PSY 302 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Language Proficiency, Exaggeration, Eric Lenneberg
Document Summary
The key to language development is in the human brain. The critical-period hypothesis (lenneberg, 1967): most proficient at language learning before puberty. Influences of early deprivation (e. g. , genie, wild child) Effects of brain damage at different ages on language. Language proficiency of second language acquired at different ages. Unlike other animals, humans are prewired to acquire language o o. Dan slobin"s language-making capacity (lmc: a human environment. Infant-directed talk (idt): the distinctive mode of speech that adults adopt when talking to babies and very young children. Exaggeration: high pitch, extreme intonation, and slower speech; accompanied by exaggerated facial expressions. Infants prefer idt to speech directed to adults. Stage of language development: figure out the meaning. Categorical perception: perceiving speech sounds as belonging to discrete phonemic categories (e. g. , /p/ and /b/). Infants pick up on statistical regularities in speech: word-segmentation. Language comprehension: understanding what others say (or sign or write) Language production: actually speaking (or signing or writing) to others.
