Language & Literacy I EMAT634 W. Scott-Simmons

REVISIT: Theories of Language Acquisition  Cambourne – Conditions of Learning  Halliday – Language Acquisition: Function  Skinner – Language Acquisition: Imitation  Chomsky: Language Acquisition: Innateness  Piaget: Language Acquisition: Cognition  Vygotsky: Social Development

Language Acquisition Chart Stage I

Stage II

Stage III

Stage IV

Preproduction

Early Production

Speech Emergence

Intermediate Fluency

Characteristics

Physical response; minimal comprehension; up to 500 receptive words

One or two-word responses; disconnected speech; limited comprehension; up to 1,000 receptive/ reactive words

Connected speech; simple sentence responses; up to 3,000 receptive/ reactive words

Simple/complexsentence responses (discourse); Increased comprehension Beyond 3000 receptive/activewords

Teacher Strategies

Uses commands to teach receptive language (TPR) Requires physical response to check comprehension Asks student to show/draw answers to questions Asks "yes/no" questions Uses manipulatives and props Shows/writes key words after oral presentation

Continues to expand receptive language Encourages all attempts to respond Asks students questions that require one/two words to answer: Who? What? Where? When? Which one? Use concrete objects Displays print to support oral presentation

Expands receptive language through comprehensible input; Engages student in producing language such as describing, re-telling, comparing, contrasting, defining, summarizing, reporting Asks application questions: What do you do when? How do you react when?

Develops cognitive academic language: oral and written Introduces figurative language Asks "why" questions soliciting opinion, judgment, prediction, hypotheses, inference, creation Engages student in higher-order thinking skills

Rough Timeline

Birth to 2 months

2 – 4 months

1 – 2 years

3-5 years

Human Development & Language  Researched focus of Linguists & Psychologists  Language learning - fascinating aspect of human development  How do children accomplish language acquisition?  What are the processes involved in stringing words together to form sentences?  What prompts a child to push deeper into the development of complex grammatical language even though initial, simplistic communication is successful?  Do language acquisition patterns & processes transcend culture and nationality?  How does bi-lingualism develop? Lightbrown, P., & Spada, N. (2006). How languages are learned. New York: Oxford University Press.

Language Characteristics – The Infant  Developmental Sequences – 1st Language Acquisition :

Early Weeks  Infants have little conscious control over the cooing

sounds that they make in early weeks of life  Infants are able to hear subtle differences in the sounds of human languages 

Eimas (1971): EX: babies can hear the difference between pa & ba

Language Characteristics – First Years  Babies understand a few repeated words  Will produce a few understandable words by 12 months  By 24 months can reliably produce at least 50 words  Begin to combine words into short sentences: i.e. Mommy juice, baby down     

Called telegraphic sentences as they omit articles, prepositions, & auxiliary verbs Also missing function words & grammatical morphemes Word order used reflects word order heard (syntax beginning) Sign of creative word combination EX: What is the intent behind kiss baby vs. baby kiss

Think about this information as it relates to dialect, culture, geography, & SES

Predictable Patterns  Related to cognitive development: First three years  EX: no use of temporal adverbs until a sense of time is developed  EX: aware of the concept of singular & plural long before adding endings to nouns (irregular plurals may take much longer to master)

Grammatical Morphemes  Landmark longitudinal study of language development  : 1960’s – Roger Brown; Jill & Peter deVilliers (1973)  Three children (Adam, Eve, Sarah)  14 grammatical morphemes acquired in a similar manner – developmental sequence         

Present progressive (ing – Mommy running) Plural (-s – two books) Irregular past forms (Baby went) Possessive (‘s – Daddy’s hat) Copula (Annie is happy) Articles the and a Regular past (-ed - She walked) Third person singular simple present (-s – She runs) Auxiliary be (He is coming)

 Children mastering those at the bottom of the list were very

likely to master those concepts at the top (the reverse was not true)  Not acquired at the same age or rate by the children

