LIN200H1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Language Acquisition, Universal Grammar, Speech Perception
Document Summary
Lecture 5 language acquisition: language acquisition and innateness. Cross-linguistic uniformity of acquisition: acquisition is uniform across children and languages, evidenced by. Universal grammar: similarity of the language acquisition stages across diverse peoples and languages shows that children are equipped with special abilities to acquire language. Poverty of the stimulus: language is acquired without instruction, children do not receive enough data to acquire language simply from what they hear. Critical period: the facility for language acquisition is limited to a fixed period, from birth to puberty, even before puberty, facility with language acquisition deteriorates quickly, developmental sequences. New phonemic contrasts emerge first in word initial place. Interdentals are acquired last: markedness of speech sound acquisition. The one-word stage: between 12 and 18 months, the use of words tends to be either overextension or underextension, first words, spoken around 12 months, and has 50 words by 18 months. The two-word stage: between 18 to 24 months, combinations of words.
