Language and the Mind Prof. R. Hickey SS 2006

Language acquisition and related areas of development

Berenika Witan (TN) and Melanie Elskamp (LN Grundstudium)

Silvia Drechsel (LN Grundstudium), Jennifer Lang (LN Grundstudium) and Christina Franitza (TN Grundstudium)

Jessica Narloch (LN Hauptstudium) and Katharina Bremer (LN Grundstudium)

IntroductionFirst Language Acquisition unconscious learning of one´s native language

which takes place during the first 6-7 years of one´s life

very rapid complete does not require any instructions

Biological maturation and language acquisitionpresenters:

Melanie

Berenika

Biological maturation and language acquisition the brain

- the areas and their functions

- speech comprehension and production

- human brain versus animal brain auditory and vocal tracts the case of Helen Keller and the importance of

senses stages of language development

The brain Where is the ability to use language

located? the obvious answer is “in the brain”

more specific: Neurolinguistics (the study of the relationship

between language and the brain)

Parts of the brain cerebral cortex / cerebrum

Broca’s area

Wernicke’s area

Motor cortex

Arcuate fasciculus

Cerebral cortex is divided into two hemispheres (two parts of

equal size), right and left

cerebral hemispheres are connected by fiber bundles (the most important is the corpus callosum, which connects the two hemispheres)

the cortex is the surface of the cerebral hemispheres

Broca´s Area located in the left hemisphere,

approximately above the left temple

called after its discoverer the French doctor Paul Broca

primarily involved in the encoding of speech (speech production)

Wernicke´s area located in the left hemisphere, just above the left ear

named after Karl Wernicke, the German scientist who discovered the area in the second half of the 19th century

Wernicke observed that damage to this part of the brain was found among patients who had speech comprehension difficulties

plays the major part in comprehension of speech

Motor cortexclose to Broca‘s area

governs movements of the articulatory organs

Arcuate fasciculus

a bundle of nerve fibersa bundle of nerve fibers

one of Wernicke´s discoveries one of Wernicke´s discoveries

forms a connection between Wernickeforms a connection between Wernicke´s area and Broca´s area´s area and Broca´s area

Reading aloud

To speak a word that is written:

- first the information reaches the primary visual cortex

- transmitted to Wernicke's area where it is processed into “stuff to speak“

- from there to Broca's area

- transmitted to the Primary Motor Cortex to “tell the mouth to start speaking“

posterior speech area,together with

Reading aloud

To speak a word that is heard:

- first the information gets to the primary auditory cortex

- transmitted to Wernicke's area, where it is interpreted

- from Wernicke's area,

information travels to Broca's area, then to the Primary Motor Cortex

Speech comprehension and speech production

Human brain versus animal brain

In comparing the brains of animals with those of humans the most noticeable difference is in the part of the brain which developed last in the course of evolution, the cerebral cortex. In humans the cerebral cortex has increased in size and complexity to become the largest part of the brain.

Human brain versus animal brain

Vocal and auditory tracts

The case of Helen Keller – the importance of senses

born in 1880 ill at the age of 19 months became deaf and blind Anne Sullivan became her

teacher teacher’s tasks

- to instill discipline in the girl - to teach the girl language

Helen’s breaktrough – the famous scene by a water pump

Importance of senses deaf children don´t progress to babbling they don´t receive auditory feedback (they

can´t hear themselves while speaking) at the beginning of language acquisition

blind children cannot associate names of objects with objects

they have to learn through the sense of touch

Stages of language acquisitionalready in the womb language melody

4 days Phonological discrimination

0.0 – 3 months Organic sounds, crying, cooing

4 – 5 months beginning of the babbling phase

10 – 12 months The first comprehensible words. After this follow one-word, two-word and many-word sentences. The only word stages is known as the holophrastic stage; Telegraphic speech refers to speech with only nouns and verbs.

...

