Language overview

Foundational definitions
- Communication: process of exchanging information through a speaker’s
thoughts, ideas, feelings, needs, or desires
- Language: means of human communication through the use of spoken words,
symbols (writing, reading), sign language
- Paralinguistic cues: accompany spoken language, helps provide meaning and
understanding to the speaker's message (affect, gestures, posture, intonation,
pitch)

5 Domains/Areas of Language
- Pragmatics: use of language in social interaction along with the rules that
govern interaction with others
- Semantics: meaning that is conveyed by words, sentences, narratives, and
conversations
- Syntax: rules for combining words to form sentences (grammar…?)
- Morphology: structure of words and parts that compose words (suffix, root)
- Phonology: rules for combining sounds to make words

Form, Content, and Use

- Form: how language is created or formed, put together words/sentences/sounds
- Phonology
- Morphology
- syntax
- Content: meaning of language
- semantics
- Use: how language is applied during real world interactions (language in action)
- Pragmatics

Take home message

- Language and communication is dynamic, not cut and clean

Communication
- Communicative intentions: request, refusal/reject, greet
- Modalities of communication: verbal, written, gesture, etc.

Communication partners
- Sender: encodes/transmits information
- Receiver: decodes/comprehends information
 - Communication Loop: exchange of information from a sender to receiver

Communicative Competence
- Ability to successfully communicate a message and to understand the concepts
being communicated

Expressive & Receptive Language

- Expressive
- Conveying information through production of language
- Teacher to student “Go get the blue ball”
- Receptive
- Understanding language, concepts, and directions
- Auditory and reading comprehension
- Student walking across room and bringing back blue ball

Pragmatics
- “Appropriate” use of language during social interactions and the rules that govern
interactions
- Speech acts: request, response, comment, demand, promise, refuse, reject,
greet
- Frequency of communication, adapting language, turn taking, topic maintenance,
play

Semantics
- Meaning of words and word combinations
- Word and world knowledge
- Word represents some entity, feelings, concept
- These have to be connected to world knowledge through experiences
- Playing -> toy, parents -> car -> toy
- Meaning -> content -> semantics

Syntax
- Combining words to form utterances or sentences
- Utterance: single word or combination of words. Does not have to be a
sentence
- Ball go. Eat.
- Sentence: contains at minimum a subject + verb
- Complexity added through modifiers (nouns, adjectives,
prepositions etc.)
- Jack ran. Jack ran under the trees
- Analyzing from a macro level
Morphology
- The structure of words and the parts that compose words
- Micro level
- Morphemes (words)
- Smallest unit of words with meaning
- un/done (prefix), walk/ed (suffix), bake/r (root word)

Phonology
- rules for distributing and sequencing sounds in words (combining sounds)
- Phonemes (sounds)
- Smallest unit of sounds that create a difference in meaning
- /c/ in car vs /t/ in tar
- Phonological processes
- Sound patterns that deviate from the adult target
- Fronting: goal vs doal, car vs tar

Theories of Language Development

Principles and parameters theory

- Innate language acquisition device allows children to established grammatical
information from spoken language
- Innate language principles that are attributable to all language
- Sentences contain subject+verb
- Children practice use of grammatical structures in different environments
- Develop mastery and understanding overtime

Social Interaction theory

- Social interactions provide opportunities for language development
- Language is gained through interaction

Cognitive Theory
- Growth of language development through the creation of schemas within
environments
- Other cognitive skills such as objects permanence support language
development + play - allows imitation of language

Emergentism
- Language develops through emergent effect of social, pragmatic, cognition, and
attentional factors
- Children identify patterns where language can be used across environments
 - Social skills emerge from children’s innate desire to interact

Connection of research to practice

- One theory = limited scope
- Combination of theories = more holistic
- Language development
- Innate (genetic)
- Environmental
- Behaviorism (skinner) is limited in explaining language development

Development is dynamic
- Language = living - evolving
- Language = complex
- Different systems interacting

Trajectory of language development

- General upward trajectory
- Language development is not strictly linear
- Language development is not held down by prerequisites
- Is an ongoing process

Research is weird
- White, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic

English as a lingua franca

- Language used to communicate among speakers who do not share a native
language

Linguistic Imperialism
- Pushing language onto others in order for them to participate in the world’s
economy or discourse, “cultural capital”

Outcomes of weird research

- Creates and encourages echo chambers
- Monolithic language ideologies
- Deficit ideologies
- Pathologization
- “Fixing” problems
- Ideologies become rooted in society
- Academica, professions, pop culture
Language deficit ideologies in slp
- Disproportionality in diagnosis of language disorders in the school setting
- Overdiagnosis or underdiagnosis

Infant Language Development

- 0-12 months of age
- Years of significant change
- Foundations for language development
- Adults as trusted communication partners: adults increase child’s safety
(decrease bodily needs) which allows child to focus on communication
development
- Infant has basic understanding of the communication loop

Infant communication loop

Infant has a need Caregiver
(hunger, tired, acknowledges
pain…) infant crying and
Infant attempts to interpret
cries
infa
nt caregiver

Adult attempts to
meet need

Role of Caregiver
- Establish predictable routines in a stable environment
- Reciprocity (mutual environment)
- Maintain positive affect (safe environment)
- Responsive
- Joint attention

3 phases of development

Phase 1: Attendance to social partners: 0-6 months

- Look and maintain attention to caregiver
- 1st month: seeing 8-12 inches away
 - Newborns recognize faces
- Picking up patterns in communication
- Motor development
- smiling: 2 months
- Reaching for toys/objects: 4 months
- Begins rolling over: 4-6 months
- Discover hands and feet: 5 months
- Starting to sit up: 6 months
- Setting the groundwork for language development at 12 months

Phase 2: Emergence and coordination of joint attention: 6-12 months

- Increased interest in objects around them
- Joint attention
- Shift attention between objects and people
- Sustained joint attention
- Maintain attention between object and person
- Caregiver follow child’s lead
- Can help establish skills with pragmatics

Phase 3: Transition to language: transition to language 1y+

- Joint attention applied to social interactions
- Responsive joint attention
- Following direction of attention of another person to an object or event
- Initiating joint attention
- Successfully and intentionally directing another person’s attention to an
object

Prelinguistic communication
- Period of development before a child has language acquisition system
- Intentional preverbal communication skills until development of first word
(semantic system)
- Skills include
- Joint attentions, gestures, imitation, turn-taking
- Use of prelinguistic skills predict language outcomes at 5 years of age

Form, Content, Use

- Pragmatics (use), semantics (content), syntax, morphology, phonology (form)
- Language not being used but areas of language being developed