This document discusses language development in early childhood. It covers the key systems that make up language (phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics). It also discusses the biological and environmental influences on language development, outlining major theories including Piaget's stages of cognitive development and Vygotsky's emphasis on social interaction and the zone of proximal development. Theories of language development discussed include the nativist view proposed by Chomsky that posits an innate language acquisition device, as well as the empiricist view that language is learned from the environment. Stages of typical language development from 6 months to 5 years are also outlined.

1. UNIVERSITY OF SINDH JAMSHORO
NAME :
F.NAME:
CLASS:
SUBJECT:
ROLL #:
ANWAR ABBAS LAGHARI
GHULAM ASGHAR
MPHIL (EDUCATION) 2016
PSYCHOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE & ISSUES
IN EDUCATION
M/EDU/2K16/05
ASSIGN:TOPIC : LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT IN
EARLY CHILDHOOD
SUBJECT TEACHER: DR.IFTIKHAR JAFFERI

2. OUTLINE
DEFINITION
LANGUAGE SYSTEMS
 PHONOLOGY
 MORPHOLOGY
 SYNTAX
 SEMANTICS
 PREGMATICS
INFLUENCES
LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
THEORIES

3. HOW LANGUAGE DEVELOPED IN EARLY
CHILDHOOD?
LANGUAGE: is a form of communication-whether
spoken, written, or signed-that is based on a system of
symbols.
Language involves five systems of rules: phonology,
morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics.
PHONOLOGY: is the sound system of a language,
including the sounds used and how they may be
combined.
For example : English has the sounds sp, ba, and ar.
A phoneme is the basic unit of sound in a language ;it is
the smallest unit of sound that affects meaning. A good
example of a phoneme in English is /k/,the sound
represented by the letter k in the word ski and the letter c
in the word cat. The /k/ sound is slightly different in these
two words.
English has 24 consonant phonemes. In English, the ‘s’ in
‘sip’ and ‘z’ in ‘zip’represented
MORPHOLOGY: refers to the units of meaning involved
in word formation. A morpheme is a minimal unit of

4. meaning; it is a word or a part of a word that cannot be
broken into smaller meaningful parts. Every word in the
English language is made up of one or more morphemes.
Some words consist of a single morpheme(for example,
help), whereas others are made up of more than one
morpheme(for example, helper, which has two
morphemes, help+er, with the morpheme –er meaning
“one who”- in this case “one who helps”. Thus, not all
morphemes are words by themselves; for example, pre-, -
tion, and –ing are morphemes.
SYNTAX: The way words are combined to form
acceptable phrases and sentences is their syntax. If
someone says to you, ”Bob slugged Tom” or “Bob was
slugged by Tom”, you know who did the slugging and
who was slugged in each case because you have a
syntactic understanding of the sentence structures. You
also understand that the sentence “you didn’t stay, did
you?” is a grammatical sentence but that “you didn’t stay,
didn’t you?” is unacceptable and ambiguous.
“I went to the store” vs “I store the to went”
SEMANTICS: The term semantics refers to the meaning
of words and sentences. Every word has a set of semantic
features, or required attributes related to meaning. Girl

5. and women, for example, share many semantic features,
but they differ semantically in regard to age.
Words have semantic restrictions on how they can be
used in sentences. The sentence, The bicycle talked the
age semantically incorrect. The sentence violates our
semantic knowledge that bicycles don’t talk.
PRAGMATICS: The appropriate use of language in
different contexts. Pregmatics covers a lot of territory.
When you take turns speaking in a discussion.
You also apply the pragmatics of English when you
use polite language in appropriate situations (for example,
when talking to a teacher) or tell stories that are intresting.
(e.g,”excuse me “ vs “get out of my way”
BIOLOGICALAND ENVIRONMENTAL INFLUENCES
Famous linguist Noam Chomsky argued that humans
are prewired to learn language at a certain time and in a
certain way. Some language scholars view the remarkable
similarities in how children acquire language all over the
world despite the vast variation in language input they
receive as strong evidence that language has a biological
basis.

6. Despite the influence of biology, children clearly do
not learn language in a social vacuum.
No matter how long you converse with a dog, it won’t
learn to talk, because it doesn’t have the human child’s
biological capacity for language. Unfortunately, though,
some children fail to develop good language skills even in
the presence of very good role models and interactions.
An interactionist view emphasizes the contributions of
both biology and experience in language development.
That is, children are biologically prepared to learn
language as they and their caregivers interact.
In or out of school, encouragement of language
development, not drill and practice, is the key. Language
development is not simply a matter of being rewarded for
saying things correctly and imitating a speaker. Children
benefit when their parents and teachers actively engage
them in conversation, ask them questions, and emphasize
interactive rather than directive language.

7. LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
6-7 MONTHS: babbling occur “ ba’ ba’ ba”, “ma’ ma’
ma”,
Vocalization with intonation, responds to his name,
responds to human voices without visual cues by turning
his head and eyes.
10-13 MONTHS: can speak with difficulty two or three
words with meaning.
18 MONTHS: has vocabulary approximately 20-25
words. Vocabulary made up chiefly of nouns.
24 MONTHS: can name a number of objects common to
his surroundings, is able to use at least two prepositions:
in, on, under.
Combines words into a short sentence, largely noun-
verb combinations.
Vocabulary around 150-300 words, can use two
pronouns correctly I, you.
36 MONTHS: use pronoun I,you,plurals and past tense.
Knows chief parts of body,vocabulary reached 900-1000
words.

8. Understands most simply questions dealing with his
environment and activities. Relates his experiences so that
they can be followed with reason.
48 MONTHS: knows names of familiar animals.
Can use at least four prepositions or can demonstrate his
understanding of their meaning when given commands.
Names common objects in picture books or magazines.
Knows one or more colours.
Can repeat 4 digits when they are given slowly.
Can usually repeat words of four syllables.
60 MONTHS: can use many descriptive words
spontaneously, both adjectives and adverbs.
Knows common opposites; big-little, hard-soft, heavy-
light, etc.
Has number concepts of 4 or more.
Can count to ten.
Should be able to repeat sentences as long as nine words.
Should be able to define common objects in terms of use
(hat,shoe,chair).

9. PIAGET’S THEORY
Proposed childrens cognitive development.
In his theory, cognitive development unfolds in a
sequence of four stages:
1. Sensorimotor stage(birth to about age 2years): Infants
construct an understanding of the world by
coordinating their sensory experiences with their
motor actions.
2.Preoperational stage(from about ages 2 to 7
years):thought is more symbolic. Child has not yet
mastered some important mental oprations. It
includes symbolic function and intuitive thought sub
stages.
3.Concrete operational stage(from about 7 to 11
years):children can perform operations,logical
thought replaces intuitive thought when reasoning
can be applied to specific or concrete examples.
Classification, seriation,and transitivity are important
concrete operational skills.
4. Formal operational stage(from about ages 11 to 15
years): thinking is more abstract,idealistic,and
logical. Hypothetical-deductive reasoning becomes
important.

10. According to Piaget, children construct knowledge
about language through a complex process of
assimilation, stressing the inherent capability of a
child’s brain to adapt to stimulation.
VYGOTSKY’S THEORY
1. Vygotsky’s view emphasizes that cognitive skills
need to be interpreted developmentally, are
mediated by language, and have their origins in
social relations and culture zone of proximal
development (ZPD) is Vygotsky’s term for the
range of tasks that are too difficult for children to
master alone but that can be learned with the
guidance and assistance of adults and more-skilled
children. Scaffolding is an important concept in
Vygotsky’s theory he also argued that language
plays a key role in guiding cognition. Application
of Vygotsky’s ideas to education including using
the child’s ZPD and scaffolding, using more-
skilled peers as teachers, monitoring and
encouraging children’s use of private speech, and
accurately assessing the ZPD. These practices can
transform the classroom and establish a meaningful
context for instruction. Vygotsky emphasized that

11. children actively construct their understanding of
world. He emphasized that children construct
knowledge through social interaction.
THE NATIVIST THEORY
Proposed by Noam Chomsky, argues that language
is a unique human accomplishment.
Chomsky says that all children have what is called
an innate language acquisition device (LAD).
Theoretically, the LAD is an area of the brain that
has a set of universal syntactic rules of all
languages. This device provides children with the
ability to construct novel sentences using learned
vocabulary. Chomsky’s claim is based upon the
view that what children hear-their linguistic input-
is insufficient to explain how they come to learn
language. He argues that linguistic input from the
environment is limited and full of errors.
Therefore, nativists assume that it is impossible for
children to learn linguistic information solely from
their environment. However, because children
possess this LAD, they are infact, able to learn
language despite incomplete information from their
environment.

12. THE EMPIRICIST THEORY
Suggest, contra Chomsky, that there is enough
information in the linguistic input children receive
and therefore, there is no need to assume an innate
language acquisition device exists. Empiricists
believe that general brain processes are sufficient
enough for language acquisition. During this
process, it is necessary for the child to actively
engage with their environment. For a child to learn
language, the parent or caregiver adopts a
particular way of appropriately communicating
with the child