2.5 years Inflection occurs, negation,interrogative and imperative sentences

3 years A vocabulary of about 1000 words

5 years The main syntactic rules have been acquired

These divisions of the early period of first language acquisition are approximate and vary from individual to individual.

Conclusion biological maturation strongly affects

language acquisition biological specializations include the brain,

the vocal and auditory tracts senses are very important while acquiring

language there are different stages of language

acquisition

Cognitive aspects of language acquisition – presenters:

Jenny Silvie

Linguistic and cognitive development

We are going to introduce you to the cognitive aspects of first language acquisition and to bilingualism.

I will focus on diseases as the answers to the question why some people are not able to speak properly, but we will also give you a short introduction to several other areas of this field.

What I am going to tell you…When does the process of language acquisiton

start?Do inborn speech abilities exist?Stages of language acquisition – and what if the

child does not acquire language in time? / Loss of speech…

Problems concerning first language acquisitionPossible diseases and their effectsThe MASA Syndrome as an example for a disease

which includes aphasiaExamples of speech disabilitiesHelp for people with speech disabilitiesSummary

When does the process of 1st language acquisition start?

1st word?

– No, that is too late.

1st interaction with others?

– Better.

Already in the womb?

– Maybe…

At the age of 12 months a child can listen to language, understand it and utters his or her first words, i. e. starts to speak.

Do inborn speech abilities exist?Assumption:

Knowledge -> structure of language in general

-> genetically encoded-> called: Language Acquisition Device

Stages of language acquisition – and what if the child does not acquire language in time? / Loss of speech…Progression from the babbling stage to that

of the multi-word sentence. Up to the age of about 7 a child has usually acquired all structural features of his or her mother-tongue.

But what if the child shows any retardation and does not start babbling or speaking in time? Or if one loses his or her ability of speaking through illness or accident?

Problems concerning first language acquisition

Can be due to either pathological processes or as a result of lacking interaction between the child in question and her / his family etc.

I want to focus on diseases which lead to a later and / or irregular development of speech abilities.

Possible diseases and their effects

Diseases etc.: Effect(s): aphasia

Stroke Impairment of thebrain

External injury Imp. of the brain

Tumor Press. on speech areas-> imp. of the brain

Genetic disord. Imp. of the brain

The MASA Syndrome as an example for a disease which includes aphasiaExample of a genetic disease which

includes aphasia -> MASA Syndrome

M-ental retardationA-phasiaS-huffling gaitA-dducted thumbs

Point mutation: Xq28 -> structural change of L1CAM proteine for nervous cell adhesion -> no adequate growth of brain

MASA Syndrome includes aphasiaExample: André, born in

November 1998Learns words slowlier /

forgets words after learning them, has to hear them much more often to learn them

Articulation problems (hypotone mouth area plus problems to differentiate sounds)

Can meanwhile… say most simple and some more difficult words

Multi-word sentences but dysgrammatical (eg. missing irregular verb forms)

Examples of speech disabilitiesTip of the tongue -> not necessarily pathological;

sudden block in lexical retrieval, released again for no reason

Ex: „Thilvia“ (Silvia)Slips of the tongue -> involuntary and

unintended switching of elements among words of a sentence

Ex: „Dondonlerry“ (Londonderry)Speech delay -> normal comprehension but

retarded speech productionStammering -> abnormalities in grammatical

smoothness and rhythmEx: „ We´rrre S-silv-vvia a-and J-j-jen-ny.“

Help for people with speech disabilitiesSpeech training -> for all kinds of speech

difficulties

Includes -> pronunciation training -> vocabulary training

-> comprehension training etc.

Is taught (trained) by special experts and should be practised at home as well.

Can help but not every affected person will be able to speak adequately in the end – depending on the cause of the speech problems.

What can we learn from speech disabilities? As people with speech disabilities usually

go through exactly the same stages of language develoment, we can see that the hierarchy of these stages must be inborn.

In fact, it can be assumed that if you take a representative cross-section of every language on Earth, you get what must be innate.

