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Mechanisms of child language development

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Language serves the purpose of communication to express oneself though a systematic and traditional use of sounds, signs, or written symbols.[1] There are four subcomponents in which the child must attain in order to acquire language competence. They include phonology, lexicon, morphology and syntax, and pragmatics.[2] These subcomponents of language development are combined to form the components of language, which are sociolinguistics and literacy.[1] Currently, there is no single accepted theory of language acquisition but various explanations of language development have been accumulated.

Phonology

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Phonology is concerned with the sounds of language.[3] It is the function, behavior, and organization of sounds as linguistic items.[4] Phonology considers what the sounds of language are and what are the rules for combining sounds. Certain sound combinations are allowed but other combinations are impossible. Phonology also encompasses variations in pronunciation. It will explain patterns in the pronunciation of words.[5]

Phonetics is a closely related discipline of phonology.[6] Phonetics provides us a description of how speech sounds in any language are produced by various organs of the body (articulation) and a description of the sound waves (acoustics). It is the concrete measurable physical properties of cognitive speech sounds (physical sound).[7] Consonants are produced by impeding a stream of air from the lungs as it passes through the throat, setting up waves of disturbance in the air that are heard as sounds. Vowels are produced by air expelled from the lungs flowing through the vocal cords and then passing freely through the mouth. If the vocal cords are stretched with the right tension they vibrate as air passes through them, causing sound waves. These sound waves can be manipulative by the height and location of the tongue.

Particular variations of this sound are grouped into phonemes, or speech units. They are the categories of sound that function to signal differences in the words in language. Phonemes are words that differ by only one sound but have different meanings, such as pin and bin.[8] Phonological acquisition in children can be measured by accuracy and frequency of production of various vowels and consonants, the acquisition of phonemic contrasts and distinctive features, or by viewing development in regular stages in their own speech sound systems and to characterize systematic strategies they adopt.[9]

Semantics

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The main ideas of semantics are the propositional function, the operation definition, the predictive value as criterion of truth and the theory of types. It is the branch of linguistics used to derive meaning or to signify.[10]

Lexicon

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The lexicon can be viewed as a very large and complex dictionary of words, enabling language speakers to use those words in speech production and comprehension.[11] Lexicon is the inventory of a language's morphemes. Morphemes are a minimal meaning-bearing element or a building block of something in language that makes sense. For example, in the word cats, the component cat makes sense as does at, but at does not mean the same thing as cat. While ca, does not mean anything. Morphemes are composed of lexical formatives, words like cat; grammatical formatives, things like suffixes '-s'; and derivational affixes, thinks like un- or -ness [12] It is the acquisition of the meanings of words for objects, actions, etc.[13]

Morphology

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Morphology is the study of form or forms. It is the mental system involved in word formation or to the branch of linguistics that deals with words, their internal structure and how they are formed. Morphemes are the smallest linguistic pieces with grammatical function.[14]

Pragmatics

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Pragmatics is the study of the relationships between linguistic forms and the users of those forms.[15] The use of utterance to serve different functions. The ability to communicate one's feelings and desires and to pass on information the world to others.[16]

Components of child language development

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File:Children-young.jpg
children in communication with one another

Children’s development of language includes semantics, or attaching meaning to words. The acquirement of meanings for words happens in three stages. First, each word means an entire sentence. For example, a young child may say “mama” and mean “Here is Mama,” “Where is Mama?” or “I see Mama.” In the second stage, words have meaning but do not have complete definitions. This stage occurs around age two or three. Third, around age seven or eight, words have adult-like definitions and their meanings are more complete.[17]

A child learns the syntax of his or her language when he or she is able to join words together into sentences and understand multiple-word sentences said by other people. There appear to be six major stages in which a child’s acquisition of syntax develops.[18] First, is the use of sentence-like words in which the child communicates using one word with additional vocal and bodily cues. This stage usually occurs between 12 and 18 months of age. Second, between 18 months to two years, there is the modification stage where children communicate relationships by modifying a topic word. The third stage, between two and three years old, involves the child using complete subject-predicate structures to communicate relationships. Fourth, children make changes on basic sentence structure that enables them to communicate more complex relationships. This stage occurs between the ages of two and a half years to four years. The fifth stage of categorization involves children aged three and a half to seven years refining their sentences with more purposeful word choice that reflects their complex system of categorizing word types. Finally, children use structures of language that involve more complicate syntactic relationships between the ages of five years old to ten years old.[18]

