Class6 - How Do We Acquire Language?
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The document discusses Noam Chomsky's theory of Universal Grammar and the innateness of language. It argues that children cannot learn language from environmental stimuli alone, as the stimuli are too impoverished. Rather, children must be born with an innate, biological capacity to acquire language - an innate "language organ" called Universal Grammar. Universal Grammar consists of universal principles that are shared by all languages, as well as parameters that vary between languages and are set during language acquisition. Chomsky's theory challenged behaviorist views of language learning and emphasized that language is a uniquely human cognitive capacity.
![The linguistic information that children
are exposed to during language
acquisition period, alone, are not enough
to built a highly complex system as
human language is.
The stimuli are not that informative
when it comes to Language properties.
[CP [TP [DP Mommy] will [VP take [DP a nap]] [AdvP now]]].](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/class6howdoweacquirelanguage-180612005347/85/Class6-How-Do-We-Acquire-Language-27-320.jpg)
Class6 - How Do We Acquire Language?
- 1. The Minimalist Program LCD 105 – Class 6 – Professor Nathacia
- 2. Communication Systems vs. Language Training vs. Acquisition Do animals talk?
- 3. Imitation? Pattern recognition? Teaching and reward? What about kids?
- 4. How come we know that MUCH from so FEW stimuli?
- 5. The Poverty of the Stimulus Argument ”That is the logical problem: How is it possible that a finite set of stimuli creates a system that generates infinite/ unlimited products? In other words, how do we go from finite stimuli to the discrete infinitude, fundamental characteristic of human language? How a finite list of particular uses of language can create a system that is infinitely productive as the language competence?” (Kenedy, 2013)
- 6. The Poverty of the Stimulus Argument ”The argument for the poverty of stimulus states that the precise and elaborated knowledge on language structure that children built cannot be deducted exclusively from language stimuli information, it doesn’t matter how rich and numerous they are.” (Kenedy, 2013)
- 7. (1) John thinks that Peter won’t help him fix the machine. (2) Peter thinks that John won’t help him fix the machine. (3) Blake told John that Peter won’t help him fix the machine. (4) John asked Peter if Mary want to talk to him.
- 9. COMPETENCE Knowledge that a native speaker has about his/her own language. It is an unconscious knowledge. It is the set of all language rules and restrictions, and the set of lexical items that s/he knows.
- 10. PERFORMANCE The usage that a native speaker gives to the linguistic knowledge that s/he has. It is the competence being used in real situations.
- 12. COMPETENCE
- 15. SKINNER
- 16. SKINNER
- 18. SKINNER
- 20. What do you mean by INATE KNOWLEDGE ?
- 21. INATE KNOWLEDGE Something common among all languages that, somehow, is moldable into an specific language. CHOMSKY
- 22. Common Similarities among languages. Moldable Differences among languages. CHOMSKY
- 25. UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR INNATENESS HYPOTHESIS We are born with a capacity to develop language. We are genetically programmed to develop language. Arguments: - The Poverty of Stimulus Hypothesis - Linguistic Creativity
- 26. The linguistic information that children are exposed to during language acquisition period, alone, are not enough to built a highly complex system as human language is. The stimuli are not that informative when it comes to Language properties. Mommy will take a nap know.
- 27. The linguistic information that children are exposed to during language acquisition period, alone, are not enough to built a highly complex system as human language is. The stimuli are not that informative when it comes to Language properties. [CP [TP [DP Mommy] will [VP take [DP a nap]] [AdvP now]]].
- 28. Concerning to Linguistic Creativity, kids can create novel sentences that they never heard from an adult (or anyone). https://youtu.be/jBVDiz-LY7w
- 29. THEORY CENTRAL IDEA SCIENTIST Behaviorism Tabula Rasa; learning from positive and negative reinforcement. Skinner Cognitive Development Language is just an aspect of a global cognitive development. Piaget Innateness Language is an innate capacity, independent from other cognitions (Modularity’s Theory) Chomsky Interactive or Instruction Theory Language is built through interaction Bruner
- 30. UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR BIOLOGICAL BASIS Physical and Genetic apparatuses
- 31. UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR MIND: the speaker knows its own language; language intuition COGNITIVE BASIS (1) John won’t buy the tickets to his vacation trip anymore.
- 32. UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR MIND: the speaker knows its own language; language intuition COGNITIVE BASIS (1) John won’t buy the tickets to his vacation trip anymore.
- 33. UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR MIND: the speaker knows its own language; language intuition COGNITIVE BASIS (1) John won’t buy the tickets to his vacation trip anymore. (2) To his vacation trip, John won’t buy tickets anymore.
