ACTIVITY
Pick a partner and decide who will speak first and second
Each will get a chance to tell the story of when they first started to learn language
Guiding Questions:
First sound(s)?
First word(s)?
First sentence?
Favourite word?
Any stories that parents/guardians/grandparents/siblings tell you about when you were learning
language?
HOW DO WE ACQUIRE AND The Psychological Answer
MANIPULATE LANGUAGE?
LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT IN YOUNG Psychologists have studied
development of language in
CHILDREN young children and categorized
it into several steps:
STAGE 1
Age: 3 months – 1 year
Characteristics:
Series of meaningless sounds known as babbling
Children tend to imitate sounds, pitches and tones made by those around
them
By the end of the first year, children can express short words beginning with
consonants
i.e. mama, dada
Babbling Twins
Early comprehension even though they cannot clearly express themselves
STAGE 2
Age: 1 – 3 years
Characteristics:
Start to learn more complicated language structures using 2-3 word
combinations as vocab improves
Estimated that by 2 years old, children possess a vocabulary of about 50
words
This number doubles in less than 6 months
Start to produce short “telegraphic sentences”
i.e. “I saw cat”
Interview with a Two-Year Old
STAGE 3
Age: +3 years
Characteristics:
By 3 years old, words are pluralized and some forms of the past tense are
used
“We went to the park tomorrow”
Do not fully comprehend rules of speech and tend to overgeneralize
i.e. add “ed” to some verbs – “I sawed a bird”
4-Year Old Storytelling
By 5 years old, most children have acquired the basic rules of language but
still have a lack of complete vocabulary and the ability to apply all
grammatical rules
DO CHILDREN WHO HAVE SIGNIFICANT HEARING
LOSS GO THROUGH THESE STAGES?
YES! Sign language development follows spoken language patterns
Babbling Baby
2-Year Old Sign Language
4-Year Old Conversations
Motivational speaker Drisana Levitzke-Gray - TedTalk
Psychologists have proposed 2
LEARNING VS. INNATE AQUISITION theories on HOW people go
through stages of language
development
LEARNING THEORY
LEARNING THEORY
At an early age children are rewarded with hugs and praise when they say
words
B.F. Skinner – believed that this process evolved into more complicated
language
Findings that support this theory
The more parents or guardians speak to their children, the more capable
they become of using language
The more sophisticated the vocabulary used by the parents or guardians, the
greater vocabulary growth in their children
Feral children
Children who are isolated and denied social interaction
Never able to develop proper language skills that included proper syntax
because of the absence of social stimuli
INNATE ACQUISITION
INNATE ACQUISITION THEORY
Proposed by linguist Noam Chomsky
Believed that children are born with a natural ability to acquire
language
That this ability to use and comprehend language developed with age
Universal Grammar – all the worlds languages share a similar structure
Believed humans have a language-acquisition device:
A neural system in the human brain
Helps us understand the structure of language
Gives us the ability to learn any language
Also believes that we are anatomically prepared for speech at birth
It is through our environment that we gain the skills required to understand
the structure of language
VIDEO, QUESTIONS AND ACTIVITY
Language: Crash Course
Complete questions 1, 2, 3, and 5 on pg. 82
For question 6, in groups of 3 or 4 play descriptive Charades
( http://www.wordgenerator.net/charades-generator.php )
Be aware of how others use language to describe a word, phrase, movie,
book, or celebrity
Make it interesting – see who can get the most right in a minute
