Word learning is a fundamental building block for early language acquisition. One controversial phenomenon associated with vocabulary growth is vocabulary spurt, usually characterised as a rapid increase in productive vocabulary in early child language. Despite that fact that initially, the word production starts slowly, it has been argued that after few months, children undergo a transition to a subsequent stage of faster vocabulary growth (Goldfield & Reznick, 1990). Several theories have attempted to account for this phenomenon. For instance, Plunkett (1993, as cited in Ganger & Brent, 2004) suggests that the acceleration results from linguistic advances such as word segmentation which allows children to pick up more words from speech stream; however, there is now a growing disagreement on its existence in all children (Goldfield & Reznick, 1990; Ganger & Brent, 2004). The aim of the present essay is to evaluate the ability of two theories, namely the Artificial Neural Network (ANN) and Dynamical Systems theory (DST), to explain the issues underlying the lexical development and vocabulary spurt. This essay provides an overview of both theories and compares their strengths and weaknesses in their explanation of lexical development supported by empirical evidence.
Both ANN and DST were formed in opposition to the symbol system view of cognition (Smith & Samuelson, 2003). Despite acknowledging that some of underlying mechanisms may be innate, they see lexical development as an emergent process resulting from early social interaction and exposure to linguistic input (Poveda & Vellido, 2006). The main aim of ANN is to construct computational models of various cognitive processes based on biological details of n...
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...e and learned do imaginably counterpart each other equally and provide a piece of a greater picture, which neither would be able to provide by itself. This so-called bootstrap process between innate abilities and acquiring general knowledge is a different perspective in psycholinguistics, which can perhaps help us explain children development of not only language, but also other cognitive abilities. It will open up for the understanding of mentally disordered individuals if achieving information of what happens in the brain when you lose this bootstrap process. With today’s improvement of technology, it is possible to study this activity by examining what happens in the brain when e.g. looking at linguistic problem solving and general knowledge obtainment. If this bootstrap process exists, we should be able to see that one affects the other, in a developing “ladder”.
From the moment an infant is born, it is bombarded with sounds that the brain attempts to categorize. Within the first year of life alone, infants already show preferences for phonologically legal structures in their native language when compared to illegal consonant structures (Friederici et al., 1993). While a personal lexicon is not developed until later in childhood, the early stages, primarily the recognition of word segmentation, begins within the first year of life. The topic of what the important factors are in babies perceiving speech and building a preference to their own language, however, is shrouded in mystery. For instance, Friedrici et al.’s study on phonotactic knowledge of word boundaries gave results that indicate the combination of simple context cues as well as the use of infant directed speech (IDS) allows babies to recognize phonotactically legal structures by nine months. However, McMurray et al.’s results directly contrast those findings by arguing that IDS simply causes a slower rate of speech but does not highlight contrasts between segmented sounds, nor does it enhance phonetic cues. Infant directed speech is a “speech register characterized by simpler sentences, a slower rate, and more variable prosody” (McMurray et al., 2012). While there is controversy regarding the beneficial factors of infant directed speech, most studies indicate that this register is extremely beneficial for infant speech perception in the first year of life.
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The wide world relevance of this study is that Roy alleges to have uncovered innovative methods when it comes to thinking about language development. Roy also alleges that he has found a way to set apart a direct verbal learning curve when his son learned how to say the word “water”. This causes the audience to applause when the word “water” is heard from Roy’s son. The applause is an enthusiastically rewarding moment that persuaded the audience to buy into the notion that a great scientific discovery was on the horizon.
Torgesen. J, Wagner.R, Rashotte. C, Burgess. S & Hecht. S . (1997). Contributions of Phonological Awareness and Rapid Automatic Naming Ability to the Growth of Word-Reading Skills in Second-to Fifth-Grade Children. Scientific Studies of Reading. 1 (2), 161-185.