Milestones of Language Development

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By age 1, the child is able to say 1-2 words, responds to its name, imitates familiar sounds and can follow simple instructions.[19] Between 1–2 years old, the child uses 5-20 words, is able to say 2-word sentences and is able to express their wishes by saying words like "more" or "up", and they understand the word "no".[19] During 2 and 3 years of age, the child is able to refer to self as "me", combine nouns and verbs, has a vocabulary of about 450 words, use short sentences, use some simple plurals and is able to answer "where" questions.[19] By age 4, children are able to use sentences of 4-5 words and has a vocabulary of about 1000 words.[19] Children between the ages of 4 and 5 years old are able to use past tense, have a vocabulary of about 1,500 words, and ask questions like "why?" and "who?".[19] By age 6, the child has a vocabulary of 2,600 words, is able to form sentences of 5-6 words and use a variety of different types of sentences.[19] By the age of 5 or 6 years old, the majority of children have mastered the basics of their native language.[19]

Infants begin with cooing and soft vowel sounds. This will then progress into babbling around 5 months of age, with infants first babbling consonant and vowel sounds together that may sound like "ma" or "da".[19] At around 8 months of age, babbling increases to include repetition of sounds, such as "da-da" and infants learn the forms for words and which sounds are more likely to follow other sounds.[19] A child's receptive language, the understanding of others' speech, has a gradual development beginning at about 6 months.[20] However, expressive language, the production of words, moves rapidly after its beginning at about a year of age, with a "vocabulary explosion" of rapid word acquisition occurring in the middle of the second year.[20] Grammatical rules and word combinations appear at about age two.[20] Mastery of vocabulary and grammar continue gradually through the preschool and school years.[20] Adolescents still have smaller vocabularies than adults and experience more difficulty with constructions like the passive voice.[20]

Vocabulary typically grows from about 20 words at 18 months to around 200 words at 21 months.[20] From around 18 months the child starts to combine words into two word sentences.[20] Typically the adult expands it to clarify meaning.[20] By 24–27 months the child is producing three or four word sentences using a logical, if not strictly correct, syntax.[20] The theory is that children apply a basic set of rules such as adding 's' for plurals or inventing simpler words out of words too complicated to repeat like "choskit" for chocolate biscuit.[20] Following this there is a rapid appearance of grammatical rules and ordering of sentences.[20] There is often an interest in rhyme, and imaginative play frequently includes conversations. Children's recorded monologues give insight into the development of the process of organizing information into meaningful units.[20]

By three years the child is beginning to use complex sentences, including relative clauses, although still perfecting various linguistic systems.[20] By five years of age the child's use of language is very similar to that of an adult.[20] From the age of about three children can indicate fantasy or make-believe linguistically, produce coherent personal stories and fictional narrative with beginnings and endings.[20] It is argued that children devise narrative as a way of understanding their own experience and as a medium for communicating their meaning to others.[20] The ability to engage in extended discourse emerges over time from regular conversation with adults and peers. For this the child needs to learn to combine his perspective with that of others and with outside events and learn to use linguistic indicators to show he is doing this. They also learn to adjust their language depending on to whom they are speaking.[20] Typically by the age of about 9 a child can recount other narratives in addition to their own experiences, from the perspectives of the author, the characters in the story and their own views.[20]

Theories of Language Development

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Although the role of adult discourse is important in facilitating the child's learning, there is considerable disagreement among theorists about the extent to which children's early meanings and expressive words arise. Findings about the initial mapping of new words, the ability to decontextualize words, and refine meaning of words are diverse.[21] One hypothesis is known as the syntactic bootstrapping hypothesis which refers to the child's ability to infer meaning from cues, using grammatical information from the structure of sentences.[22] Another is the multi-route model in which it is argued that context-bound words and referential words follow different routes; the first being mapped onto event representations and the latter onto mental representations. In this model, parental input has a critical role but the children ultimately rely on cognitive processing to establish subsequent use of words.[23] However, naturalistic research on language development has indicated that preschoolers' vocabularies are strongly associated with the number of words addressed to them by adults.[24]

There is no single accepted theory of language acquisition. Instead, there are current theories that help to explain theories of language, theories of cognition, and theories of development. They include the generativist theory, social interactionist theory, usage-based theory (Tomasello), connectionist theory, and behaviorist theory ((Skinner). Generativist theories refer to Universal Grammar being innate where language experience activates innate knowledge.[25] Social interactionist theories define language as a social phenomenon. This theory states that children acquire language because they want to communicate with others; this theory is heavily based on social-cognitive abilities that drive the language acquisition process.[25] Usage-based theories define language as a set of formulas that emerge from the child’s learning abilities in correspondence with its social cognitive interpretation and understanding of the speakers’ intended meanings.[25] Connectionist theories is a pattern-learning procedure and defines language as a system composed of smaller subsystems or patterns of sound or meaning.[25] Behaviorist theories define language as the establishment of positive reinforcement, but is now regarded a theory of historical interest.[25]

