PSYC 335 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Syntactic Bootstrapping, Universal Grammar, Language Module
19 Jun 2018
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Process of Language Acquisition
Meaning from Context
Pragmatic cues
o aspects of the social context used for word learning.
o These include the adult's focus of attention and intentionality (taking turns, joint
attention, pointing)
o around 18 months
Children also use the linguistic context in which novel words appear to help infer their
meaning.
o Syntactic bootstrapping
o children use grammatical structure of whole sentences to figure out
meaning
eg. "find kradding"
using context from sentence to understand a new word
Putting Words Together
First sentences
o By age 1 = 1 first word
o By age 2 = 2 word sentences
o By age 3 = 3 story telling
o End of second year: most children begin to combine words into simple
sentences
o Telegraphic speech
o children's first sentences in which nonessential elements are missing
o Around 2½ years of age: four-word sentences which often contain more than
one clause
Learning grammar
Strongest support for child learning grammatical rules
o Word endings (ing, ed)
o Overregularization (mouse -> mice vs. mouses)
Parents role in grammatical development
o Modeling correct grammar and expanding incomplete utterances
Conversational Skills
Much of very young children's speech is directed toward themselves.
Collective monologues
o The content of each child's turn having little or nothing to do with what
the other child has just said.
Gradually the capacity for sustained conversation increases.
The extent to which children talk about the past increases dramatically over the
preschool period.
o 3-year-olds include brief references to past events
o 5-year-olds produce narratives that have the basic structure of a story.
Parents scaffold their children's narratives.
The ability to sustain a conversation continues to improve after the preschool
years.
Current Theoretical Issues in Language Development
Chomsky
Noam Chomsky countered Skinner by pointing out why language cannot be learned
through processes of reinforcement and punishment.
Document Summary
Pragmatic cues: aspects of the social context used for word learning, these include the adult"s focus of attention and intentionality (taking turns, joint attention, pointing, around 18 months. Children also use the linguistic context in which novel words appear to help infer their meaning: syntactic bootstrapping, children use grammatical structure of whole sentences to figure out meaning. Strongest support for child learning grammatical rules: word endings (ing, ed, overregularization (mouse -> mice vs. mouses) Parents role in grammatical development: modeling correct grammar and expanding incomplete utterances. Much of very young children"s speech is directed toward themselves. The content of each child"s turn having little or nothing to do with what the other child has just said. Gradually the capacity for sustained conversation increases. The extent to which children talk about the past increases dramatically over the preschool period: 3-year-olds include brief references to past events, 5-year-olds produce narratives that have the basic structure of a story.
