Language Development Across the Lifespan: a Summary
Week 1: First Language Acquisition
SLA = Second Language Acquisition. Refers to the beginning of learning another language
after a first/mother language in the early years of childhood. Different than bilingualism.
Second language acquisition = when the language learner’s environment is
dominantly the target language, e.g. an immigrant in England learning English.
Foreign language acquisition = when the language learner lives in the L1 environment
and contact with target language speakers is not really available, e.g. Kaylee learning
Danish.
ESL = English as a Second Language
EFL = English as a Foreign Language
Prewired = infants come into the world equipped to acquire the language they are exposed
to in their environment. A baby has an innate structure for language learning as for walking,
both don’t need to be taught.
HAS (High Amplitude Sucking) = a measuring technique for the preferences of very young
infants (1-4 months)
The infants are exposed to sounds while the sucking rate on their pacifier is
measures. – The higher the sucking rate, the more interest in a sound, and indicates
the infant’s detection of stimulus difference.
Babies like to hear sounds, lose interest when a sound is presented repeatedly, and regain
interest when a new sound is presented.
Sound/Auditory Discrimination = young children are able to perceive a multitude of sound
differences, even when the sounds don’t occur in the native language of the environment.
Starts to disappear around 10-12 months
Adults cannot differentiate those same sounds if they are not used in their native
language.
Young infants (0-6 months) can discriminate phonetic contrasts of all languages.
BUT
Certain sound contrasts perceptions are not maintained if those contrasts are not used in
the infant’s language environment. The child reserves more place for sounds important for
their language by filtering out other not related sounds.
Before infants learn how to speak, they become ‘native listeners’. Between 6 & 10 months of
age.
,Reduplicated Babbling = babbling in which consonant-vowel combinations are repeated, e.g.
ba-ba-ba. An early phase of babbling.
Bilabial stops are used frequently in babbling, associated with the /ae/ vowel.
Variegated Babbling = babbling in which young children vary the consonant-vowel
sequences used, e.g. ba-da-ga.
Conversational Babbling = babbling with recognisable L1 prosodic patterns.
Holophrasic stage = refers to the idea that the single words appear to substitute for
the thought conveyed in a full sentence. The stage around 1 year of age.
Children continue to babble sounds ate the same time they begin to produce early words.
Nouns tend to be predominate in the child’s speech, making-up almost 50% of word typed
for young children. Other words are verbs, modifiers, and social/personal words.
Overextension = a child’s use of a word for objects or items that share a feature or
property. The child uses a word beyond its usual sphere of reference. E.g. using ‘dog’
for all animals on 4 legs.
Underextension = a child’s use of a word with a narrower meaning than in the adult’s
language. A word is used less broadly than its true domain or reference. E.g. ‘dog’ to
refer only to the family’s dog.
By the age of 2,5 years only rare occasions of over- and underextension are made.
During the ‘two-word stage’ that starts round 18 months, children show linguistic
development by putting words together in an attempt to communicate. Others have a ‘word
spurt’ period in which new words pop-up in the child’s everyday vocabulary, lasting a few
months.
, MLU (Mean Length of Utterance) = measurement used to calculate the development of
children’s grammar. The number of morphemes divided by number of total utterances.
Input = the language to which an individual is exposed in the environment.
Brown (1973) found that children acquire forms/morphemes in a similar order, but have
their own rate of development.
Children are able to generalise rules to items they have never been exposed to.
Nativism = a theoretical approach emphasizing the innate, possibly genetic, contributions to
any behaviour. The extent to which language is viewed as basically the result of innate
processes.
Plato: People are born with ‘innate ideas’
Empiricism = theoretical view that emphasizes the role of the environment and experience
over that of innate ideas or capacities. To what extent are environmental factors considered
primarily responsible.
Aristotle: People are born as a ‘blank slate’
Behaviourism = theoretical view proposing that learning principles can explain most
behaviour, and observable events, rather than mental activity, are the proper objects of
study. Language is considered ‘verbal behaviour’, and only observable and measurable
things was accepted for evaluating language acquisition.
Classical conditioning = the pairing of a stimulus and a response. E.g. saying the word
‘milk’ when giving an infant their bottle, the infant associates ‘milk’ with actual milk.
Operant conditioning = when a child utters a word and gets the wished response
from that, the word is more likely to be reproduced. In contrast, when there is no
wished response to an utterance, the chance of reproduction disappears. E.g. a child
saying ‘mama’ when their mother is present vs. when she is not present.
Universal Grammar (UG) = the innate principles and properties that characterize the
grammars of all human languages; also used to describe the theoretical view associated with
this concept. The environment only serves as a trigger for language development.
Language faculty = a universal set of underlying principles
Logical problem of language acquisition = that without UG language learning would
be impossible because the input data are insufficiently rich to allow acquisition to
occur. Also: poverty of the stimulus.
Generative Grammar = linguistic theory that everyone has a innate grammatical structure.
Grammars are unlearnable.
Interactionism = theoretical viewpoint that recognizes the role of experience and the
environment, as well as the contribution of innate capacities. Gives explicit
acknowledgement to the contribution of both innate structures and the role of the
environment. Social interactionists give importance to the interplay between linguistic
structures, cognitive abilities, and social & linguistic environment.
