I CAN Explain Noam Chomsky’s contributions to the field of cognition Describe the process by which all children develop language Distinguish Morphemes and Phonemes
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2007 How Do Children Acquire Language? Infants and children face an especially important developmental task with the acquisition of language
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2007 How Children Acquire Language Language: Ability to communicate through speech/written words/gestures There are about 5000 languages worldwide 1. Mandarin - 1 billion+ 2. English million. 3. Hindustani million
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2007 Language Acquisition Theories 1. Social Interactionism 2. Innateness Theory of Language AKA: Language Acquisition Device (LAD)
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2007 Social Interactionism General cognitive abilities and the interaction between learners and their surrounding communities is essential to language Social-interactionists theorize that adults play an important part in children's language acquisition
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2007 Innateness Theory of Language Children learn language mainly by following an inborn program for acquiring vocabulary and grammar Children acquire language not by merely imitation but by following an inborn program of steps They are born with the capability to learn language
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2007 Chomsky’s Language Acquisition Device (LAD) Noam Chomsky’s Innateness Theory of Language Biologically organized mental structure in brain programmed with fundamentals of grammar Contains basic rules common to ALL human languages
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2007 Early Stages of Language Acquisition – The Babbling Stage – The One-Word Stage Naming Explosion – The Two-Word Stage – Telegraphic Speech Stage
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2007 Babbling: A Foundation of Language Stage of language acquisition where babies make nearly all the sounds heard in all languages Infants have the natural ability to produce language sounds All children worldwide seem to learn language by going through similar stages
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2007 Stages of Acquiring Vocabulary and Grammar 1. The One Word Stage – About age one – “Mama”
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2007 The Naming Explosion About 18 months.. children begin ‘naming’ items Movers Location Moveable Objects “Allie (mover) kick ball” (moveable object) after Allie kicks a ball
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2007 Stages of Acquiring Vocabulary and Grammar 2. The Two-Word Stage About age two “Mama drink” Basic grammar rules first appear
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2007 Stages of Acquiring Vocabulary and Grammar 3. Telegraphic Speech Short, simple, two-three word sentences of nouns and verbs …without plurals, tenses, or functions such as ’of’ and ‘the’ “Ball hit, Evie cry” – Children need to learn how to use modifiers (adjectives, adverbs) and articles (the, those) --At age two, a child has a vocabulary of nearly 1000 words --At age 6, 10,000 --Between 18 months and six, a child learns an average of nine new words a day
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2007 Grammar The rules of a language Grammar
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2007 The Rules of Grammar Overregularization (overgeneralization) Applying a grammatical rule too widely resulting in creating an incorrect form of the word … using “hitted” and “feets… Morphemes Meaningful units of language that make up words Verbs to show tense = walked Possession = Mike’s Plurality = foxes Phonemes- smallest units of sound (see chart on the next slide)
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2007
Other language skills Social rules of conversation Join discussions, take turns, listen, contribute Learning to use body language, intonation, and facial expressions to enhance language Learning to take feedback Learning to take the perspective of the listener Learning abstract words… hope, truth
CAN I? Explain Noam Chomsky’s contributions to the field of cognition Describe the process by which all children develop language Distinguish Morphemes and Phonemes