{ Main Stages of Language Development AICE A-Level Language

Milestones  In spite of different backgrounds, different locations, and different upbringings, most children follow the very same milestones in acquiring language. watch?v=vQ64R0KKssc

Critical Periods What is a critical period?  For first language acquisition, there seems to be a critical period of the first five years, during which children must be exposed to rich input.  There is also a period, from about years, when acquisition is possible, but not native-like.

Stages of Learning  Sound production/babbling  Phonological acquisition  Morphological/Syntactical acquisition  Semantic development

Caretaker Speech  A register characterized by:  Simplified lexicon  Phonological reduction  Higher pitch  Stressed intonation  Simple sentences  High number of interrogatives (Mom) & imperatives (Dad)

Caretaker Features  signing on the baby's body (when the location should be on the signer)  using the baby's hands to sign on the adult's or child's body  placing the child on the lap and facing away from the mother  signing on the object  signing using the object  signing bigger than normal  signing repeated more often then normal  sign lasts longer than normal  signing special “baby” signs rather than adult signs  BSL Caretaker Speech BSL Caretaker Speech BSL Caretaker Speech

Linguistic Stages  6-12 weeks: Cooing (googoo, gurgling, coocoo)  6 months: Babbling (baba, mama, dada)  8-9 months: Intonation patterns  years: Holophrastic stage (one word)  2 years: Two-word stage  2.5 years: Telegraphic stage  3,4 – 11 years: Fluent speech w/errors  12 years+: Fluent speech

 This stage is characterized by one word sentences  Nouns make up around 50% of the infants vocabulary while verbs and modifiers make up around 30% and questions and negatives make up the rest.  Infants use these sentence primarily to obtain things they want or need Holophrastic Stage NZMJBMUHU8

 This stage contains many three and four word sentences  Sometime during this stage the child begins to see the links between words and objects and therefore overgeneralization comes in  During this stage a child’s vocabulary expands from 50 words to up to 13,000 words Telegraphic Stage

Acquisition of Phonetics  Few weeks: cooing and gurgling, playing with sounds. Their abilities are constrained by physiological limitations.  4 months: distinguish between [a] and [i], so their perception skills are good.  4-6 months: children babble, putting together vowels and consonants. This is not a conscious process! Experiment with articulation  7-10 months: starts repeated babbling.  months, children produce a variety of speech sounds. (even ‘foreign’ sounds)

Acquisition of Phonology  Early stage: Unanalyzed syllables  months: words as a sequence of phonemes.  Mastery of sounds differing in distinctive features (e.g., voicing)  Duplicated syllables: mama, dada - CV is main syllable structure. They reduce = banana  [na.na] 2 syllable words  Early mastery of intonation contours (even in non-tone languages)  Perception comes before production (‘fis’ or ‘fish’?)

Lexicon  Begin with simple lexical items for people/food/toys/animals/body functions  Lexical Achievement:  1-2 years old words (avg)  3 years old900 words  4 years old1500 words  5 years old2100 words  6-7 years old2500 words  High school grad40,000 – 60,000 words!  “5,000 per year, 13 words a day” -- Miller & Gildea

Negative Formations  1 st stage - attach no/not to beginning of sentence (sometimes at end)  2 nd stage – negatives appear between subject and verb  3 rd stage – appearance of nobody/nothing & anybody/anything & inconsistent use of “to be” verb is

Question Formations  1 st stage – wh- word placed in front of rest of sentence: Where daddy go?  2 nd stage – addition of an auxiliary verb: Where you will go?  3 rd stage – subject noun changes places with the auxiliary: Where will you go?

Acquisition of Semantics   Concrete before abstract:   ‘in/on’ before ‘behind/in front’   Over-extensions:   Using ‘moon’ for anything round   Using ‘dog’ for any four-legged animals   Under-extensions:   The word ‘bird’ may not include ‘pigeon’, etc.