Minimal response: "Mhm", "Aha" - can be linked to different conversational style s Conversational Styles: "high involement style" "high

considerateness style" Levels of discourse organization: exchange structure > act structure > idea structure > topic sequences participation framework > speaker/hearer roles information state > knowledge management This is a descriptive frame! Speaker roles: principal - the authority behind the saying, the idea (Prime Minister) author - writes the talking (Speechwriter) animator - the doer, does the talking (Queen) figure - the topic Listener roles: Official (ratified) - part of the audience (addressed vs. unaddressed) e.g. Discussion in TV. addressed: The persons in the discussion unaddressed: The persons seeing the television. First language acquisition: 1. 2. 3. 4. A species equipped for language Milestones in L1 acquisition How do children learn language? Important issues Evidence Nature or nurture Critical Period

1. Our organs are much more supportive for speaking than those of primates Teeth are imporant Human vocal tract teeth, tongue, larynx adapted for articulation. Costs: We can choke, apes can't (We are able to die because of it!) Benefits: We are able to speak 2. Milestones in L1 acquisition. 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 Prelinguistic stage Single-word utterances First word combinations Simple sentences

"Stage" is an abstraction, we want to identfy phases children goes through. Some children can skip some of those stages! Some stay very long in a stage With these stages we simplyfy reality

2.1: Pre-natal language experience: Inside the womb! prosody, rhythm, maternal (mother) voice - other voices and noises. receptive (listener) ability: already excellent at birth - can identify language sounds, particulary mothers v oice > in-born faculty experience with a specific language is needed for less salient discriminations can identify phonemes of the first language very soon. Children learn language if they are exposed to it. Productive ability. Cooing - Babbling (da-da-da-da), Practising - Holistic conversations All of them is Practising! 2.2 Single-word utterances These now have meaning. 1st "word" around 12m. 80-100 words understood when first word is produced context-bound or referential? names for people, food, body party, toys, clothes, household items, animals "Car" - parents car. Meaning is much more narrow! Holophrastic stage: "food" > "Give me food" "up" > "Pick me up" Vocabulary size: first 50 words (slow growth rate) vocabulary spurt (20-40 new words per month during year 2) Influencing factors: amount/quality of input, birth order, parents' education, caretake responsivenes s, phonological memory... Language must include action! TV or radio doesn't help. 2.3 Unanalyzed string - chunks Iwant, Idontknow, allwet, allgone Vocabulary items are combine in new ways. allwet mommy, daddy allwet Imperatives, declaratives, affimartive statements -> no questions / negations.

Telegraphic speech (at ca. 2 ys.) Relational meaning, e.g. agent + action Daddy sit action + object drive car agent + object Mummy sock entity + location toy floor English: 8 grammatical morphemes in order of acquisition 1. -ing 2. in 3. on 4. plural -s 5. past irregular 6. possessive 's 7. articles 8. past regular (-ed) 3. Do children learn through imitation? Imitation fails to account for... differing meanings production of forms not used by adults ability of children unable to speak to learn a language Not enough. Do children learn through correction and reinforcement? positive reinforcement / negative reinforcement (correction) correction usually occurs for mispronunciations or incorrect reporting of facts recasts (adult reformulating the sentence in the correct form) Not enough. Do learn through analogy? Suggestion that phrases and sentences are formed by analogy, by hearing a sentence and using it as a model to form other sentences Not enough either Do children learn through structured input? "motherese","child-directed speech" (CDS), more slowly more clearly in a higher pitch exaggerated intonation generally grammatical sentences BUT: not syntactically simpler 4. Three problems in language acquisition and development How do children crack the code? Is it nature or nurture? Is there a critical period?

4.1 Cracking the code Positive evidence: what does occur in a language Negative evidence: what is not possible in a language Ch: There's a fiss in there. F: You mean there's a fish in there. Ch: Yes, there's a fiss. F: There's a fiss in there? Ch: No, there's a fiss in there. Ch does know about phonemes, but can't say it yet. Children often rejects direct evidence. 4.2 Nature or nuture? Nature? Nuture? Nature: innate endwoment mind: inborn structure organizes experience Nativism (Plato, Kant) Nuture: result of experience mind: blank slat at birth Empiricism (Locke) Interactionism, Constructivism (Vygotsky, Piaget) What is the nature of nature? Nativism (string) LL is rapid, effortless, no instruction Special mental mechanism for LL LL" happens to the child" like growth of tis body Interactionism/constructivism LL is variable and gradual, social interaction is crucial Child uses general cognitive & processing abilities to also learn language the child is an active, constructive agent 4.3 Critical period: A period of time with a distinct onset and offset during which experience can le ad to learinung by an organism; assumed to be innately programmed and irreversible.