Chapter 5: Language acquisition
Cognitive development vs language acquisition
Traditional distinction between language & thought:
- Basic concepts seem to be preverbal
- Language acquisition seemed such a remarkable feat for the infant brain that it was
assumed that special capacities must be at work (capacities distinct from the capacities
underpinning broader cognitive development)
o Chomsky suggested infants were born with ‘language acquisition device’
which helped acquire the child’s language
o Infants are born with innate knowledge of the general rules of languages, along
with knowledge of permitted variations (Chomsky)
Actually, language acquisition depends on the same kinds of learning mechanisms that
underpin broader cognition
A whole lot of information is acquired by simply observing (for broader cognition this
is mainly done through watching, but for language acquisition its mostly through
listening)
Infants use same ability to acquire language as knowledge about the world: associative
learning, learning by imitation, tracking statistical dependencies, tracking conditional
probabilities, making analogies
Auditory perceptual information is replete with statistical cues to the phonotactic
patterns of language (=sounds that make up a language, and order in which they are
combined), cues to word boundaries and cues to the emotional content of speech
Information is gained passively and supplemented by the infant’s actions (in language:
babbling, trying out sound combination)
Social interaction is fundamental to natural language learning
o Auditory statistical information is augmented by other kinds of perceptual
information that conveys meaning & reference
Situational context
Facial expressions
o Learning task for baby is facilitated by:
Motherese/Infant Directed Speech (IDS): exaggerated register that
emphasizes word & phrase boundaries that makes segmentation of the
speech stream easier for the infant
Apparently inborn propensity for attachment, social interaction &
communication
Phonological development
Two aspects:
- Learn sounds & combinations of sounds that are permissible in a certain language, so
that the brain can develop phonological representations of the sound structure of
individual words
- Learn to produce these words yourself
, Both types of learning undergo protracted development (children often fluent in
understanding & producing language at 5, but new challenges require further
development)
Categorical perception
Phoneme= short-hand term for the individual sound element that makes up a word (short-
hand because they are an abstraction from the physical signal)
Languages are based on two types of phonemes: consonant phonemes & vowel phonemes
Important job for infant learner is to learn the phonemes of their native language
Research shows that the ability to discriminate sounds within own language increases with
time, while that of another languages decreases with time
- Seems that the children’s brain specialize in the language that they hear the most
- Develop prototypes of the phoneme categories special to their language
- (Perceptual) Magnet effect: prototypical sounds in a language that act as a ‘magnet’
for perceptually similar sounds as to perceive such sounds as belonging in the same
category
- Social interaction plays a critical role in perceptual learning: infants learn language
because they are motivated to interact with partners to communicate
Phonotactic learning
Phonotactics= rules that govern the sequences of phonemes used to make words in a
particular language (helps us determine where one word ends and another begins)
- Able to extract words based on (among other cues) phonotactic probability
Infant-directed speech, rhythm and prosody
- IDS/Motherese is a natural tendency, and therefore seems to have a developmental
purpose
o Higher pitch & exaggerated intonation may help infant pick out words out of
the speech stream
o Evidence that babies prefer to listen to Motherese and that cues help them
identify words
o Pitch is used to highlight new words in speech to infants
o Word forms with identical phonemes but differential stress patterns are treated
as different words
o Some evidence that when words differ by one phoneme but have identical
stress, infants do not distinguish between them
o Duration, intensity and pitch of vowels can also carry information about the
syntactic structure of a language
Early phonological production
- First signal to caretakers by crying & nonvocal sounds (grunting, sneezing, coughing)
- Stages of speech-like development
o 0-2 months: ‘comfort sounds’ with normal speech-like phonation (sound like
vowels)
Cognitive development vs language acquisition
Traditional distinction between language & thought:
- Basic concepts seem to be preverbal
- Language acquisition seemed such a remarkable feat for the infant brain that it was
assumed that special capacities must be at work (capacities distinct from the capacities
underpinning broader cognitive development)
o Chomsky suggested infants were born with ‘language acquisition device’
which helped acquire the child’s language
o Infants are born with innate knowledge of the general rules of languages, along
with knowledge of permitted variations (Chomsky)
Actually, language acquisition depends on the same kinds of learning mechanisms that
underpin broader cognition
A whole lot of information is acquired by simply observing (for broader cognition this
is mainly done through watching, but for language acquisition its mostly through
listening)
Infants use same ability to acquire language as knowledge about the world: associative
learning, learning by imitation, tracking statistical dependencies, tracking conditional
probabilities, making analogies
Auditory perceptual information is replete with statistical cues to the phonotactic
patterns of language (=sounds that make up a language, and order in which they are
combined), cues to word boundaries and cues to the emotional content of speech
Information is gained passively and supplemented by the infant’s actions (in language:
babbling, trying out sound combination)
Social interaction is fundamental to natural language learning
o Auditory statistical information is augmented by other kinds of perceptual
information that conveys meaning & reference
Situational context
Facial expressions
o Learning task for baby is facilitated by:
Motherese/Infant Directed Speech (IDS): exaggerated register that
emphasizes word & phrase boundaries that makes segmentation of the
speech stream easier for the infant
Apparently inborn propensity for attachment, social interaction &
communication
Phonological development
Two aspects:
- Learn sounds & combinations of sounds that are permissible in a certain language, so
that the brain can develop phonological representations of the sound structure of
individual words
- Learn to produce these words yourself
, Both types of learning undergo protracted development (children often fluent in
understanding & producing language at 5, but new challenges require further
development)
Categorical perception
Phoneme= short-hand term for the individual sound element that makes up a word (short-
hand because they are an abstraction from the physical signal)
Languages are based on two types of phonemes: consonant phonemes & vowel phonemes
Important job for infant learner is to learn the phonemes of their native language
Research shows that the ability to discriminate sounds within own language increases with
time, while that of another languages decreases with time
- Seems that the children’s brain specialize in the language that they hear the most
- Develop prototypes of the phoneme categories special to their language
- (Perceptual) Magnet effect: prototypical sounds in a language that act as a ‘magnet’
for perceptually similar sounds as to perceive such sounds as belonging in the same
category
- Social interaction plays a critical role in perceptual learning: infants learn language
because they are motivated to interact with partners to communicate
Phonotactic learning
Phonotactics= rules that govern the sequences of phonemes used to make words in a
particular language (helps us determine where one word ends and another begins)
- Able to extract words based on (among other cues) phonotactic probability
Infant-directed speech, rhythm and prosody
- IDS/Motherese is a natural tendency, and therefore seems to have a developmental
purpose
o Higher pitch & exaggerated intonation may help infant pick out words out of
the speech stream
o Evidence that babies prefer to listen to Motherese and that cues help them
identify words
o Pitch is used to highlight new words in speech to infants
o Word forms with identical phonemes but differential stress patterns are treated
as different words
o Some evidence that when words differ by one phoneme but have identical
stress, infants do not distinguish between them
o Duration, intensity and pitch of vowels can also carry information about the
syntactic structure of a language
Early phonological production
- First signal to caretakers by crying & nonvocal sounds (grunting, sneezing, coughing)
- Stages of speech-like development
o 0-2 months: ‘comfort sounds’ with normal speech-like phonation (sound like
vowels)
