Theorists

?

Child Directed Speech (CDS)

  • Change in intonation, pitch, elongation of words to engage with children and encourage a child to interact
  • Phonology and Prosody
    • Intonation is exaggerated
    • Words stressed more strongly
    • Pitch is higher
    • Words and phrases are repeated
    • Pace is slower with longer pauses
  • Lexis
    • Simplified 
    • Reduplication
    • Diminutives (doggie/birdie)
    • Words often refer to touchable objects
  • Grammar
    • Syntax simplified
    • Proper nouns used instead of pronouns
    • Repetition of the child's name
    • Present tense
1 of 18

8 Stages of Language Acquisition

  • Vegetative - sounds of discomfort/reflexive actions (0-4 months)
  • Cooing - comfort sounds and vocal play using open-mouthed vowel sounds (4-7 months)
  • Babbling - repeated patterns of consonant and vowel sounds (6-12 months)
  • Proto-words - word-like vocalisations, not matching actual words (9-12 months)
  • Holophrastic/One-word - one word utterances (12-18 months)
  • Two-word - two word utterances (18-24 months)
  • Telegraphic - three or more words combined (24-36 months)
  • Post-Telegraphic - more grammtically complex combinations (36+ months)
2 of 18

LAD - Chomsky (1965)

  • Child's ability to acquire language is inbuilt
  • Isn't taught, but a natural development that occurs when children are exposed to language
  • LAD - Language Acquisition Device
    • Allows the child to take and use the grammatical rules of the language
  • All human languages share similarities (universal grammar)
  • Explains overgeneralisation and virtuous errors
  • Set stages of language acquisition
3 of 18

LASS - Bruner (1983)

  • Parents, teachers, grown-ups and general caregivers are needed to support children's language development in social situations (LASS - Language Acquisition Support System)
  • Caregiver asks questions to prompt a linguistic response
4 of 18

3 Types of Overextension

  • Overextension - 'dog' referring to any animal with 4 legs
  • Underextension - 'dog' applying only to the family dog
  • Categorical - 'dog' extended to other animals
  • Analogical - association of unrelated objects due to similarity of features
  • Predicate - abstract meaning
5 of 18

3 Model Stages in Language Acquisition - Aitchison

  • Labelling
    • Association of sounds with objects in the immediate world of the child
    • Linking to everyday objects
  • Packaging 
    • Exploring the extent of a label 
    • Over and underextension occurs
  • Network Building 
    • Connections between the labels they have developed
    • Understanding of opposites, similarities, relationships, contrasts
6 of 18

Intonation - Cruttenden (1986)

  • Effects of intonation on a child's understanding
  • Children under 7 had difficulties linking the tone of someone's voice with the implication of emotion
7 of 18

Inflections - Brown (1973)

  • Children start to add inflections to their words (20 months)
    • Present participle '-ing' e.g. I going
    • Plural '-s' e.g. Kitties
    • Possessive '-s' e.g. Mummy's chair
    • Articles 'a' 'the' e.g. Get the ball
    • Past Tense '-ed' e.g. I kicked it
    • Third person singular verb ending '-s' e.g. She loves me
    • Auxiliary 'be' e.g. It is raining (It's raining)
8 of 18

Grammar Acquisition - Inflections - Cruttenden (19

  • Stage 1 - Inconsistent Usage
    • Inflections correctly used some of the time because they have learned the word not the grammatical rule 
  • Stage 2 - Consistent Usage 
    • Sometimes misapplied
    • Applying the regular past tense inflection to irregular words e.g. I drinked it (overgeneralisation or virtuous error)
  • Stage 3 - Consistent Usage
    • Children are able to cope with irregular forms
9 of 18

Questioning - 3 Stages

  • Stage 1 (Two-word Stage) - 18 months
    • Use of rising intonation to indicate a question e.g. Go walk?
  • Stage 2 (Telegraphic Talk) - 2-3 years
    • Continue to use rising intonation but now include 'Wh-words' in the utterances e.g. 'Where daddy going?'
    • As they continue to develop, they use a wider range of interrogative pronouns, such as why, when and how
  • Stage 3 - from 3+
    • Use a subject-verb inversion e.g. 'Can I see it?' instead of 'I can see it?'
    • Use of auxiliary verbs for the first time
10 of 18

Negatives - 3 Stages

  • Stage 1 - 18 months
    • Children use no or not to make things negative, normally at the beginning of a phrase e.g. 'No juice'
  • Stage 2 - 2-3 years
    • Children start to use no and not in front of verbs too e.g. 'I no want juice'
    • Develop the use of contracted negative 'can't' and 'don't'
  • Stage 3 - from 3+
    • Children stop using no and not in the way the did in stage 1
    • Standardise their use of can't and don't 
    • Start using other negative contractions like didn't and won't
    • Use of isn't develops slightly later
11 of 18

Categorising First Words - Nelson (1973)

  • Naming (things and people) (60% in this group)
  • Actions/Events (Second largest, most common being up/down)
  • Describing/Modifying things
  • Personal and Social words (8% of the sample)
12 of 18

Imitation Theory - Skinner (1957)

  • Behaviourist Theory 
    • Language acquired through imitation and reinforcement
  • Children repeat what they hear (imitation) and caregivers reward a child's efforts with praise
  • Reinforce what the child says by repeating words and phrases back, correcting mistakes
  • Children learn all the specific pronunciations of individual words by copying an adult
13 of 18

Piaget

  • Emphasised that children are active learners who use their environment and social interactions to shape their language
  • E.G. A child asking 'wassat' or what's that? shows that they want more labels to descibe the objects around them, and use this to be an active learner
  • Linked linguistic development with an understanding of the concepts surrounding the word's meanings, suggesting that children cannot be taught before they're ready
14 of 18

4 Developmental Stages - Piaget

  • Sensorimotor - Up to 2 years
    • Child experiences the physical world through senses and begins classifying things in it
    • Lexical choices are concrete
  • Pre-Operational - 2-7 years
    • Language and motor skills develop and become more competent
    • Language used is egocentric - focused on the child, used by the child when no one is around
  • Concrete Operational - 7-11 years
    • Children begin thinking logically about events
  • Formal operational - 11 years +
    • Abstract reasoning skills develop
15 of 18

Cognitive Approach - Piaget

  • Child needs to have developed certain mental abilities before they can acquire particular aspects of language
  • A child can't process the concept that something can exist when they can't see it - egocentric
  • 18 months - awareness of object permancence
  • The child is capable of understanding abstract temporal ideas like past, present and future
16 of 18

Vygotsky's Socio-Cultural Theory (1978)

  • Two factors that contribute to language developemt - private speech and the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)
  • Private Speech - when a child talks aloud to themself 
  • ZPD 
    • When a child needs a caregiver's help in order to interact
    • Caregiver responds for the child or tries to encourage response
    • Gives the child a model to apply to similar situations in the future
    • Support known as scaffolding
    • Children require it less and less once they become moreable to deal with different social situations on their own
17 of 18

7 Functions of Language - Halliday

  • Instrumental - Expressing needs
  • Regulatory - Tells others what to do
  • Interactional - Makes contact with others to form relationships
  • Personal - Language used to express self
  • Heuristic - Used to gain knowledge
  • Imaginative - Creating a world of their own
  • Representational - Language used to communicate information
18 of 18

Comments

No comments have yet been made

Similar English Language resources:

See all English Language resources »See all Child language acquisition resources »