… Moreover, if one of the faculties

concerning language shows irregularities, we can see what the persons concerned to to compensate that (e.g. non-verbal communication), i. e. in how far this is possible or not.

The main conclusion is that every stage has to be completed before the next one can be taken.

So what we learn from language disorders is… Human beings learn from the general to the

particular: You have a set of structure plus a set of words, an

idea what to say -> then you take the words, put them into structures and thus create a sentence made of these items.

This implies that when you hear language you store it in modules – such of words, of grammar and syntax -> and you can use these items to build new sentence constructs whenever you need them as soon as you have internalized the individual modules.

SummarySo what we´ve learned now is:-> the process of first language acquisition starts

from birth (first interactions)-> speech abilities are inborn->there are certain stages of language acquisition-> there can be difficulties in language acquisition

due to different causes – and we can learn from them

-> speech training can help (at least improve the situation)

Conclusion

-> Inborn faculties such as Language Acquisition Device-> Usually normal LA through interaction -> brain disorders can cause aphasia-> in case of genetic disorder, certain diseases (eg. tumors) or accident (injury) resulting speech disabilities-> can be treated through special speech training

Bilingual Language Acquisition

.

Introduction Jennifer LangBilingual Language Acquisition Linguistic & cognitive development

Bi- & Multilingualism - This is the acquisition of two or more languages from birth

or at least together in early childhood.- The ideal situation where all languages are equally

represented in the child’s surrounding(s)- & where the child has an impartial relationship to each

is hardly to be found in reality so that: of two or more languages one is bound to be dominant

.Question

To what extent do bilingual children develop two separate linguistic systems?

Why study Bilingual children? growing importance of bi –and

multilingualism:

* increasingly internationally oriented word

* increased interest in crosslinguistic studies of language acquisition

Some facts about it early childhood bilingualism is a very

widespread phenomenon

(nearly half of the world’s population is bilingual)

—it can show us more clearly the limits of language acquisition

+potential for language learning in early childhood

.

early separation of

early capacity to focus on & analyze the structural properties of language

[high level of linguistic awareness]

Word

Referent

Factors which may affect the acquisition of a particular language

cognitive development personalitycontrolled in a bilingual population

Bilingual child - ideal subject for crosslinguistic research

- investigate relative impact of: language specific factors more universal factors(= in acquisition)

children very early (from before the age of two) very simultaneous very regular continued …exposed to more than one language

Input …wishes that the child do not mix up the

two languages

…different hypotheses what system the bilingual child has

( “what is the best source of input…”)

1 person =1 language Input ?

The initial single system hypotheses …This view off early bilingual development

has been discredited… more & more evidence suggest that

bilingual children do not differ much from monolingual children

…also pay a lot of attention to the input they receive

they soon notice that this input differs depending on

The initial single system hypothesis creation of a system that is quite different

from each of the child’s input system

.

who is talking ? where ? In what situation ? tend to talk like the people around them

Many options !

From the start: Morphosyntax appears to be language-specific

Insights about bilingual children development At a very young age bilingual children are

skilled conversationalists who easily switch

languages according to interlocutor. Bilingual situation

methodscomplications immense complexity

involved

.

Earlier studies: Question: separate v. nonseparate

development

Studies of today: major insight: In order to answer the question whether the

bilingual child uses language-specific rules or not one can only take as a basis for analysis

related constructions which differ in the input languages

Last but not least: 2.) Step Sociolinguistic situation ! Is a great contributor to the actual

language production of the bilingual child

A baseline for “normal” bilingual development has not yet been established

What is part of “normal” development in bilingual children,…

What is a deviant ---monolingual children?