Language and its relation to communication

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Communication can be defined as the exchange and negotiation of information between two or more individuals through verbal and nonverbal symbols, oral and written (or visual) modes, and the production and comprehension processes of communication.[26] Communicative language is nonverbal and/or verbal, and to achieve communication competence, four components must be met. These four components of communication competence include: grammatical competence (vocabulary knowledge, rules of word sentence formation, etc), sociolinguistic competence (appropriateness of meanings and grammatical forms in different social contexts), discourse competence (knowledge required to combine forms and meanings), and strategic competence (knowledge of verbal and nonverbal communication strategies).[26] The attainment of communicative competence is an essential part of actual communication.[27]

Language development is viewed as a motive to communication, and the communicative function of language in-turn provides the motive for language development. Jean Piaget uses the term “acted conversations” to explain a child’s style of communication that rely more heavily on gestures and body movements, rather then words.[18] Younger children depend on gestures for a direct statement of their message. As they begin to acquire more language, body movements take on a different role and begin to complement the verbal message.[18] These nonverbal bodily movements allow children to express their emotions before they can express them verbally. The child’s nonverbal communication of how they’re feeling is seen in babies 0 to 3 months who use wild, jerky movements of the body to show excitement or distress.[18] This develops to more rhythmic movements of the entire body at 3 to 5 months to demonstrate the child’s anger or delight.[18] Between 9–12 months of age, children view themselves as joining the communicative world.[1] Before 9–12 months, babies interact with objects and interact with people, but they do not interact with people about objects. This developmental change is the change from primary intersubjectivity (capacity to share oneself with others) to secondary intersubjectivity (capacity to share one’s experience), which changes the infant from an unsociable to socially engaging creature.[1] Around 12 months of age a communicative use of gesture is used. This gesture includes communicative pointing where an infant points to request something, or to point to provide information.[1] Another gesture of communication is presented around the age of 10 and 11 months where infants start gaze-following; they look where another person is looking.[1] This joint attention result in changes to their social cognitive skills between the ages of 9 and 15 months as their time is spent increasingly with others.[1] Children’s use of non-verbal communicative gestures foretells future language development. The use of non-verbal communication in the form of gestures indicate the child’s interest in communication development, and the meanings they choose to convey that are soon revealed through the verbalization of language.[1]

Language acquisition and development contribute to the verbal form of communication. Children originate with a linguistic system where words they learn, are the words used for functional meaning.[25] This instigation of speech has been termed pragmatic bootstrapping. According to this, children view words as a means of social construction, and that words are used to connect the understanding of communicative intentions of the speaker who speaks a new word.[25] Hence, the competence of verbal communication through language is achieved through the attainability of syntax or grammar. Another function of communication through language is pragmatic development.[28] Pragmatic development includes the child’s intentions of communication before he/she knows how to express these intentions, and throughout the first few years of life both language and communicative functions develop.[25]

When children acquire language and learn to use language for communicative functions (pragmatics), children also gain knowledge about the participation in conversations and relating to past experiences/events (discourse knowledge), and how to use language appropriately in congruence with their social situation or social group (sociolinguistic knowledge).[25] Within the first two years of life, a child’s language ability progresses and conversational skills, such as the mechanics of verbal interaction, develop. Mechanics of verbal interaction include taking turns, initiating topics, repairing miscommunication, and responding to lengthen or sustain dialogue.[25] Conversation is asymmetrical when a child interacts with an adult because the adult is the one to create structure in the conversation, and to build upon the child’s contributions. In accordance to the child’s developing conversational skills, asymmetrical conversation between adult and child modulate to an equal temperament of conversation. This shift in balance of conversation suggests a narrative discourse development in communication.[25] Ordinarily, the development of communicative competence and the development of language are positively correlated with one another,[25] however, the correlation is not flawless.

