Psychology 2410A/B Lecture 6: Language Development

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 2410A/B
• Professor: Lynne Zarbatany

Document Summary

Language development is amazing: most children go from not talking at all before the first year to speaking in complex sentences by age 3, kids know 14 000 words by age 6, kids learn language automatically, like walking. Deals with the sound patterns in language. Phonemes:smallest unit of sound that creates differences in meaning (hat versus cat versus cot) By 10 months, lose the ability to distinguish phonemes in languages besides our own: semantics. Morphemes: smallest grammatical units of language that convey meaning (e. g. , -ed, s, ing: syntax, pragmatics together to create meaning. Deals with the ordering of language (grammar); rules for putting words. Seems to be more under biological aspects than the others. Deals with the intended meaning of language; goes beyond literal. Develops over many years (e. g. , sarcasm, conversational norms, narrative meaning skills) Language development in early childhood: prelinguistic(first year) (perceptual narrowing) By 10 months, lose sensitivity to phonemic distinctions in other languages.