Understanding Language Acquisition in Children
Learning Through Structured Output
In our culture, adults typically talk to children in a special way. We tend to speak more slowly and clearly. However, when adults use questions, embedded sentences, imperatives, and negatives with tag questions, we revert to the language used in a common basis, motherese. This simplified way of talking to children is not as detrimental as it seems because there are always windows in which grammatical, phonetic, and phonological structures return to what they are supposed to be.
Learning Through Reinforcement
B.F. Skinner proposed that a child learns language through positive reinforcement. His explanation for speech development was that parents tend to reward infant vocalizations (such as babbling) by giving the infant attention. This increases the frequency of vocalization. He suggested that a child will not progress from babbling to language unless parents shape the child’s language behavior.
After rewarding vocalizations for a while, parents become used to a child’s babbling and pay less attention to it. This motivates the infant to vary the babbling. Sometimes, by accident, the child produces more recognizable speech sounds. For example, if an infant suddenly said ‘Dadadada,’ parents might respond excitedly, thinking that the child is trying to say the word ‘Daddy.’ The response reinforces the child’s production of this type of speech sound. Other sounds that are less like actual speech tend to be ignored. However, parents soon get bored by repetitions of ‘Dadadada,’ and this motivates the child to modify such sounds until the shaping process results in recognizable words. This process continues, resulting in sentences of increasing complexity and grammatical correctness. In addition, the use of language is rewarded when a child asks for something and, as a result, succeeds in getting it.
Innate Hypothesis
The innate hypothesis is a linguistic theory of language acquisition which holds that at least some knowledge about language exists in humans at birth. This hypothesis supports linguistic nativism and was first proposed by Noam Chomsky. Facts about the complexity of human language systems, the universality of language acquisition, the facility that children demonstrate in acquiring these systems, and the comparative performance of adults in attempting the same task are all commonly invoked in support. However, the validity of the innateness hypothesis has been largely debated. Empiricists advocate that language is learned. Some have criticized Chomsky’s work, pinpointing problems with his theories, while others have proposed new theories to account for language acquisition.
Slips of the Tongue
A slip of the tongue is something that you say by accident when you intended to say something else. For instance: ‘I called her new boyfriend by her previous boyfriend’s name’ – it was just a slip of the tongue.
False Starts
False starts are found in spontaneous speech (not planned, basically). They occur when the speaker says something and then rearranges what he/she says, a kind of re-drafting. An example is: Fred: and I think he’s, he told me he’s glad he has one of those. To sum it up, they change what they say by rephrasing a part of speech.
Cooing and Babbling
The first stage of language development is known as the prelinguistic, babbling, or cooing stage. During this period, which typically lasts from the age of three to nine months, babies begin to make vowel sounds such as oooooo and aaaaaaa. By five months, infants typically begin to babble and add consonant sounds to their sounds, such as ba-ba-ba, ma-ma-ma, or da-da-da.
One/Two-Word Stage
Single Words: The second stage is known as the one-word or holophrase stage of language development. Around the age of 10 to 13 months, children will begin to produce their first real words. While children are only capable of producing a few single words at this point, it is important to realize that they are able to understand considerably more. Infants begin to comprehend language about twice as fast as they are able to produce it.
Two Words: The third stage begins around the age of 18 months, when children begin to use two-word sentences. These sentences usually consist of just nouns and verbs, such as ‘Where daddy?’ and ‘Puppy big!’