Language Acquisition and Development
Description
How children acquire language so quickly, easily, and uniformly is one of the great mysteries of the human experience. The theory of Universal Grammar suggests that one reason for the relative ease of early language acquisition is that children are born with a predisposition to create a grammar. This textbook offers an introduction to the study of children's acquisition and development of language from a generative/universal grammar-based theoretical perspective, providing comprehensive coverage of children's acquisition while presenting core concepts crucial to understanding generative linguistics more broadly.
After laying the theoretical groundwork, including consideration of alternative frameworks, the book explores the development of the sound system of language—children's perception and production of speech sound; examines how words are learned (lexical semantics) and how words are formed (morphology); investigates sentence structure (syntax), including argument structure, functional structure, and tense; considers such "nontypical” circumstances as acquiring a first language past infancy and early childhood, without the abilities to hear or see, and with certain cognitive disorders; and studies bilingual language acquisition, both simultaneously and in sequence.
Each chapter offers a summary section, suggestions for further reading, and exercises designed to test students' understanding of the material and provide opportunities to practice analyzing children's language. Appendixes provide charts of the International Phonetic Alphabet (with links to websites that allow students to listen to the sounds associated with these symbols) and a summary of selected experimental methodologies.
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Persons
Kamil Ud Deen is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa.
Content
- Intro
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Table of Contents
- Acknowledgments
- I. Module 1: Language Acquisition in Theoretical Context
- 1. Introduction: What Is Language Acquisition?
- 1.1 The Logical Problem of Language Acquisition
- 1.2 The Developmental Problem of Language Acquisition
- 1.3 Overview of Chapters
- 1.4 Further Reading
- 1.5 References
- 2. Theoretical Approaches to Studying Language Acquisition
- 2.1 Universal Grammar
- 2.1.1 Motivations for Universal Grammar
- 2.1.1.1 The Problem of Induction
- 2.1.1.2 An Example from Language
- 2.1.1.3 The Poverty of the Stimulus
- 2.1.2 The UG-Based View of Language: A Computational System
- 2.1.3 Competence versus Performance
- 2.1.4 Flavors of UG Approaches
- 2.1.4.1 Continuity
- 2.1.4.2 Principles and Parameters
- 2.2 Statistical Tracking
- 2.3 Modern Constructivist Approaches
- 2.3.1 What Is a Domain-General Mechanism?
- 2.3.2 The Constructivist View of Language: Form-Meaning Pairings
- 2.3.3 How Constructivism Works
- 2.4 How Does Constructivism Differ from the UG-Based Approach?
- 2.5 Summary
- 2.6 Further Reading
- 2.7 Exercises
- 2.8 References
- II. Module 2: Building A Sound System
- 3. Early Speech Perception
- 3.1 Speech Sound Discrimination
- 3.2 Perceiving Phonemic Contrasts
- 3.3 Finding Word Boundaries: Speech Segmentation
- 3.3.1 Infant-Directed Speech
- 3.3.2 The Importance of Prosody and Rhythm
- 3.3.3 Phonotactic Constraints
- 3.4 Summary
- 3.5 Further Reading
- 3.6 Exercises
- 3.7 References
- 4. Speech Production and Phonological Development
- 4.1 When Are Vocalizations Part of Language?
- 4.2 Building a Sound System
- 4.2.1 What Is a Phoneme?
- 4.2.2 Early Phoneme Inventory
- 4.3 Common Phonological Processes
- 4.3.1 Substitutions
- 4.3.2 Assimilations
- 4.3.3 Syllabic Processes
- 4.3.4 Covert Contrasts
- 4.4 Accounting for Patterns: Phonological Rules
- 4.5 Accounting for Patterns: Constraints
- 4.6 Summary
- 4.7 Further Reading
- 4.8 Exercises
- 4.9 References
- III. Module 3: Word Meaning and Word Structure
- 5. Word Learning
- 5.1 Characteristics of Early Word Production
- 5.1.1 The Vocabulary Spurt
- 5.1.2 Content of Early Vocabulary
- 5.1.3 Early Uses of Nouns: Overextension and Underextension
- 5.1.4 Early Vocabulary Comprehension and Fast Mapping
- 5.2 The Problems of Word Learning, and the Limitations of Ostension
