deaf language develpment2
saif29
554_chpt_4_pp5-1.pptxChapter Four: Models of Language Development
SPCE 454
McLaughlin (2006)
Chapter 4: Guiding Questions p.124
What is the study of language development based on?
What are the basic goals of science?
What are the basic attitudes of science?
What are the basic questions that science has attempted to answer regarding language development?
What models have been proposed to explain language development?
What impact has each model had on our understanding of language development?
How are these models different and how are they similar?
How can the individual contributions of each model be integrated into a comprehensive understanding of language development?
Central Questions and Issues
Science and Research in Language Development [p.125]
Summary
Science, its methods and dispositions, plays a fundamental role in understanding language development.
Through basic research, science addresses our curiosity about language development and through applied research, science addresses the needs of children with language disorders.
Scientific dispositions require us to approach data and theories with caution and objectivity.
Chapter 4: Part ONE
Page 123 – 144
Science
Science is a way of asking and answering questions to gain an objective understanding of the world
Explains natural events and relationships
Can explain development of language
Major goals of science are to explain a natural phenomenon and technical application
Scientific explanation
Scientific explanation
Identification and verification of the variables that cause an event to occur
Elements undergo manipulation to see what caused a change
Only manipulate one variable at a time
Example: What causes children to pay attention in class?
For language development, we focus on the variables:
Genetic inheritance
Neurological factors
Adults models
Imitation
Technical application
Technical application – goal of applied science in which knowledge results in technology that is helpful to society
Develop better technology
Pharmaceutical products
Efficient energy generation
Subgoals of explanation
Understanding
Identifying the nature and causes of an event
Need to repeat observations
Language development in terms of behavior, grammar, semantic, and pragmatics
Prediction
Goal of identifying the variables that reliable precede a phenomenon
Languagement development is strained with hearing loss, genetic disorders, and neurological damage
Control
Ability to influence probability of event through manipulation of variables
Models of language and learning
How does a child get from point a to point b?
Example: No grammar to adult grammar
Can reach a conclusion through describing or explaining
In this chapter we look at explaining
Explaining is focusing on the actual process that cause the child to develop language
nativism
Nature vs nurture
Children are born knowing all that they will ever know about language
This knowledge blossoms as they mature biologically
Language develops because it is part of the child’s genetic nature
Mentalism/structuralism
Very similar to the nativist view
Mentalism: knowledge primarily derives from inborn mental processes
Structuralism: emphasizes the structure (not function)
Noam Chomsky
Empiricism
Children are born with none of the knowledge they will eventually obtain
Genetics provides basic tools – biological structures and neurological capacity
Language develops primarily from experience with the environment
Experiences provided by the environment nurture it
Behaviorism is close to this view
Knowledge is the primary result of behavior
B.F. Skinner
Interactionism
Mutual influence of cognitive processes or social contexts on language development
Interaction of genetic makeup and experience
Cognitive and social interactionism
Operant model
Skinner
Language is part of human behavior
Conceptualism applies to language as well as behavior
Behaviors are shaped and maintained through biology and environment
Biological – nature of specific
Environmental – behaviors of individual members of the species
Behavior is reinforced through reaction of other people, the social nature
Primary focus on spoken language
Verbal behavior is effect of multiple causes – past experience, listeners, and variables both present and remote
Responses and operants
Response – instance or occurrence of a behavior
A reaction to a stimulus
Operants – kind of behavior
Family of responses that are related according to when and why they occur
Smiles, nods, waves, stereotyped phrases
Probability – likelihood of a specific behavior
Comes from past and present circumstances
When we cross paths with one of our friends
Conditions and consequences
Consequences that follow speaking are a critical element
Frequently subtle
May result in primary negative reinforcement or primary positive reinforcement
Increase the probability of a behavior
Children find attention that follows their behavior to be very reinforcing
Examples of positive and negative reinforcement?
Verbal operants
Mand – “command” – requesting that an action be done in response to deprivation
Food or water
Echoic – behavioral equivalent of imitation
Tacts – behavior equivalent of naming, describing, or labeling
Intraverbal – of chains as in recitation, alliteration, tongue twisters, and cliches
Chaining – responses are learned as fixed sequences in which each response leads to a subsequent response
Textual – occurs in response to a written or printed stimuli
reading
Operant model
Summary
The Operant Model was proposed by Skinner in 1957 as a functional analysis of verbal behavior as a social behavior
Primary verbal operants are classified based on their specific effects on others and are analyzed in terms of their setting events and consequences.
Secondary behavior, in the form of autoclitic behaviors, acts on primary verbal operants to arrange them according to the relationships among them.
Secondary Verbal Behavior: Autoclitics
autoclitic
Supplementary Variables
supplementary variables
audience
Chapter 4: Part Two (page 144-168)
Chomsky’s Syntactic Theories p.154
Summary
Chomsky proposed transformation generative grammar TGG I 1957 as a theory of mental processes for understanding and formulating sentences.
Two fundamental assumptions of TGG included the existence of linguistic universals and the innate, species-specific nature of language
Chomsky proposed the language acquisition device (LAD) as the hypothetical, innate mental structure that allows children to develop language in a seemingly effortless manner.
