Communicationand

Language

Elaborating upon the Relationship between Language and Social Interaction

Sinéad McNallyEmail: smphelan@tcd.ie

Aims To highlight the early impact of social

capacities on communication and language development/acquisition

To explore the social features of language use, i.e. the pragmatic use of language

Language Definition of Language: “system of symbols

and rules that enable us to communicate” (Harley, 2008); a “culturally specific communication system” (Hauser, Chomsky, & Tecumseh Fitch, 2002).

Communication Definition of Communication: “a range of

purposeful behaviour which is used with intent within the structure of social exchanges, to transmit information, observations, or internal states, or to bring about changes in the immediate environment.” (Stokes, 2001)

Communication is necessarily social but not all language use is social or intentional. Communication is therefore more than the language system

i.e. it is possible to be communicative without possessing a functional use of language, and it is possible to be a fluent language user with impoverished communicative skills or a lack of communicative intent.

However, language is a primary medium in social interaction, Maynard et al. 2003

Further, social Interaction may be essential for speech acquisition, Kuhl 2007

Social Cognition in Language Development

Atypical Language Development: Autism

Autism: Neurodevelopmental Disorder Triad of Impairment: Social, Communicative, and

Imaginative Functioning Research on Impairment in Autism tells us a lot

about the overlap between social-communication and language

Shared communicative impairment in autism in the pragmatics, or social use, of language

Recent emphasis on the importance of joint attention (JA), appreciation of the communicative intent of others, desire to imitate

Kuhl hypothesised that social interaction is essential for natural speech learning: social processes in the brain “gate” the computational processes that are involved in language acquisition (Kuhl, 2007).

Language impairment in autism appears to support this theory: impairment in pre-linguistic social-communicative behaviours in autism play a significant role in deviation in the development of language.

Several researchers have posited a social deficit theory of language impairment in children with autism (Dawson & Faja, 2008; Mundy & Crowson, 1997).

Social deficit: Motivation and Affect targeted in early intervention

Typical Language Development Social-communicative aspect of language use is

present from a very early age Infant’s capacities for eye contact, laughing and

cooing, and responding with vocalisations to an adult’s speech, develop in the first few months of life and are pre-requisites for more sophisticated social-communicative capacities such as joint attention (at one year of age) and symbol use.

Stern 1977: The communication dance Trevarthen: Early protoconversations, gaze

direction/eye pointing, joint attention, joint referencing, turn taking

Young infant as an active agent in the complex social interactions between infant and caregiver rather than a passive observer.

Evidence of early social-communicative strategies of typical toddlers allow him or her to respond to others’ speech without fully understanding the content of that speech (Paul, 2008).

Importance of social interaction for language learning (Bruner, Vygotsky)

Social scaffolding: e.g. requiring more complex responses throughout interaction

Is speech learning 'gated' by the social brain? (Kuhl 2007)

Mandarin learning task for American infants: Group one exposed to Mandarin via live interaction; Group two exposed to Mandarin via TV or audio-only

Learning occurred in live interaction group only (Kuhl 2007)

Why does social interaction/context have such an impact on language learning? In what way?

General effects of attention and arousal on learning? i.e. is infant more motivated to attend to adult and therefore learns better?

Or is it that social interaction provides specific information? Referential information through eye gaze, shared attention?

Kuhl raises question: What is a social agent? Can it be an inanimate object imbued with interactive features (contingent and reciprocal interactions) be equally effective? Yet to find out

Both autism and Williams Syndrome associated with atypicalities in the “social brain”

Evidence of a dissociation in sociability between inidividuals with autism and WS: may impact on development in each disorder (WS gaze longer at faces, Autism gaze less than typical) Riby & Hancock, 2008

Pragmatics of Language Use

Social Cognition Discourse formulation requires understanding &

manipulating both linguistic information & the cognitive operations essential to the organisation of information

“Social cognition encompasses wide ranging abilities including interpreting social cues, communication, interactions and social referencing that are sub-served by a complex distributed neural system” (Riby & Hancock, 2008)