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Hoff, E. (2014). Language Development. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning
  2. ^ "The Four Language Systems". The Learning House, Inc. Retrieved 5 March 2013.
  3. ^ de Villiers, Jill G.; de Villiers, Peter A. (1979). Language acquisition (3. print. ed.). Cambridge, Mass. [u.a.]: Harvard Univ. Press. pp. 7–16. ISBN 0674509315.
  4. ^ Lass, Roger (1984). Phonology : an introduction to basic concepts (1st published, repr. ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 1. ISBN 0521281830.
  5. ^ Odden, David (2007). Introducing phonology (3. print. ed.). Cambridge [u.a.]: Cambridge Univ. Press. pp. 2–4. ISBN 0521534046.
  6. ^ Odden, David (2007). Introducing phonology (3. print. ed.). Cambridge [u.a.]: Cambridge Univ. Press. p. 2. ISBN 0521534046.
  7. ^ Odden, David (2007). Introducing phonology (3. print. ed.). Cambridge [u.a.]: Cambridge Univ. Press. p. 4. ISBN 0521534046.
  8. ^ de Villiers, Jill G.; de Villiers, Peter A. (1979). Language acquisition (3. print. ed.). Cambridge, Mass. [u.a.]: Harvard Univ. Press. pp. 7–16. ISBN 0674509315.
  9. ^ de Villiers, Jill G.; de Villiers, Peter A. (1979). Language acquisition (3. print. ed.). Cambridge, Mass. [u.a.]: Harvard Univ. Press. pp. 42–43. ISBN 0674509315.
  10. ^ Rapoport, Anatol (1952). "What is Semantics?". American Scientist. 40 (1): 123–135.
  11. ^ Plag, Ingo; Braun, Marie; Lappe, Sabine; Schramm, Mareile (2007). Introduction to English linguistics (1st. ed. ed.). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. p. 150. ISBN 3110189690. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help)
  12. ^ Lass, Roger (1984). Phonology : an introduction to basic concepts (1st published, repr. ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 11–12. ISBN 0521281830. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
  13. ^ de Villiers, Jill G.; de Villiers, Peter A. (1979). Language acquisition (3. print. ed.). Cambridge, Mass. [u.a.]: Harvard Univ. Press. p. 229. ISBN 0674509315.
  14. ^ Aronoff, Mark; Fudeman, Kristen (2011). What is Morphology (2 ed.). John Wiley & Sons.
  15. ^ Peterwagner, Reinhold (2005). What is the matter with communicative competence? : an analysis to encourage teachers of English to assess the very basis of their teaching. Münster [u.a.]: Lit-Verl. p. 24. ISBN 3825884872.
  16. ^ de Villiers, Jill G.; de Villiers, Peter A. (1979). Language acquisition (3. print. ed.). Cambridge, Mass. [u.a.]: Harvard Univ. Press. p. 229. ISBN 0674509315.
  17. ^ Hopper, R., & Naremore, R. C. (1973). Children's Speech. New York, NY: Harper & Row
  18. ^ a b c d e f Wood, B. S. (1976). Children and communication: verbal and nonverbal language development. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall
  19. ^ a b c d e f g h i Woolfolk, A., & Perry, N. E. (2012). Child and adolescent development. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.
  20. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Pal, B. K. (2011) . Education Psychology. Delhi: Prerna Parkashan.
  21. ^ Cite error: The named reference Smith, Cowie, Blades, 2011 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  22. ^ Gleitman LR (1990). "The structural sources of verb meaning". Language Acquisition. 1 (1): 3–55. doi:10.1207/s15327817la0101_2.
  23. ^ Barrett M, Harris M, Chasin J; Harris; Chasin (1991). "Early lexical development and maternal speech: a comparison of children's initial and subsequent uses of words". Journal of Child Language. 18 (1): 21–40. doi:10.1017/S0305000900013271. PMID 2010501.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  24. ^ Hart B and Risley T (1995). "Meaningful differences in the everyday experience of young American children". Baltimore: P.H. Brookes. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  25. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Hoff, E. (2009). Language Development. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.], more text.
  26. ^ a b Richards. J. C., & Schmidt, W. R. (Eds.). (1986). Language and Communication. USA: Longman Group Limited.], more text.
  27. ^ [Burgoon, K. J., & Le Poire, A. B. (1993). Effects of communication expectancies, actual communication, and expectancy disconfirmation on evaluations of communicators and their communication behavior. ‘’Human Communication Research, 20’’(1), ‘’67-96.’’ doi: 10.1111/j.1468-2958.1993.tb00316.x], more text.
  28. ^ [Ninio, A., & Snow, E. C. (1996). Essays in Developmental Science. Boulder, CO, US: Westview Press.], more text.

Category:Language acquisition Category:Evolution of language Category:Unsolved problems in linguistics

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