Development of Language & Communication Skills.pptx
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The document discusses theories of language development in children. It describes the nativist view that children are biologically programmed with an innate language acquisition device. It also describes the interactionist perspective that both biological and environmental factors interact during development. Children reach linguistic milestones at similar ages across cultures, suggesting biological influences, but they learn language through social interactions like turn-taking, child-directed speech, and receiving negative feedback on errors. Overall, the development of language is viewed as the product of both innate predispositions and environmental experiences.
Development of Language & Communication Skills.pptx
- 2. The process by which one organism transmits information to and influences another. What are vocals? Unique patterns of sound that a paralinguistic infant uses to represent objects, actions, or events. 2
- 3. A small number of individually meaningless symbols (sounds, letters, gestures) that can be combined according to agreed-on rules to produce an infinite number of messages. • One truly astounding achievement that sets humans apart from the rest of the animal kingdom is our creation and use of language. Although animals can communicate with one another, their limited number of calls and gestures are merely isolated signals that convey very specific messages (such as a greeting, a threat, a summons to congregate) in much the same way that single words or stereotyped phrases do in a human language (Tomesello, 2006) Language Explained 3
- 4. • Phonology • Morphology • Semantics • Syntax • Pragmatics Five components of language 4
- 5. Psycholinguists Those who study the structure and development of children’s language are known as Psycholinguists. 1.Phonology The sound system of a language and the rules for combining these sounds to produce meaningful units of speech. 2.Morphology Rules governing the formation of meaningful words from sounds. 5
- 6. 3.Semantics 1. The expressed meaning of words and sentences. 2. In semantics we also come from a topic which is known as 3. Morphemes smallest meaningful language units. 4. And morpheme have also two types. 5. One is free morphemes. 6. Second is bound morphemes. 7. free morphemes morphemes that can stand alone as a word (e.g., cat, go, yellow). 8. bound morphemes morphemes that cannot stand alone but that modify the meaning of free morphemes (e.g., the “ed” attached to English verbs to indicate past tense) 6
- 7. 4. Syntax The structure of a language; the rules specifying how words and grammatical markers are to be combined to produce meaningful sentences. Examples 1. Kenny Cartman killed. 2. Cartman killed Kenny. 3. Kenny killed Cartman. 5.Pragmatics 1. Principles that underlie the effective and appropriate use of language in social contexts. 2. The term which come in pragmatics is. 3. Sociolinguistic knowledge culturally specific rules specifying how language should be structured and used in particular social contexts. 7
- 8. Theories of Language Development As psycholinguists began to chart the course of language development, they were amazed that children could learn such a complex symbol system at such a breathtaking pace. After all, some infants are using words (which are arbitrary and abstract signifiers) to refer to objects and activities even before they can walk. And by age 5, children already know and use most of the syntactical structures of their native language. How do they do it? 8
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- 10. Ask most adults how children learn language and they are likely to say that children imitate what they hear, are reinforced when they use proper grammar, and are corrected when they say things wrong. Learning theorists emphasize these same processes— imitation and reinforcement—in their own theories of language learning. In 1957, B. F. Skinner argued that children learn to speak appropriately because they are reinforced for correct speech. He believed that adults shape speech by reinforcing babbling that most resemble words, thereby increasing the probability that these sounds will be repeated. Later, adults reinforce the child for combining words and then for producing sentences. 10
- 11. Imitation and reinforcement do play some part in early language development. It is no surprise that children whose parents frequently encourage them to converse by asking questions and making requests are more advanced in their early language development than age-mates whose parents are less conversational. Imitation and reinforcement do play some part in early language development. It is no surprise that children whose parents frequently encourage them to converse by asking questions and making requests are more advanced in their early language development than age-mates whose parents are less conversational (Bohannon & Bonvillian, 1997; Valdez - Menchaca & Whitehurst, 1992). Despite these observations, learning theorists have had little success accounting for the development of syntax. If parents really “shaped” grammar, as Skinner claimed, then they ought to reliably praise or otherwise reinforce the child’s grammatical utterances
- 12. • In this perspective some majors terms like, • Language acquisition device (LAD) • Chomsky’s term for the innate knowledge of grammar that humans are said to possess knowledge that might enable young children to infer the rules governing others’ speech and to use these rules to produce language. • Universal grammar • In nativist theories of language acquisition, the basic rules of grammar that characterize all languages 12
- 13. Language-making capacity (LMC). A hypothesized set of specialized linguistic processing skills that enable children to analyze speech and to detect phonological, semantic, and syntactical relationships. 13
- 14. Support for the Nativist Perspective. Are children biologically programmed to acquire language? Several observations suggest they are. For example, children reach linguistic milestones at about the same age, despite cultural differences in the structure of their languages. Nativists interpret these linguistic universals as clear evidence that language must be guided by some species-specific biological mechanism. Brain Specialization and Language aphasia a loss of one or more language functions. Broca’s area structure located in the frontal lobe of the left hemisphere of the cerebral cortex that controls language production. Wernicke’s area structure located in the temporal lobe of the left hemisphere of the cerebral cortex that is responsible for interpreting speech. 14
- 15. The Sensitive-Period Hypothesis This sensitive-period hypothesis for language development was prompted by observations that child aphasics often recover their lost language functions without special therapy, whereas adult aphasics usually require extensive therapeutic interventions to recover even a portion of their lost language skills. Sensitive-period hypothesis (of language acquisition). the notion that human beings are most proficient at language learning before they reach puberty Problems with the Nativist Approach Though most everyone today agrees that language learning is heavily influenced by biological factors, many developmentalists have serious reservations about the nativist approach (Goldberg, 2004; Tomesello, 2006). 15
- 16. Biological and Cognitive Contributors Clearly, the remarkable similarities that young children display when learning very different languages imply that biology contributes to language acquisition. (MacNeilage et al., 2000) According to the interactionist viewpoint, young children the world over talk alike and display other linguistic universals because they are all members of the same species who share many common experiences. Interactionist viewpoint The notion that biological factors and environmental influences interact to determine the course of language development.
- 17. Environmental Supports for Language Development. Interactionist stress that language is primarily a means of communicating that develops in the context of social interactions as children and their companions strive to get their messages across, one way or another. (Bohannon & Bonvillian, 1997; Callanan & Sabbagh, 2004; Hoff & Naigles, 2002; MacNeilage et al., 2000; Tomasello, 1995). Lessons from Joint Activities. Long before infants use words, their caregivers show them how to take turns in conversations, even if the only thing these young infants can contribute when their turn comes is a laugh or a babble. (Bruner, 1983) Lessons from Child-Directed Speech. Cross-cultural research points to a nearly universal tendency of parents and older siblings to address infants and toddlers with very short, simple sentences that psycholinguists call child-directed speech, or motherese (Gelman & Shatz, 1977; 17
- 18. motherese The short, simple, high-pitched (and often repetitive) sentences that adults use when talking with young children. (also called child directed speech) Lessons from Negative Evidence. Although parents do not reliably attempt to reinforce correct grammar, they do provide the child with negative evidence; that is, they respond to ungrammatical speech in ways that subtly communicate that an error has been made and provide information that might be used to correct these errors (Bohannon & Bonvillian, 1997; Saxton, 1997) The Importance of Conversation Would young children learn language just as well by merely listening to others converse? Apparently not. Nativists, who claimed that the only thing children need to acquire language is regular exposure to speech samples, have clearly underestimated the role of social interactions in language learning. 18
- 19. From an interactionist perspective, then, language development is the product of a complex transaction between nature and nurture. Children are born with a powerful human brain that develops slowly and predisposes them to acquire new understandings, 19