“Wild Children“

...And how they acquire language

Introduction There are some children who grew up in

isolation of language for different reasons Here are some examples with the focus on

the way how these children learned language (after their isolation )

Victor Victor was found in the woods in Aveyron,

France in 1800 He was about 11 or 12 years old, as it was

assumed He appeared to be a “wolf child“ (only

wore a “tattered shirt“) He did not speak, only made “guttural

animal-like noises“

Victor 2

Jean-Marc Gaspard Itard cared for him and developed a special speech programme

Victor had to repeat some words or speech sounds, e.g.“Li“, or “lait“ and made him touch his neck to feel how the vocal cords vibrate

Itard told Victor how to spell “lait“ and other words using “cut-out letters“

Victor- 3 Victor realized “the relation between

written symbol and object“ He was able to use the cards and even to

write some words himself from memory He was able to say easy words as “lait“,

but did not acquire any further speech ability and that was why, in the end, Itard gave up on him

Victor 4 While learning how to read and write

Victor “went through some of the same problems of overgeneralization that ordinary children go through in learning language “

Genie Genie was discovered in the late 1970s in

the United States. She was 13 ½ years old She had been locked in a small room by

her father for 12 years, being mistreated and without being spoken to

In consequence of that she did not speak

Genie 2 Being cared for now, she learned many

new words during the first months She needed much time to understand

many things said to her, even 5-10 minutes to understand commands and carry them out

Genie 3 Genie went through the several stages

children go through when learning a language

She made “good progress in speech production“, but this progress was “very slow“

Her language ability remained below normal

Genie 4 It is not clear why Genie did not achieve

the “normal level“ of language and to what extend the trauma she went through influenced her ability in learning language, what psychological aspects may have disturbed her learning process

Isabelle Isabelle was discovered in 1938 in

Columbus, Ohio, in the USA She was 6 ½ years old She had been locked with her deaf and

mute mother in a room after birth; her mother only communicated through gestures

When Isabelle was found she did not speak and did not try to do but still used gestures

Isabelle 2 Mason, the assistant doctor of the speech

clinic where Isabelle was, helped her After one week Isabelle first tried to

vocalize sounds 3 months later Isabelle produced

utterances

Isabelle 3 1 year later she could listen to stories and

retell them, including complex structures, e.g. “What did Miss Mason say when you told her I cleaned the classroom?“

20 months later Isabelle was able to speak in full length sentences and in asking “intelligent“ questions

Isabelle 4 Isabelle got through the same stages as

other children do but more “rapidly“, as her speech development is described

Helen Helen Keller got deaf and blind because of

an illness when she was 19 months old Before that she had already got through

the first stages of language acquisition, but then was isolated from language

When she was 7 years old her parents engaged Anne Sullivan Macy to teach her

Helen 2 Macy taught her speech by touch; (Macy

spelled the word for the object she referred with her fingers into Helens‘ hand)

Macy also taught Helen how to speak by “directly touching the voice articulators (mouth, lips vocal cords etc. )“

Helen 3 Keller learned to speak, but with a

“strange voice“; she learned to read Braille and to write.

Her way to get there and the importance language has for her is described in her book “The story of my life“

Helen graduated from Radcliffe and became “an acclaimed lecturer and writer in the service of handicapped people“

Summary None of these children was able to learn

language without social contact Helen and Isabelle were able to acquire a

high stage of language, while Victor and Genie were not; the reasons are not clear

All these children went through the same stages of language acquisition

Next presenters: Katharina Bremerand Jessica Narloch

SOCIAL ASPECTS OF LANGUAGE ACQUISITION (part I)

Contents

Language Socialization and Grammatical Development

1. Introduction

2. Children as Addressees (including Parentese and Baby Talk)

3. Children as Speakers (Expansion, Imitation, Correction)

4. Use of Grammatical Forms

• Grammatical form as frequent but inappropriate for child use

•Grammatical form as infrequent but appropriate for child use

1. IntroductionLanguage Socialization:

- children are socialized through language

- children‘s use of language within a community

Question: When, how and why do children understand grammatical forms?