- 5.3 Principles That Guide Word Learning
- 5.3.1 Principle 1: The Principle of Reference
- 5.3.2 Principle 2: The Whole Object Constraint
- 5.3.3 Principle 3: The Principle of Mutual Exclusivity
- 5.4 Learning Verbs via Syntactic Bootstrapping
- 5.5 Summary
- 5.6 Further Reading
- 5.7 Exercises
- 5.8 References
- 6. The Acquisition of Morphology
- 6.0 Introduction
- 6.1 The Foundation: Roger Brown
- 6.1.1 Brown's Method for Establishing When a Morpheme Has Been Acquired
- 6.1.1.1 Obligatory Contexts
- 6.1.1.2 90% Criterion
- 6.1.1.3 Consistency
- 6.1.1.4 Mean Length of Utterance
- 6.1.2 Brown's Findings
- 6.2 Acquisition of a Rule, or Memorized Chunk: Jean Berko (Gleason)
- 6.3 General Properties of the Acquisition of Inflection
- 6.3.1 Rapidity and Accuracy
- 6.3.2 Prefixation versus Suffixation
- 6.3.3 Rich versus Impoverished Morphology
- 6.3.4 Kinds of Morphological Errors
- 6.3.4.1 Errors of Commission versus Errors of Omission
- 6.3.4.2 Overregularization and U-Shaped Development
- 6.4 The Role of Input
- 6.5 Summary
- 6.6 Further Reading
- 6.7 Exercises
- 6.8 References
- IV. Module 4: The Sentence Level
- 7. Syntactic Development
- 7.0 Introduction
- 7.1 Bootstrapping into Syntax: Semantic Bootstrapping
- 7.2 Functional Structure and Optional Infinitives
- 7.2.1 Functional Categories and Structure
- 7.2.2 Telegraphic Speech
- 7.2.3 Optional Infinitives
- 7.2.3.1 The Truncation Hypothesis
- 7.2.3.2 Form-Position Contingencies in Optional Infinitives
- 7.2.3.3 Null Subject Contingencies in Optional Infinitives
- 7.2.3.4 Wh-question Contingencies with Optional Infinitives
- 7.2.3.5 Summary of Optional Infinitives and Truncation
- 7.3 Other Aspects of Functional Structure
- 7.3.1 Negation
- 7.3.2 Questions
- 7.3.3 Passive Construction
- 7.3.4 Relative Clauses
- 7.4 The Problem of Variable Reference
- 7.4.1 The Binding Theory
- 7.4.2 Principle of Reflexives (Principle A)
- 7.4.3 Principle of Pronouns (Principle B)
- 7.4.4 Principle of R-Expressions (Principle C)
- 7.4.5 Summary of the Binding Principles
- 7.5 Summary
- 7.6 Further Reading
- 7.7 Exercises
- 7.8 References
- V. Module 5: Beyond Monolingual and Typical Language Acquisition
- 8. Language Acquisition under Nontypical Circumstances
- 8.1 Late First-Language Acquisition
- 8.1.1 Feral Children
- 8.1.2 Genie
- 8.1.3 Chelsea
- 8.2 Language Acquisition in Deaf Children
- 8.2.1 Acquisition of Sign Language in Deaf Children
- 8.2.2 Late Acquisition of ASL
- 8.2.3 Acquisition of Oral Language in Deaf Children
- 8.2.4 Summary
- 8.3 Language Acquisition in Blind Children
- 8.3.1 Lexical and Grammatical Development
- 8.3.2 Acquisition of Perception Verbs
- 8.3.3 Summary
- 8.4 Impaired Language Acquisition
- 8.4.1 Specific Language Impairment
- 8.4.1.1 Grammatical Characteristics of SLI
- 8.4.1.2 Causes of and Explanations for SLI
- 8.4.2 Autism and Autism Spectrum Disorder
- 8.4.3 Hemispherectomy
- 8.5 Summary
- 8.6 Further Reading
- 8.7 Exercises
- 8.8 References
- 9. Acquisition of More than One Language
- 9.0 Introduction
- 9.1 Bilingualism in Early Childhood: Simultaneous Bilingualism
- 9.1.1 The Single-System Hypothesis
- 9.1.2 The Separate-Systems Hypothesis
- 9.1.3 The Interdependent Development Hypothesis
- 9.1.4 Code-Switching
- 9.2 Successive Bilingual Acquisition
- 9.3 Language Attrition and Heritage Language
- 9.4 Language Endangerment and Language Revitalization
- 9.4.1 Is Language Revitalization Important?
- 9.4.1.1 Scientific Knowledge, Including Linguistic Knowledge
- 9.4.1.2 Cultural Knowledge
- 9.4.1.3 Identity
- 9.4.1.4 Autonomy
- 9.4.2 How Are Languages Revitalized?
- 9.5 Summary
- 9.6 Further Reading
- 9.7 Exercises
- 9.8 References
- Appendix A: English IPA Symbols
- Appendix B: Methods in Child Language Acquisition
- Introduction
- Module 1: Naturalistic Data
- What Is Naturalistic Data?
- How Naturalistic Data Is Collected
- Module 2: Production Data
- Elicited Production
- Elicited Imitation
- Priming
- Module 3: Comprehension Data
- Grammaticality/Acceptability Judgment
- Truth Value Judgment Task (TVJT)
- Picture Selection
- Intermodal Preferential Looking Paradigm / Eye Tracking
- Act Out Task
- Methodologies for Infant Studies
- Brain-Based Methods
- Further Reading
- References
- Index