- 34. (1) John won’t buy the tickets to his vacation trip anymore. (2) To his vacation trip, John won’t buy tickets anymore.UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR COGNITIVE BASIS MIND: the speaker knows its own language; language intuition
- 35. (1) John won’t buy the tickets to his vacation trip anymore. (2) To his vacation trip, John won’t buy tickets anymore. (3) Won’t buy, to his vacation trip, John the tickets. UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR COGNITIVE BASIS MIND: the speaker knows its own language; language intuition
- 36. (1) John won’t buy the tickets to his vacation trip anymore. (2) To his vacation trip, John won’t buy tickets anymore. (3) Won’t buy, to his vacation trip, John the tickets. UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR COGNITIVE BASIS MIND: the speaker knows its own language; language intuition
- 37. (1) John won’t buy the tickets to his vacation trip anymore. (2) To his vacation trip, John won’t buy tickets anymore. (3) Won’t buy, to his vacation trip, John the tickets anymore. (4)His vacation to won’t trip buy tickets John anymore. UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR COGNITIVE BASIS MIND: the speaker knows its own language; language intuition
- 38. (1) John won’t buy the tickets to his vacation trip anymore. (2) To his vacation trip, John won’t buy tickets anymore. (3) Won’t buy, to his vacation trip, John the tickets anymore. (4)His vacation to won’t trip buy tickets John anymore. UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR COGNITIVE BASIS MIND: the speaker knows its own language; language intuition
- 39. COMPETENCE VS. PERFORMANCE COMPETENCE: knowledge that a speaker has about his/ her own language. PERFORMANCE: use of the inner knowledge on a language. UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR COGNITIVE BASIS
- 40. Universal Grammar? How to explain the various language across the world if we are basing our model in a innate capacity coded in human genes? Biologic Perspective to Language
- 41. Universal Grammar? What is universal? What is particular? We need a model that can deal with both aspects (Common and Moldable).
- 42. UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR: Faculty of Language; Innate language specific information that determine how language can work. Principals: Universal; Rigid; Invariable; Postulates followed by all languages. Parameters: Variable; Flexible; Open; Postulates that varies from one language to the other; They are originally unmarked at UG; Their fixation is done during Language Acquisition.
- 43. UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR: Faculty of Language; Innate language specific information that determine how language can work. Principals: Universal; Rigid; Invariable; Postulates followed by all languages. Parameters: Variable; Flexible; Open; Postulates that varies from one language to the other; They are originally unmarked at UG; Their fixation is done during Language Acquisition. Principals and Parameters Theory (P&P)
- 44. Universal Grammar INPUT OUTPUT Primary Data Exposure to Language Experience Grammar of a Language Linguistic Competence P&P – Language Acquisition Fixation of Parameters
- 45. ?
- 46. PIAGET Although he is a great name on child development research, his degrees were in Biology and Philosophy. His major research was about the stages of a child cognitive development Criticism: biased research; counter argument: biologist procedure. Piagetian Conservation Tasks
- 47. PIAGET One of his great claims was that children develop (language) not because of a previous knowledge, either inner or empirical, but because of successive passages through developmental stages in a constructive way. To him, there’s no scape from the sequence of those stages, and in order to reach certain level, a child must go through the previous stages. Example: a child must learn how to sit, then how to crawl, then to stand up, to then be able to walk. With language, there’s no difference as they built they’re new knowledge upon previous knowledge.
- 48. PIAGET Dependable learning (construtivism) Mind = Single Intelligence Piagetian Cognitive Theory DOMAIN GENERAL
- 50. FODOR “The mind cannot be generic. (…) Actually, it is a set of specialized intelligences that are controlled by their own internal rules.” Modularity Theory DOMAIN SPECIFIC
- 51. FODOR The mind is composed by encapsulated modules that are independent from each other but that keep intercommunication. The domain specificity has to do with the variety of questions to which a module answers. The encapsulation has to do with the variety of information that a module consult (from other modules) to decide what answer it will offer.
- 54. Girl with half of her brain https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2fCY_M7Vms
- 58. Disorders and Language Some disorders, though, affect language: - Autism - Asperger Syndrome - Schizophrenia - Specific Language Impairment
- 59. CHOMSKY X √
- 61. CHOMSKY
- 63. Summing up ü We have an innate capacity to develop language coded in the DNA; ü This capacity is a pre set cognition called Universal Grammar; ü The Universal Grammar is composed by Principals and unmarked Parameters; ü The Parameters are marked during Language Acquisition Critical Period in order to built the grammar of a specific language; ü Once a number of parameters is set (when children are about 2.5- 3 yo), the children have linguistic competence; ü The competence and the UG are stages of the Faculty of Language; ü The Faculty of Language Narrow and Broad are Modules of the mind. ü The Modules are independent, though they intercommunicate.
- 64. LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT STAGES Stage Typical Age Description In utero stage Pre-birth Prosody Preproduction stage 0-6 months Phonemic discrimination and differentiation; Syllable discrimination; Babbling stage 6-8 months CV patterns, with a plosive consonant and a middle to low vowel One-word or holographic stage 8-18 months Single open-class words or word stems Two-word stage 18-24 months “Mini-sentences” with simple semantic relations Telegraphic or early multiword stage 24-30 months “Telegraphic” sentence structure filled with lexical words rather then functional words. Later multiword stage 30+ months Full sentences with functional words.