Skinner vs. chomsky
It is not correct to say that either viewpoint is completely wrong/right
They approach the task of identifying the cause of language development in very different ways
Skinner
Behaviorist
Observable relationships among objects, events and behavior
Chomsky
Linguist and philosopher
Looked at underlying nature of language and the mind
transformational generative grammar
Theory by Chomsky
TGG proposed that the universal rules underlying structures that may be transformed by rules to derive the specific sentence forms of each language
Two concepts: Linguistic Universals and Language Acquisition Device
Linguistic universals
All human language is based on several shared principles
All languages include simple declarative sentences; sentences all must contain a subject and predicate
These universals suggested to Chomsky that all language is innate, species-specific capacity to humans
Chomsky said biology supported this:
Language develops in the same order
Children step at the same time as saying their first word
Language cannot be suppressed; everyone develops language at some level
Language cannot be taught to subhuman species
Language acquisition device
Innate mental structure that allows the child to process incoming language and derive a generative grammar
Language is exceedingly complex, yet learned with no effort
Human brain is specially structured for processing language
LAD receives linguistic input and extracts it from generative grammar
Through this, children extract all rules about grammar
The components of TGG
deep structure
surface structure
phrase structure rules
transformational rules
elementary operations
Deep structure
Deep Structure
Basic meaning and relationships underlying a speaker’s sentence
“Deep within the mind”
Surface Structure
Production of a sentence expressing those meaning and relationships
Words that surface to carry that idea
E.g. Sentence
Phrase structure rules
Generate the underlying deep structure of sentences based on the speaker’s generative grammar
Begins with an idea
Want to convert the idea to linguistic form
Not a conscious activity
Transformation rules
Operate to alter the basic syntactic structures generated in deep structure
Each language varies in surface sentence structure
E.g. In English, adjectives come before nouns. In Spanish, nouns come before adjectives.
Can be interrogative, negative, passive, or imperative constructions
Generalized operations – applied across more than one deep structure to create complex or compound sentences
John talked and Marry laughed.
Conjoining – linking two independent clauses into a single sentence structure
I like ice cream; chocolate chip with sprinkles is my favorite kind.
Embedding – inserting a subordinate clause into an independent main clause
Alex, the man in the baseball shirt, is attending his first Red’s game today.
Assessment of tgg
Limitations
Lack predictability, comprehensiveness, and its limited potential to explain language development
One dimensional view of language – only looks at SYNTAX
Innate language acquisition device – no real form, structure, or location
Passive learners rather than active
Contributions
New insight to structure of language
Transformative sentences develop later than simple sentences
Understanding nature of sentence development is helpful
The Semantic Model: Fillmore’s Case Grammar [p.155]
The semantic model analyzes sentences in terms of case grammar in which meaning is carried in the relationships between each noun and the verbs in a sentence
The semantic model focused language development research on the influence of cognition on language development.
In applying the method of rich interpretation, researchers recognized the importance of considering the context to determine meaning of children’s utterances.
The semantic model
Fillmore
Semantic concepts = meaning
Exists separately from syntax
Meaning is the relationships among events and objects in the environment
Chomsky’s theory shows ambiguity in meaning
Came up with Case Grammar Theory instead
Case grammar theory
Basis is meaning
“Making sense” of sentences
Meaning of words and how words relate affects our understanding of sentences
Case grammar = generative grammar that emphasizes the cases or semantic roles assumed by nouns in relationship to the verb of a sentence
Does not replace syntactic level; it takes precedence (priority)
Modality
Carries the tense and sentence type
Proposition
Semantic relations that specify relationships between the nouns of the sentence and it’s verb
Rich interpretation
Analyzing a child’s utterance while considering the linguistic and nonlinguistic context
Impact on theories of language development
Cognition might play a major role in language development
Meanings rely on perception and understanding of the world
Children recognize relationships by interacting with the environment
The syntactic theory did not require this
Cognitive determinism – cognition determines language
Assessment of the semantic model
Limitations
Cognition cannot explain language development entirely
Cannot infer a causation between the two
Reliability and objectivity
Describes the importance of relationships but does not provide a purpose for expressing words
Summary of semantic model
Analyzes sentences in terms of case grammar, in which meaning is carried in the relationships between each noun and verb in a sentence
Focused language development research on the influence of cognition on language development
Pragmatic model: Searle’s Speech Acts Theory [p.161]
Sociolinguists shifted the research focus to the effects and variations of language in social contexts.
Speech acts theory analyzed communication into locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary.
Interaction and routines within the infant-caregiver dyad have received increased attention as important factors in the development of language.
Other models also emphasizing interaction have evolved recently, although their full impact is not yet apparent.
Pragmatic model: Searle’s Speech Acts Theory
The basic elements of speech acts
propositional force
illocutionary force
locutionary
illocutionary
perlocutionary
Impact on child language
primitive speech acts
Other interaction models
world knowledge
event knowledge
End of Chapter 4
Review questions are on page 169 and on Discussion Board
Your homework assignment is to finish your power point notes
And to answer 5 of the review questions in DB before class next week.