Something to do with

- cultural influence

- social order

2. Children as AddresseesDifferences in Cultures

USA/ Canada/ Europe Other Societies

- simplify language - children not engaged as addressees until they can produce language

- use parentese/baby talk - think it‘s strange to talk to preverbal children

- children don‘t understand/respond

- overhearers of nonsimplified language

Children as AddresseesDifference in Simplification

US/European working/middle-class

Javanese/ Kaluli

- Simplification involves modifications (parentese)

- Restricted to self-repitition and discourse

- baby talk not to teach but to communicate

- try to teach

- Parents think child will be good in conversation

- Prefer children as observers and overhearers

Children as AddresseesQUESTION:

Which way is the more efficient one?

The outcome in term of the ultimate acquisition of grammatical competence is not substancially different across these two cultural strategies!

Parentese One way parents talk to children

- talk about environment, not about difficult topics:

- „The dog wants water!“

simple

- „ That psycholinguistic topic at university is very interesting!“

difficult

ParenteseOther aspects of parentese:

- sentences = short- vocabulary = simple- speech = slower- pitch = higher- words = stressed, exaggerated- more pauses

Parentese also children ( ~ age 4 ) produce simplified

language when they talk to younger children!

Importance of parentese?- children whose parents do not use parentese

would learn language anyway- but children who receive parentese will learn

language faster

Baby Talk- vocabulary and syntax = simlified/reduced- consonant + vowel syllable repeated:

pee-pee (urine)

choo-choo (train)

bow-wow (dog)

HERE: does not have to be realistic!

Baby Talk- often add „iy“ :

birdy for bird horsie for horse kitty for kitten

- names easier than „I“ or „you“ (shifting speaker)- „Mommy loves Tommy!“- „I love you!“

Baby Talk not important, but parents love it (reinforces social solidarity)

3. Children as SpeakersExpansion:

Different possibilities if child produces ungrammatical utterance:

1. Ignore utterance2. Indicate that utterance is unclear3. Reformulate

The ways of expansion vary from community to community!

Children as Speakers Some adults do not respond = think that children don‘t

know what they say (aren‘t authors – just imitate)- sometimes caregivers speak to 3rd person as if the child was speaking (child = speaker without being author)

Others think children are authors of utterances

Cultural Gloss:Some communities offer a cultural gloss!

e.g. first utterance interpreted as meaning „mother“

Children as SpeakersExpansions: do not have to be right (maybe child did not

want to say „mother“) and do not have to fit (sometimes only cultural understanding of what child wants):

Child: „Baba!“

Mother: „Yes, you want a banana...b-a-n-a-n-a!“

Goal is not to make child an author of a unique personal message but to socialize infants into cultural appropriate persons

Children as SpeakersImitation:- children learn a lot by imitation: intonation,

sound, word order- doesn‘t include understanding of tenses - example: errors

mouses instead of mice

Children construct from rules they have in mind Rules have to be learned Imitation = limited aspect

Children as SpeakersCorrection:

- is not an important factor - parents rather respond to

truth value (child lying) social appropriateness (being polite) cleverness (praise child)

Correction is mostly unsuccessful! Repetition of corrected forms more useful!

4. Use of Grammatical FormsGrammatical form as frequent but inappropriate for

child use

Example 1: Samoan verb come = frequently used by adults but not by child Reason: - low status persons = physical

movement

- high status persons =direct lower status persons to carry out actions that require movement

Child understands intertextuality and does not use the verb because as a child it has a low status

Use of Grammatical FormsExample 2: Kaluli say like that = frequently used by caregivers who teach

language learning child only young girls (aged 2 to 4) use it when talking to

younger children, boys don‘t! Reason: boys do not feel responsible as caregivers

Reflection of understanding of gender appropriate behaviour!

CONCLUSION: children understand social and cultural intertextuality and act in role-appropriate manner!

Use of Grammatical FormsGrammatical form as infrequent but

appropriate for child use

Example 1: Kaluli Children say „having chewed give“ although

adults never say that (chew food themselves)

Makes clear that children do not only reflect ! They construct the language they need!

