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7. Duality or double-articulation language is organized in two layers: the basic sound units
of speech, such as P. I, G are normally meaningless. They only become meaningful when
combined into sequences such as PIG.
8. Displacement (refer to things in the past) - The ability to refer to things far removed in time
and place. It is difficult to decide whether displacement is present in an animals
communication. Definite examples of displacement are hard to find. But it is undoubtedly
found in bee communication.
9. Structure-dependence - humans automatically recognize the patterned nature of language,
and manipulate "structured chunks" (passive voice). As far as we know, animals do not use
structure-dependent operations. No definite example has yet been found.
10.Creativity or openness or productivity - It is unique to humans - the ability to produce and
understand an indefinite number of novel utterances.
Apes that humans led scientisif research on the subject of communication
1. Gua was brought into the Kellogg home at the age of 7 1/2 months, and was brough up with
their son Donald, who was 10 months old at the time. For nine months the Kelloggs raised
the two as "brother and sister", and comprehensively recorded the development of the
chimpanzee and the human child. When around one year old, Gua often tested ahead of
Donald in such tasks as responding to simple commands or using a cup and spoon. Slight
differences in their placement included people recognition. Gua recognized people from
their clothes and their smell while Donald recognized them by their faces. The parting
difference came with language. Donald was about 16 months and Gua was a little over a
year old when they had language testing. Gua could not speak, but Donald could form
words. In 1932, nine months into it, the Kelloggs officially ended the experiment as Donald
began to copy Gua's sounds.
2. Viki was a chimp adopted by Hayes family in 1947, after three years of hard training
learned onlly four words: Papa, Mam, Cut, Up.
3. Nim Chimpsky a chimp named after Noam Chomsky (lg. is endowed in the brain), began
training in 1970 to proove that Chomsky was wrong and an ape can acguire a lg., too. Nim
learned 125 sign words, but his lg. was not structure-dependant, his use of signs was strictly
pragmatic, as a means of obtaining an outcome.
4. Washoe a chimp acguired 350 words of ASL (American Sign Lg.). She was raised with
young children, she was communicated with by ASL only and ASL was used round her. She
learned spontaniously and she was able to combine hundreds of signs she knew into novel
utterances she had never heard before
Conclusions all the apes can cope with arbitrary symbols and semanticity, they show some
displacement features and creativity of speech, but no evidence of structure.
First Language Acquisition
FOXP2 communication and language gene, mutation causes severe speech problems, homologs
found in all mammals for which complete genome data is available, is also the primary gene that
separates Homo sapiens from chimpanzees by the substitution of two amino acids.
Children all over the world acquire a lg. in similar way, going through the same stages and marking
the same errors. Children lg. is rule governed (wug test). It is useless to correct lg. all the time.
Stages:
1. crying 2. cooing 3. babbling 4. one-word utterances
5. two-word utterances
6. questions, negatives 7. complex constructions
8. mature speech
birth
6 weeks
6 months
1 year, mostly known objects and words of action
18 months, rapid growth of voc., telegraphic speech
2 years, fluent grammatical speech
5 years, children ask questions, give commands, report events
10 years
Metalinguistic awareness- develops slowlywhen children begin to read and write, the ability to treat
lg. and words as objects separate from the meaning, allows word games.
Order of acquisition 1. the same pattern all over the world
2. R.Brown found out that children acquired grammar in similar sequence: -ing, -prepositions,
- plural s, - irregular past, - possessive 's, - articles the, - past regular ed, - 3rd person s, -to be.
3. Negatives about 2-3 year olds, first they just add 'no', then use 'any', 'no' before verb and
longer sentences, 'can't' and 'don't', correct negations.
4. Questions order of words: what, where, who, why, how, when. Firstly children just raise
intonation, sometimes adding -wh word, later they add verb at the beginning to declarative
sentences, next they add auxilary verbs and produce correct questions.
Kinds of Bilingualism
children who from birth hear more than one lg. are ' simultaneously bilingual'
children who learned one lg. after another are 'sequentialy bilingual'
children who were cut off their mother tongue and lost it before acquired a new one fully are
'subtractively bilingual'. Usually minority lg. is lost in the 2nd generation after immigration.
Receptive bilinguals are those who have the ability to understand a second language, but do
not speak it
Acc. to Weinreich
coexistent bilingualism two lgs. are kept separate in the brain, probably because they were
learned in different environments
merged bilingualism two lgs. are integrated into one system, probably because they were
used interchangeably
subordinate bilingualism - l2 is based on l1
Theories of learning a lg.
Biological basis of learning a lg.:
'Biological Foundations of Language' by Eric Lenneberg in 1967
lg. is innate, starting using it is not a conscious decision
lg. is not triggered by external events but the surrouning must be sufficiently rich
direct teaching an intense practice have relatively little effect
there's a regular sequence of milestones usually connected with age
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there is a Critical Period Hypotesis (CPH) there is a specific and limited time for lg.
Acquisition, child has to be exposed to lg. before puberty to develop that skill, UG works
only when triggered at right time. The example are feral children (Genie, Victor), youngsters
with brain damage, development of children with Down's syndrome, also Jim child of deaf
parents who proved that only being exposed to TV is not enough because there is no
interaction or feedback.
1. Behaviorism (connectionism):
- learning is a result of imitation, practice, feedback and success, and habit formation
- children pick up patterns and then generalize them to new contexts
- Classisal conditioning - there is a bond between a stumulus and reponse, near automatic,
involuntary (Pawlov's dog)
STIMULUS RESPONSE
- Operant conditioning developed by Skinner in 1937
STIMULUS RESPONSE REINFORCEMENT (prize or punishment)
HUNGRY BABY CRIES GETS FOOD
- change is relatively permanent as a result of experience
- behaviorists concentrate on visible change
- learning is most effective when broken into a few stimulus-response tasks
B.F.Skinner - Skinner invented the operant conditioning chamber, also known as the Skinner
Box.The box had a lever and a food tray, and a hungry rat could get food delivered to the tray
pressing the lever. Skinner observed that when a rat was put in the box, it would wander around,
sniffing and exploring, and would usually press the bar by accident, at which point a food pellet
would drop into the tray. After that happened, the rate of bar pressing would increase dramatically
and remain high until the rat was no longer hungry. He was a firm believer of the idea that human
free will was actually an illusion and any human action was the result of the consequences of that
same action. If the consequences were bad, there was a high chance that the action would not be
repeated; however if the consequences were good, the actions that lead to it would be reinforced. He
called this the principle of reinforcement.
2. Innatism (mentalism):
- 1959 Chomsky
- criticism of behaviorism it is impossible to learn everything by heart only by imitation,
children create new utterance (wug test), they are not constantly corrected
- lg. is human specific
- lg. is innate in human mind, input data trigger the process of lg. acquisition but it is only
possible till the age of puberty (feral children)
- LAD Language Acquisition Device = UG Universal Grammar
- UG is a bluepring that is clear until input and then covered with a lg.
- UG consists of principles (lg. is a structure, a system) and parameters (head first lg. like
English or head last like Japanese)
3. Interactionism:
- against mentalism
- lg. develops by interplay, that is why environment is important (caregivers)
- Lev Vygotsky sociocultural theory (lg. develops from social interaction)
- motherese (caretaker's talk) slow, simple, high pitch, additional clues, gestures,
meaningful words, shor utterances, here-and-not principle, familiar topics, attention getters
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