Relatively little known about what is absolutely necessary for discourse production

E.g. grammatically correct sentences do not ensure well-formed discourse

Conversely, grammatically incorrect sentences do not preclude successful discourse production

Pragmatics of Language Pragmatic = useful, functional, purposeful Narrow view = pragmatics is one independent

component in language system Broad view (interactionist) = communication is

integrated system of rules. Pragmatic functions drive the choice of syntactic & semantic elements

More appropriate to understand semantics & syntax in relation to their achieving a desired purpose in communication

Discourse is a broad category applicable to the study of most aspects of language

Influences how we speak (choice of grammatical categories, sentences, concepts)

Speaker’s motivation to communicate & his/her perception of listener’s needs influences choice of pronouns etc.

Conversational Discourse Provides opportunity for a realistic

assessment of how a speaker uses words/sentences in naturalistic context

Strongly influenced by context (modify uterrances according to formal/informal context)

L = social function, therefore should be studied in interpersonal context

Discourse Coherence Clarity of message We expect discourse coherence Based on Grice’s set of 4 maxims (1975)

Quality: information will be truthful Quantity: information will be sufficient, not excessive Relation: speaker will operate with what they know to be

relevant Manner: discourse will be clear, concise & organised

Topic maintenance: how well utterances relate to each other / to a general topic

Informativeness: amount of information provided to listener

Referencing: identification of individuals, events, locations, features etc.

Pragmatic Impairment Pragmatics explicitly relates language and

cognition Pragmatic impairment resides at

communication/cognition interface Theory of mind is considered to be an

ability to take account of each other’s views and representations of a shared world

Take account of another’s knowledge by providing relevant topic responses: referential behaviour

Joint attention is necessary to talk about a specific topic/object

Even when JA is successfully maintained, we must take into account what the other person knows/believes about the object as well as our own knowledge/belief

We must be able to represent different mental states

Otherwise, interaction progress is limited We are constantly monitoring listener’s

state Each system involved is considered to

overlap – no claims of modularity

Primary Pragmatic Impairment Linguistic system is essentially intact (phonology,

syntax etc.) but impaired communicative performance.Result of dysfunction somewhere within central cognitive system

Cognitive dissociation of some L abilities from cognitive non-L abilities established in Williams Syndrome

Also seen in cases of aphasia where communication unaffected despite Language impairment

Aspects of Pragmatic Impairment1. Social Cognition & Theory of Mind

The ability to make inferences about other’s actions, beliefs etc. in order to predict behavior

Also the ability to turn-take & modify other’s behavior through own actions

New evidence for a neural correlate of ToM in left medial frontal gyrus

Deficits include inability to entertain possibility that other people have mental states

2. Affect: Emotion – plays key role in communication Strongly linked to ToM & social cognition In linguistic system affect is linked to prosody In autism – developmental social pragmatic

model of intervention for language: emphasises shared affect, linked to meaning and motivation to interact

3. World Knowledge: Depends on other cognitive systems (memory, social

cognition) for storage & acquisition Closely linked to lexicon (where items have both linguistic

& conceptual characteristics) World knowledge depends on effective functioning of

other cog systems during development & during L production & comprehension

E.g. developmental delay can lead to limited interests, circumscribed knowledge base & hence limited topics

Finally… Social deficit negatively impacts on the

development of language Any language impairment inevitably

reduces communicative effectiveness & extent of social interaction

Language impairment restricts the speaker in range of choices available for encoding what they wish to say

Readings Harley, T. A. (2008). The Psychology of Language: From

Data to Theory (Third ed.). East Sussex: Psychology Press. Chapter 14

Kuhl, P. K. (2007). Is speech learning 'gated' by the social brain? Developmental Science, 10(1), 110-120.

Paul, R. (2008). Communication development and assessment. In K. Chawarska, A. Klin & F. R. Volkmar (Eds.), Autism Spectrum Disorders in Infants and Toddlers. NY: Guildford Press.

A copy of all readings can be found in June Switzer’s office