Chomsky language acquisition devise (LAD) Exposure to language not required, we are hard-wired to acquire and process it. Example: brain equipment. Think of a specialized language center in your brain. There are actually areas In the brain where you process language. General Cognitive Ability View (NURTURE) Nurture: language Is something that we develop over time Nothing “special” about language It Is a tool that we have developed because of our evolved brains AND through exposure. Like a computer, we’re able to process language.
It’s not that there’s an rear in the brain that’s specialized FOR language, it’s that our brain IS specialized to process language. Babies first words All mama and papa first words are VERY similar across languages. (Emma, pop is the farthest thing, Korean) Language acquisition occurs quickly across a wide variety of cultures Mother and father related words are typically the first wounds a child utters +1 for nature, language similar = innate +1 for nurture: its easy for babies to make these kind of ma and pa sounds Which one does the evidence support? Feral children: wild, excellent In a natural state 1 for nature. She wasn’t really able to develop language skills. If language was innate, she would have been able to acquire some sort of language capability) Steps in Language Acquisition Presses: crying Babies make other sounds than crying at this stage, but this is kind a big one. No real “linguistic” messages being communicated Step 1: Cooing (1-2 months old) Make sounds other than crying, (uh, lull, UHF) sounds Produces all possible sounds of language (phones) but not those specific to a particular language Not just imitation of adult speech, they’re Just testing out this ice equipment that they have.
Step 2: Babbling (by 6 months) Adjusting to their native language Becoming aware of these smaller parts of language (ma, pa, baa) Deaf children, coo but do not babble orally. Holograph’s: one- word utterances, language where each word can mean different things (e. G. Momma) Adjust to the sounds of their native language (“food” if they want food, “up” if they want picked up) Step 4: Two-Word Utterances (18-24 months) Telegraphic speech: short phrases, not really adding in anything as complex as “let’s o to the car” but rather “go car” Primitive grammar: “go car” has a verb and a noun.
Very simple usage of grammar. Two common errors at this stage 1 . Over-extension errors: use single word to cover many things. (e. G. Doggy) every animal is doggy. Over-regulation errors: misapplying grammatical rules such as verb tenses (E. G. I goal went- I good) Step 5: Basic Adult Language (by age 6) Children have a near adult command of the language, but vocabulary will continue to grow rapidly Age 2: 250 Age 3: 900 Age 4: 1500 Age 5: 2100 School age (6 and up): over 1000 new words/year
BY age 20 (80,000 to 100,000) Argument for General Cognitive Ability View Statistical analyses suggest that language has structure and is not as impoverished as others would argue Simple, general learning tools could account for the acquisition of language 0 therefore, language is not special. Argument for the Innate Linguistic Ability View Chomsky argument A child and kitten are both exposed to language The child learns it but not the kitten “Poverty of the stimulus argument” Children are underexposed to language but they seem to be able to acquire a very east knowledge.
Have been exposed to only a little but know a lot. Deaf child born to hearing parents Parents learn SSL as 2nd language Child is a lot better at SSL Universal Grammar Some languages have been discovered that do NOT comfort to the traditional grammatical structure that researches claim exists innately No “universal grammar” hard-wired into the brains of all humans Recursion: he lived in the house. Jack built the house. He lived in the house that Jack built. This language does not combine the things in one sentence.