The innate structures allow for language acquisition to happen
Week 1: First Language Acquisition
SLA = Second Language Acquisition. Refers to the beginning of learning another language
after a first/mother language in the early years of childhood. Different than bilingualism.
Second language acquisition = when the language learner’s environment is
dominantly the target language, e.g. an immigrant in England learning English.
Foreign language acquisition = when the language learner lives in the L1 environment
and contact with target language speakers is not really available, e.g. Kaylee learning
Danish.
ESL = English as a Second Language
EFL = English as a Foreign Language
Prewired = infants come into the world equipped to acquire the language they are exposed
to in their environment. A baby has an innate structure for language learning as for walking,
both don’t need to be taught.
HAS (High Amplitude Sucking) = a measuring technique for the preferences of very young
infants (1-4 months)
The infants are exposed to sounds while the sucking rate on their pacifier is
measures. – The higher the sucking rate, the more interest in a sound, and indicates
the infant’s detection of stimulus difference.
Babies like to hear sounds, lose interest when a sound is presented repeatedly, and regain
interest when a new sound is presented.
Sound/Auditory Discrimination = young children are able to perceive a multitude of sound
differences, even when the sounds don’t occur in the native language of the environment.
Starts to disappear around 10-12 months
Adults cannot differentiate those same sounds if they are not used in their native
language.
Young infants (0-6 months) can discriminate phonetic contrasts of all languages.
BUT
Certain sound contrasts perceptions are not maintained if those contrasts are not used in
the infant’s language environment. The child reserves more place for sounds important for
their language by filtering out other not related sounds.
Before infants learn how to speak, they become ‘native listeners’. Between 6 & 10 months of
age.
,Reduplicated Babbling = babbling in which consonant-vowel combinations are repeated, e.g.
ba-ba-ba. An early phase of babbling.
Bilabial stops are used frequently in babbling, associated with the /ae/ vowel.
Variegated Babbling = babbling in which young children vary the consonant-vowel
sequences used, e.g. ba-da-ga.
Conversational Babbling = babbling with recognisable L1 prosodic patterns.
Holophrasic stage = refers to the idea that the single words appear to substitute for
the thought conveyed in a full sentence. The stage around 1 year of age.
Children continue to babble sounds ate the same time they begin to produce early words.
Nouns tend to be predominate in the child’s speech, making-up almost 50% of word typed
for young children. Other words are verbs, modifiers, and social/personal words.
Overextension = a child’s use of a word for objects or items that share a feature or
property. The child uses a word beyond its usual sphere of reference. E.g. using ‘dog’
for all animals on 4 legs.
Underextension = a child’s use of a word with a narrower meaning than in the adult’s
language. A word is used less broadly than its true domain or reference. E.g. ‘dog’ to
refer only to the family’s dog.
By the age of 2,5 years only rare occasions of over- and underextension are made.
During the ‘two-word stage’ that starts round 18 months, children show linguistic
development by putting words together in an attempt to communicate. Others have a ‘word
spurt’ period in which new words pop-up in the child’s everyday vocabulary, lasting a few
months.
, MLU (Mean Length of Utterance) = measurement used to calculate the development of
children’s grammar. The number of morphemes divided by number of total utterances.
Input = the language to which an individual is exposed in the environment.
Brown (1973) found that children acquire forms/morphemes in a similar order, but have
their own rate of development.
Children are able to generalise rules to items they have never been exposed to.
Nativism = a theoretical approach emphasizing the innate, possibly genetic, contributions to
any behaviour. The extent to which language is viewed as basically the result of innate
processes.
Plato: People are born with ‘innate ideas’
Empiricism = theoretical view that emphasizes the role of the environment and experience
over that of innate ideas or capacities. To what extent are environmental factors considered
primarily responsible.
Aristotle: People are born as a ‘blank slate’
Behaviourism = theoretical view proposing that learning principles can explain most
behaviour, and observable events, rather than mental activity, are the proper objects of
study. Language is considered ‘verbal behaviour’, and only observable and measurable
things was accepted for evaluating language acquisition.
Classical conditioning = the pairing of a stimulus and a response. E.g. saying the word
‘milk’ when giving an infant their bottle, the infant associates ‘milk’ with actual milk.
Operant conditioning = when a child utters a word and gets the wished response
from that, the word is more likely to be reproduced. In contrast, when there is no
wished response to an utterance, the chance of reproduction disappears. E.g. a child
saying ‘mama’ when their mother is present vs. when she is not present.
Universal Grammar (UG) = the innate principles and properties that characterize the
grammars of all human languages; also used to describe the theoretical view associated with
this concept. The environment only serves as a trigger for language development.
Language faculty = a universal set of underlying principles
Logical problem of language acquisition = that without UG language learning would
be impossible because the input data are insufficiently rich to allow acquisition to
occur. Also: poverty of the stimulus.
Generative Grammar = linguistic theory that everyone has a innate grammatical structure.
Grammars are unlearnable.
Interactionism = theoretical viewpoint that recognizes the role of experience and the
environment, as well as the contribution of innate capacities. Gives explicit
acknowledgement to the contribution of both innate structures and the role of the
environment. Social interactionists give importance to the interplay between linguistic
structures, cognitive abilities, and social & linguistic environment.
The innate structures allow for language acquisition to happen