Grammatical Morpheme Sequence Rationale  Frequency in parents’ speech  Cognitive complexity of the meanings represented by

the morphemes  Difficulty level of the pronunciation  Interplay between all of the above

Assessment: Grammatical Morpheme Development  Wug Test – Jean Berko Gleason (1950’s)

 Generalizing rules using nonsense words: PLURALS:  Children are shown drawings of an imaginary

creature  Informed “This is a wug”  Next picture shows two creatures; ask child to complete the sentence  “Now I have two wug ? “

Assessment: Grammatical Morpheme Development  Wug Test – Jean Berko Gleason (1950’s)

 Generalizing rules using nonsense words: PAST TENSE:  Children are shown drawings of a man doing

something  Informed “Here is a man who knows how to bod.”  “Yesterday, he did the same thing. Yesterday he ______ed.”

Assessment: Grammatical Morpheme Development  Ability to generalize language rules using

nonsense words demonstrates an understanding beyond memorization  Demonstration of the systematic acquisition of language patterns  …and the ability to move beyond mere “knowledge” to

synthesis, analysis, & application ( on Bloom’s Taxonomy)

Negation  Children learn the function of negation very early  Disappearance of objects  Refuse a suggestion  Reject an assertion  Bloom (1991) discovered in a longitudinal study that

even though children can express negation with gestures or a single word, “no,” it takes time for expression in full sentence form  Appropriate word usage & word order

Negation – Stages of Development  Stage 1: Expressed by the single word “no”  Beginning of the sentence – “No cookie”; “No comb hair”  Stage 2: Sentences grow longer & a subject may be included  Negative word appears just before the verb – “Daddy no comb hair”  Stage 3: Negation expressed in a correct English pattern

through a more complex sentence; additional negation forms may be added other than “no”; negative attached to auxiliary or modal verb  “He can’t do it”; “I don’t want it”

 Stage 4: Negative element is attached to the correct form of

the auxiliary verb – i.e.: ‘do’ & ‘be’  “She doesn’t want it”

*May still have trouble with negative features: “I don’t have no more candy”

Questions  Developmental Sequence: Predictable order to “wh” questions

(Bloom, 1991)  What  Where  Who

identifying & locating people & objects in the child’s understanding of the world; also represent the type of questions frequently asked by adults; “Who is that?” “Where is dad?”

 Why – emerges around the end of the second year & lasts approx 2

years; children learn that it is an easy way to engage adults in conversation

 How & When emerge last as the child begins to develop deeper

understanding of time; cognitive resonance developed with the responses received

Questions: Stages

 Stage 1: Simple, single word or tw0 to three word sentences with rising

intonation – “Cookie?”  Stage 2: Word order of the declarative sentence with rising intonation – “You like this?”  Stage 3: Notice the changing structure of sentences & begin to produce in accordance with that observation – “Can I go?” “Are you hungry?”  This stage may exhibit a pattern known as “fronting” – the placement of

a question word or verb form at the start to a sentence: “Is teddy is tired?” “Why you don’t have any?” Notice the remainder of the sentence is in statement form

 Stage 4: Questions are formed by subject-auxiliary inversion – similar

to stage 3 with more variety in the auxiliaries that appear before the verb – “”Are you going to play with me?”  “Do” questions may be added at this stage, “Do dogs like chocolate?”

 Stage 5: Both “wh” & yes/no questions formed correctly – “Why did you

do that?”

 Negatives may still be difficult – “Why the teddy bear can’t go outside?”  Overgeneralization of the inverted form may exist – “Ask him why can’t

he go out.”

 Stage 6: Correct formation of all types of questions including negative

& complex embedded questions

How do the language cueing systems (phonological, syntactic, semantic, pragmatic) relate to this information?

