Language Acquisition Gareth Price - Duke

Some Basic Principles of Child Language Acquisition Children generally acquire language sequentially Simple Complex Cooing Babbling One Word Two Word / Telegraphic speech Complex utterances Dont necessarily hit all stages at the same age But e.g. questions wont come before babbling, for example

StageAgeDescriptionFramework Cooing< 2 mo 2 – 4 mo 4 – 6 mo Vegetative noises Comfort noises – vowels, nasals, velars Vocal play – pitch, loudness, friction noises, nasal murmurs, glottal stops and fricatives Can gaze at correct object and recognise correct phonological inventory (discriminate between talk / non-talk) Phonetics Phonology? Semantics? Babbling6 – 8 moCanonical – reduplication of C/V/CV Variegated – recombination of different CV patterns Usually velars and stops. Fricatives and affricates / clusters – less common *** simplified caretaker speech Phonetics Phonology

Salome, age 3 weeks

StageAgeDescriptionFramework Cooing< 2 mo 2 – 4 mo 4 – 6 mo Vegetative noises Comfort noises – vowels, nasals, velars Vocal play – pitch, loudness, friction noises, nasal murmurs, glottal stops and fricatives Can gaze at correct object and recognise correct phonological inventory (discriminate between talk / non-talk) Phonetics Phonology? Semantics? Babbling6 – 8 moCanonical – reduplication of C/V/CV Variegated – recombination of different CV patterns Usually velars and stops. Fricatives and affricates / clusters – less common *** simplified caretaker speech Phonetics Phonology

age 2 months

StageAgeDescriptionFramework Cooing< 2 mo 2 – 4 mo 4 – 6 mo Vegetative noises Comfort noises – vowels, nasals, velars Vocal play – pitch, loudness, friction noises, nasal murmurs, glottal stops and fricatives Can gaze at correct object and recognise correct phonological inventory (discriminate between talk / non-talk) Phonetics Phonology? Semantics? Babbling6 – 8 moCanonical – reduplication of C/V/CV Variegated – recombination of different CV patterns Usually velars and stops. Fricatives and affricates / clusters – less common *** simplified caretaker speech Phonetics Phonology

age 5 months

StageAgeDescriptionFramework Cooing< 2 mo 2 – 4 mo 4 – 6 mo Vegetative noises Comfort noises – vowels, nasals, velars Vocal play – pitch, loudness, friction noises, nasal murmurs, glottal stops and fricatives Can gaze at correct object and recognise correct phonological inventory (discriminate between talk / non-talk) Phonetics Phonology? Semantics? Babbling6 – 8 moCanonical – reduplication of C/V/CV Variegated – recombination of different CV patterns Usually velars and stops. Fricatives and affricates / clusters – less common *** simplified caretaker speech Phonetics Phonology

age 5 ½ months

StageAgeDescriptionFramework Cooing< 2 mo 2 – 4 mo 4 – 6 mo Vegetative noises Comfort noises – vowels, nasals, velars Vocal play – pitch, loudness, friction noises, nasal murmurs, glottal stops and fricatives Can gaze at correct object and recognise correct phonological inventory (discriminate between talk / non-talk) Phonetics Phonology? Semantics? Babbling6 – 8 moCanonical – reduplication of C/V/CV Variegated – recombination of different CV patterns Usually velars and stops. Fricatives and affricates / clusters – less common *** simplified caretaker speech Phonetics Phonology

age 7 months

StageAgeDescriptionFramework Cooing< 2 mo 2 – 4 mo 4 – 6 mo Vegetative noises Comfort noises – vowels, nasals, velars Vocal play – pitch, loudness, friction noises, nasal murmurs, glottal stops and fricatives Can gaze at correct object and recognise correct phonological inventory (discriminate between talk / non-talk) Phonetics Phonology? Semantics? Babbling6 – 8 moCanonical – reduplication of C/V/CV Variegated – recombination of different CV patterns Usually velars and stops. Fricatives and affricates / clusters – less common *** simplified caretaker speech Phonetics Phonology