In linguist and psychologist Noam Chomsky’s Language and Mind, he asserts that a “universal grammar provides a highly restrictive schema to which any human language must conform” (55). The theory of universal grammar that Chomsky proposed states that the ability to comprehend and produce a language is already built in the human brain before birth. Even from an early age, children’s brain is programmed to constantly analyze grammar and syntax. To back up his claim, Chomsky elaborates on “the intrinsic structure of a language-acquisition device” (99). This device is a hypothetical instinctive system located in the cerebrum that permits children to develop language competence. Chomsky emphasizes that inborn mental biases in humans are often unconscious and uncontrollable. An example of these biases is seen when children learn by recognizing that labels refer to whole objects and not parts. In other words, when a parent points at a dog and repeats the word “dog” to his or her child, the child will automatically assume that the parent is referring to the entire object as a “dog” instead of just the dog’s head or tail. Another bias that is harbored is the assumption that labels represent whole classes of things and not just individual objects. What this means is that once a child learns to associate the word “dog” with the image of a dog, the child should be able to understand that every animal that barks is
... (p. 116). In her article, “Babies Prove Sound Learners,” Sohn (2008), states, “Such studies show that, up to about 6 months of age, babies can recognize all the sounds that make up all the languages in the world” (para.24). B.K. Skinner suggest that the materialization of language is the result of imitation and reinforcement. According to Craig and Dunn (2010), “Language development is linked to cognitive development that, in turn, depends on the development of the brain, on physical and perceptual abilities, and on experiences. Biological and social factors also jointly influence the early development of emotion and personality” (p. 117). In her article, A natural history of early language experience. Hart (2000), states, “Talking is important for children, because complexity of what children say influences the complexity of other people’s response” (para. 1).
Wilder Penfield and Lamar Roberts first introduced the idea that there is a “critical period” for learning language in 1959. This critical period is a biologically determined period referring to a period of time when learning/acquiring a language is relatively easy and typically meets with a high degree of success. German linguist Eric Lenneberg further highlights Roberts and Penfield’s findings and postulated the Critical Period Hypothesis in 1967. According to the Critical Period Hypothesis (CPH), certain biological events related to language development can only happen in the critical period. During this time, the brain possesses a degree of flexibility (ability and ease of learning a language) and becomes lateralized (assignment of language functions becomes concrete – either in the left or right hemisphere) (Marinova-Todd, S; Marshall, D & Snow, C. 2000 9-10). This critical period lasts from childhood through the onset of puberty (usually at around 12 years of age). Once this period is over, it is more difficult to learn a language because language functions in the brain have become concrete. This hypothesis can be seen with the case of Genie, a woman who was isolated from human interaction and language up to the age of 13. By the time she was rescued, she was well after the critical period for language acquisition, and as such, she did not have a full command of the English language. Had she been rescued before the age of 13, she may have had more linguistic capability. However, this accounts for firs...
In this part, the writer will point out the importance of the biological and neural foundation of language learning by discussing the following :First, the brain anatomy. Second, l...
The words and grammatical structures of a language have a profound effect on how speakers think, even when they are not talking and listening. The essence of thinking consists of real words and phrases, so people do not have to conceive a concept which does not exist in their language. Also, if two people speak languages that differ in the concepts that they are able to express, their beliefs are irreconcilable and communication between them is impossible. The Semantics proposes that the meanings of words are mentally represented in the form of expressions. The meanings of words can vary between languages because children adjust and organise them from the most elementary concepts.
There are three main theories of child language acquisition; Cognitive Theory, Imitation and Positive Reinforcement, and Innateness of Certain Linguistic Features (Linguistics 201). All three theories offer a substantial amount of proof and experiments, but none of them have been proven entirely correct. The search for how children acquire their native language in such a short period of time has been studied for many centuries. In a changing world, it is difficult to pinpoint any definite specifics of language because of the diversity and modification throughout thousands of millions of years.
Further in this term-paper I am going to describe the stages in child language acquistion starting from the very birth of an infant till the onset of puberty.
In our everyday lives, the origin of our ability to communicate is usually not often taken into consideration. One doesn't think about how every person has, or rather had at one time, an innate ability to learn a language to total fluency without a conscious effort – a feat that is seen by the scientific community "as one of the many utterly unexplainable mysteries that beset us in our daily lives" (3).. Other such mysteries include our body's ability to pump blood and take in oxygen constantly seemingly without thought, and a new mother's ability to unconsciously raise her body temperature when her infant is placed on her chest. But a child's first language acquisition is different from these phenomena; different because it cannot be repeated. No matter how many languages are learned later in life, the rapidity and accuracy of the first acquisition can simply not be repeated. This mystery is most definitely why first language acquisition, and subsequently second language acquisition, is such a highly researched topic.