitation: context, act of observing  Best to use AV  Transcription Depends of what you’re studying: phonetics, communicative competence, etc.  CHILDES  MLU: normative

What is the MLU? I have to eat. Um. Doggie’s hungry. Doggie eated. I hafta go eat.

Other measures Elicitation  Related to structured speech samples Interviews  Piagetian  Is horse a word? Why?

Research Methods: Comprehension Usually used for norms (atypical) MacArthur-Bates CDI  Parental report  Normed for age & sex  Strong reliability and validity PPVT  4 simple, black-and-white illustrations arranged in a multiple-choice format.  Select best example of orally presented word  17 sets of 12; progressively difficult.  High reliability and validity.

“Puppy” A B C D

“Cenotaph” A C B D

Other comprehension techniques We will go into these in detail later in the course. Brain imaging techniques (can also be production) High amplitude sucking: phonetics, language preference Conditioned head turn: phonology Habituation: word learning Preferential looking: word comprehension