age 7 months

StageAgeDescriptionFramework Cooing< 2 mo 2 – 4 mo 4 – 6 mo Vegetative noises Comfort noises – vowels, nasals, velars Vocal play – pitch, loudness, friction noises, nasal murmurs, glottal stops and fricatives Can gaze at correct object and recognise correct phonological inventory (discriminate between talk / non-talk) Phonetics Phonology? Semantics? Babbling6 – 8 moCanonical – reduplication of C/V/CV Variegated – recombination of different CV patterns Usually velars and stops. Fricatives and affricates / clusters – less common *** simplified caretaker speech Phonetics Phonology

StageAgeDescriptionFramework One-Word [one morpheme ] 9 – 18 moOpen-class lexical items, esp. nouns, some verbs -Uninflected - Non-derivational roots -Often naming: Dada when doorbell heard, cat when seeing the cat walk by. Underextension / overextension: Bottle – one type of bottle Dog – all animals Kick – kicking, flapping wings etc. Apple – all spherical objects BUT: can understand which one is the apple, etc., if not produce it Mid-level hyponymy Phonology Morphology Semantics

StageAgeDescriptionFramework Two-Word moOpen-class, lexical items; no function or grammatical words / morphemes Simple phrases: two words with semantic relations Cat black N + Adj. (NP) Big car Adj. + N (NP) Fall down V + P (phrasal verb) Simple sentences: two words with grammatical relations Mummy go S [N] + V Initially uninflected, though inflection comes later Semantics Syntax Morphology Phonology?

Matthew (2 yrs) watches his mum spoon stewed rhubarb from a saucepan into a bowl. Matthew Dis rubile looks like biscetti. /d/ for /t/ CVL for CVC CV for CCV lexical mis-targeting (biscuit spaghetti) inflectional morphology syntactic structure semantic awareness (comparison of qualities)

A four-year old talks about what he wants to be when he grows up. Adult What do you want to be when you grow up? Child A dowboy. Adult So you want to be a dowboy, eh? Child (irritated) No! Not a dowboy, a dowboy Increased complexity of caretaker speech (full syntax) Comprehension of question / production of answer Perception of wrong target phoneme /d/ /k/ Misperception of production of wrong target phoneme

Kate (3 yrs 1 mth) is sitting at the table. Kate Can I have a bit of cheese, please? - "Cheese, please?" - that's a rhyme. awareness and critical reflection on language phonological awareness full syntactic structure Can … please – pragmatic intent

Kate (2 yrs 6 mths) is sitting on the knee of a family friend. Adult (pointing to one of Kate's feet) What's that? Kate A footsie Adult (pointing to both feet) What are these? Kate Two footsies - no, two feetsies, I mean.

Malpreet (2 yrs 6 mths) is talking to her mother in the kitchen. Malpreet One day there was a little horse then there was a big horse, then there was a mummy horse. They came to my house. They went out to car, then I started to cry and I said Sadha nell owna * and mummy said they are going, then I went safari park. *[transcription of Panjabi - "I want to go, too]

A teacher has asked a group of nursery children (exact ages not given in source)"What is a story?" Child 1 Something you read. Child 2 You could say that it's something that you read to children. Child 3 It's got words in it. Child 4 And it's got the title of the book. Child 5 Sometimes it's got a tape with it...like a book tape. Child 6 Sometimes it starts "Once upon a time"...and sometimes it's got chapters in it. Child 7 Sometimes at the end it goes..."Happily ever after".

Role of Correction Child: Want other one spoon, Daddy Adult: You mean, you want the other spoon. Child: Yes, I want other one spoon, please Daddy. Adult: Can you say the other spoon? Child: Other … one … spoon Adult: Say other Child: other Adult: spoon Child: Spoon. Adult: other … spoon Child: other … spoon. Now give me other one spoon. Martin Braine (1971)