Use of Grammatical FormsExample 2: Samoan Children say „poor me/I“ although this form is not

being in their environment

Construct a speech act of begging to satisfy their desires!

Conclusion: The use of particular grammatical forms is linked to social and cultural norms!

Language & Socialization

• language effects socialization explicitely

e.g. parents give concrete directions to their children about what to say, when & how to say it

• content of socialization varies across cultures, nevertheless linguistic socialization always has the same goal:

promotion of communicative competences (ability to use language appropriately in the community)

Three distinctions in linguistic socialization:

1. Parents & other caregivers give instructions to their children about what to feel, think & do (social & moral rules)

Language is the medium to give those instructions:

e.g. commands, explanations or anecdotes as varieties of linguistic forms to convey social & moral rules

2. Parents teach children what to say (or not to say) in different situations:

e.g. speech forms including politeness, greetings, religious & holiday performatives like: “Thank you” or “trick or treat”.

3. Subtle & indirect aspects of linguistic interaciotn itself:

Certain features of interaction vary systematically & are correlated with individual or group variables:

e.g. parents interrupt girls more than boys; diminutives & terms of endearment are more directed to girls than to boys

Interactions like these express specific cultural & gender-based standards

Common contexts of socialization in Wester Society Behavioral & cognitive socialization at home Explicit linguistic socialisation (What to say) Indirect socialization at home (subtle cues) Fathers as conversational partners Mothers as conversational partners Sibling speech

Sibling speech:

As children get older they spend more and more time with one another (in conversations & other activities)

Opportunity to assume other roles than they assume talking to adult partners

Sibling-to-sibling conversation is more reciprocal They talk more about their own feelings (than in conversations

with their mothers e.g.) Children express more anger & distress toward siblings in

disputes Disputes are more focused on topics like rights & ownership Children use social rules as justifications more often in arguments

with siblings Children themselves act as socializing agents

Other contexts Language socialization in school Peers as conversational partners Television as a model

Television as a model Television is an attractive meduim with intrinsic appeal to

children Especially educational shows have a simple, redunant,

rarely disfluent language, that focusses on objects or events in the immediate context

Watching television must not be passive, if parents & children watch it together & afterwards talk about it

Children learn vocabulary from TV:Children who watch more educational TV have larger vocabularies than children who watch cartoons or sitcoms

The influence of TV on children‘s speech is little studied

Conclusion In verbal interactions with parents, siblings, teachers and

peers and through media like TV, children absorb many important values & beliefs of their community

Children are to some extent explicitely taught how to use language appropriately

1st language acquisition:Conclusion biological maturation strongly affects

language acquisition biological specializations include the brain,

the vocal and auditory tracts senses are very important while acquiring

language there are different stages of language

acquisition

References http://www.psypress.co.uk/pip/resources/slp/topic.asp?

chapter=ch14&topic=ch14-sc-03 http://staff.washington.edu/chudler/lang.html# http://www.bcp.psych.ualberta.ca/~mike/Pearl_Street/

Margin/OSHERSON/Vol1/Pinker.1.6.html http://papyr.com/hypertextbooks/grammar/lgdev.htm Language and the Mind Introduction Presentation (SS 2006)

http://www.uni-essen.de/ELE Linguistic Surveyor CD-Rom Pinker, Steven 1994. The language Instinct. London: Lane,

Penguin Pr. Steinberg, Danny 1993. An introduction to

psycholinguistics. London: Longman.

… The Cambridge Encyclopedia of The

English Language, 2nd edition, Cambridge University Press, 2003

The North Guide to Rare Diorders, The National Organization for Rare Disorders. Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2003 / MASA entry by Dr. Volker Schmid and Silvia Drechsel

Fletcher, Paul 1996. Handbook of Child Language. Blackwell Publishing

Last but not least:

THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION!