The document discusses theories of language development in children. It describes the nativist view that children are biologically programmed with an innate language acquisition device. It also describes the interactionist perspective that both biological and environmental factors interact during development. Children reach linguistic milestones at similar ages across cultures, suggesting biological influences, but they learn language through social interactions like turn-taking, child-directed speech, and receiving negative feedback on errors. Overall, the development of language is viewed as the product of both innate predispositions and environmental experiences.

2. The process by which one organism
transmits information to and
influences another.
What are vocals?
Unique patterns of sound that
a paralinguistic infant uses to
represent objects, actions, or
events.
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3. A small number of individually meaningless
symbols (sounds, letters, gestures) that can be
combined according to agreed-on rules to
produce an infinite number of messages.
• One truly astounding achievement that sets
humans apart from the rest of the animal
kingdom is our creation and use of language.
Although animals can communicate with one
another, their limited number of calls and
gestures are merely isolated signals that
convey very specific messages (such as a
greeting, a threat, a summons to
congregate) in much the same way that
single words or stereotyped phrases do in a
human language (Tomesello, 2006)
Language Explained
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4. • Phonology
• Morphology
• Semantics
• Syntax
• Pragmatics
Five components of language
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5. Psycholinguists
Those who study the structure and development of children’s language
are known as Psycholinguists.
1.Phonology
The sound system of a language and the rules for combining
these sounds to produce meaningful units of speech.
2.Morphology
Rules governing the formation of meaningful words from
sounds.
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6. 3.Semantics
1. The expressed meaning of words and sentences.
2. In semantics we also come from a topic which is known as
3. Morphemes smallest meaningful language units.
4. And morpheme have also two types.
5. One is free morphemes.
6. Second is bound morphemes.
7. free morphemes morphemes that can stand alone as a word (e.g.,
cat, go, yellow).
8. bound morphemes morphemes that cannot stand alone but that
modify the meaning of free morphemes (e.g., the “ed” attached to
English verbs to indicate past tense)
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7. 4. Syntax
The structure of a language; the rules specifying how words and grammatical
markers are to be combined to produce meaningful sentences.
Examples
1. Kenny Cartman killed.
2. Cartman killed Kenny.
3. Kenny killed Cartman.
5.Pragmatics
1. Principles that underlie the effective and appropriate use of language in
social contexts.
2. The term which come in pragmatics is.
3. Sociolinguistic knowledge culturally specific rules specifying how language
should be structured and used in particular social contexts.
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8. Theories of Language Development
As psycholinguists began to chart the course of language development,
they were amazed that children could learn such a complex symbol
system at such a breathtaking pace. After all, some infants are using
words (which are arbitrary and abstract signifiers) to refer to objects
and activities even before they can walk. And by age 5, children
already know and use most of the syntactical structures of their native
language.
How do they do it?
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9. 9

10. Ask most adults how children learn language and they are
likely to say that children imitate what they hear, are
reinforced when they use proper grammar, and are
corrected when they say things wrong. Learning theorists
emphasize these same processes— imitation and
reinforcement—in their own theories of language learning.
In 1957, B. F. Skinner argued that children learn to
speak appropriately because they are reinforced for
correct speech. He believed that adults shape speech by
reinforcing babbling that most resemble words, thereby
increasing the probability that these sounds will be
repeated. Later, adults reinforce the child for combining
words and then for producing sentences.
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11. Imitation and reinforcement do play some part in early language development. It is
no surprise that children whose parents frequently encourage them to converse by
asking questions and making requests are more advanced in their early language
development than age-mates whose parents are less conversational.
Imitation and reinforcement do play some part in early language development. It is
no surprise that children whose parents frequently encourage them to converse by
asking questions and making requests are more advanced in their early language
development than age-mates whose parents are less conversational
(Bohannon & Bonvillian, 1997; Valdez - Menchaca & Whitehurst, 1992).
Despite these observations, learning theorists have had little success accounting for
the development of syntax. If parents really “shaped” grammar, as Skinner claimed,
then they ought to reliably praise or otherwise reinforce the child’s grammatical
utterances

12. • In this perspective some majors terms like,
• Language acquisition device (LAD)
• Chomsky’s term for the innate knowledge of
grammar that humans are said to possess knowledge
that might enable young children to infer the rules
governing others’ speech and to use these rules to
produce language.
• Universal grammar
• In nativist theories of language acquisition, the
basic rules of grammar that characterize all
languages
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13. Language-making capacity (LMC).
A hypothesized set of specialized linguistic processing skills that enable
children to analyze speech and to detect phonological, semantic, and
syntactical relationships.
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14. Support for the Nativist Perspective.
Are children biologically programmed to acquire language? Several
observations suggest they are. For example, children reach linguistic
milestones at about the same age, despite cultural differences in the
structure of their languages.
Nativists interpret these linguistic universals as clear evidence that
language must be guided by some species-specific biological mechanism.
Brain Specialization and Language
aphasia a loss of one or more language functions.
Broca’s area structure located in the frontal lobe of the left hemisphere of
the cerebral cortex that controls language production.
Wernicke’s area structure located in the temporal lobe of the left
hemisphere of the cerebral cortex that is responsible for interpreting
speech.
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15. The Sensitive-Period Hypothesis
This sensitive-period hypothesis for language development was prompted by
observations that child aphasics often recover their lost language functions
without special therapy, whereas adult aphasics usually require extensive
therapeutic interventions to recover even a portion of their lost language
skills.
Sensitive-period hypothesis (of language acquisition).
the notion that human beings are most proficient at language learning before
they reach puberty
Problems with the Nativist Approach
Though most everyone today agrees that language learning is heavily
influenced by biological factors, many developmentalists have serious
reservations about the nativist approach
(Goldberg, 2004; Tomesello, 2006). 15

16. Biological and Cognitive Contributors
Clearly, the remarkable similarities that young children
display when learning very different languages imply
that biology contributes to language acquisition.
(MacNeilage et al., 2000)
According to the interactionist viewpoint, young children
the world over talk alike and display other linguistic
universals because they are all members of the same
species who share many common experiences.
Interactionist viewpoint
The notion that biological
factors and environmental
influences interact to
determine the course of
language development.

17. Environmental Supports for Language Development.
Interactionist stress that language is primarily a means of communicating that
develops in the context of social interactions as children and their companions
strive to get their messages across, one way or another.
(Bohannon & Bonvillian, 1997; Callanan & Sabbagh, 2004; Hoff & Naigles,
2002; MacNeilage et al., 2000; Tomasello, 1995).
Lessons from Joint Activities.
Long before infants use words, their caregivers show them how to take turns in
conversations, even if the only thing these young infants can contribute when
their turn comes is a laugh or a babble.
(Bruner, 1983)
Lessons from Child-Directed Speech.
Cross-cultural research points to a nearly universal tendency of parents and
older siblings to address infants and toddlers with very short, simple sentences
that psycholinguists call child-directed speech, or motherese
(Gelman & Shatz, 1977; 17

18. motherese
The short, simple, high-pitched (and often repetitive) sentences that adults use
when talking with young children.
(also called child directed speech)
Lessons from Negative Evidence.
Although parents do not reliably attempt to reinforce correct grammar, they do
provide the child with negative evidence; that is, they respond to ungrammatical
speech in ways that subtly communicate that an error has been made and
provide information that might be used to correct these errors
(Bohannon & Bonvillian, 1997; Saxton, 1997)
The Importance of Conversation
Would young children learn language just as well by merely listening to others
converse? Apparently not. Nativists, who claimed that the only thing children
need to acquire language is regular exposure to speech samples, have clearly
underestimated the role of social interactions in language learning.
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19. From an interactionist perspective, then, language development is the
product of a complex transaction between nature and nurture. Children
are born with a powerful human brain that develops slowly and
predisposes them to acquire new understandings,
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