Developmental Language Milestones  See Puzzling Pieces  PRESCHOOL – By age 4: most children are able to ask

questions, give commands, report events, create stories; understand language as a tool of expression & connection      

Using correct word order Using correct grammatical markers Mastered basic structure of the language spoken to them Vocabulary continues to learned at several words per day Acquisition of passive & relative clauses Metalinguistic awareness is developing (ability to treat language as an object separate from the meaning it conveys – awareness that it is semantically silly to say “drink the chair” & that “cake the eat” is incorrect syntactically

Developmental Language Milestones  See Puzzling Pieces  SCHOOL YEARS –  more sophisticated metalinguistic awareness through learning to read (language, represented by letter symbols, has a form & meaning)  more sophisticated metalinguistic awareness through a greater understanding of language ambiguity (the multiple nature of language)  greater understanding that a word is separate from the thing it represents  amazing growth of vocabulary  acquisition of different language registers (codeswitching)    

Written language differs from spoken language Playground language is different from classroom language Math language is different from art language Ethnic language is very different from school language

Behaviorism & Language Acquisition  Say what I say  B. F. Skinner (leading behaviorist – 1940’s & 1950’s)  Positive adult reinforcement in the form of praise

when speech replicates mandated form as presented by the adult  The tabula rasa epistemology – belief that children are born as blank slates without any preconceived or built-in metal content, knowledge or ability; knowledge is gained through experience & perception

Innatism & Language Acquisition  It’s all in your mind  Noam Chomsky (leading linguist – 1950’s)  All human languages are fundamentally innate  children are biologically programmed for language

(language develops naturally as with other biological functions – i.e., all children will learn to walk, at approximately the same time, if provided sufficient nourishment , freedom & room to explore)  there exists a fundamental UG (Universal Grammar – how language systems are used & function)  CPH (Critical Period Hypothesis) – we are genetically programmed to acquire certain kinds of knowledge and skills at specific times / periods in life

Do you truly believe in Teacher Efficacy & Lifelong Learning? Research the following cases as support or contradiction of Chomsky’s theory of CPH: 1. The theories & beliefs of Jean-Marc Gaspard Itard (1799) & Victor 2. The theories espoused by the work of Susan Curtiss (1977) & Genie

Interactionism / Developmentalism & Language Acquisition  Learning from the inside out  Piaget & Vygotsky  Cognitive & developmental psychologists emphasize the

developmental aspects of learning (vs. the innatists who focus on the end goal or “end state”)  What children need to know they learn from experience  What children learn they do so from the language they are exposed to  Learning occurs in the connection between the innate ability of children to learn AND the environment in which the learning occurs  Greater importance placed on environment

 Emphasize the power of cognitive development  Importance of Interaction & Connection

Disorders & Delays  Deafness  Articulatory Challenges  Dyslexia

Glossary  accuracy order  action research  active listening  American Sign Language (ASL)  audiolingual approach  auditory discrimination  Behaviorism

 bilingualism  child-directed speech

Glossary  cognate  Cognitivist  cognitive maturity  communicative competence  Connectionism  Critical Period Hypothesis  declarative knowledge

 developmental sequence  formulaic language

Glossary  function words  grammatical morphemes  information processing  Innatism  Interactionist hypothesis  interlocutor  language acquisition

 longitudinal study  metalinguistic awareness

Glossary  mitigation  Morpheme  negotiation of form  negotiation of meaning  private speech  procedural knowledge  rate of development

 scaffolding  Sociocultural Theory

Glossary  teacher talk  Universal Grammar (UG)  working memory  Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)

Additional Resources  Casson, R. (1981). Language, culture, & cognition. New     

York: Macmillan Publishers. Montgomery, M. (1986). An introduction to language & society. New York: Routledge. Pinker, S. (1994). The language instinct. New York: William Morrow. Seminsky, C., & Spielberger, M. (2004). Early language learning: A model for success. Grennwich, CT: Information Age Publishing. Wells, G. (1986). Children learning language and using language to learn. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Wertsch, J. V. (1985). Vygotsky and the social formation of mind. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.