This document summarizes key aspects of language acquisition in children. It discusses how children progress from prelinguistic communication like babbling to understanding words and basic sentences. Children first learn nouns and verbs referring to objects and actions around them. They develop the ability to share attention and experiences with others. The document also examines how children learn meanings of words, grammar rules, and pragmatic uses of language in social contexts. Both nativist and interactionist perspectives on language learning are presented. Essential ingredients for language development include biological prerequisites in the brain and environment, cognitive abilities, fast mapping skills, social interaction, and exposure to language.

1. Language Acquisition
Ching-fen Hsu
2013/9/13
Lecture 1

2. Prelinguistic Communication
• Unique human capacity
• > 2.5m sound system: cooing babbling
jargoning recognizable words
• > 7m infants become familiar with sound patterns of
languages & adept at interacting with people & objects
around
• Primary intersubjectivity: 3m infants’ ability to match
one’s behavior to that of another person and to share
experiences in direct face-to-face interaction
• Secondary intersubjectivity: 9-12m, ability to share
mental states with another person & to understand
what they are intending to do, i.e., social referencing
(joint attention: sharing knowledge about events &
objects; pointing); precursor to language acquisition

3. Pointing and Communication
• Pointing: a communicative
act intended to create a
joint focus of attention
• 12m infants wait & see how
caregivers react to their
pointing
• 18m infants wait till
caretakers come back into
room & know pointing has
purpose to communicate
with others
• 2y children understand
repertoire of words & word
ordering
• 3y start conversation

4. Puzzle of Language Development
• Problem of Reference: how do children
discover what words mean? How do
we learn to pick out its intended
referent---object or relation to which it
refers?
• Infants have to figure out ongoing flow
of experience to indicate actual event,
object, feeling
• Look, there sits a ptitsa (bird, Russian).
• An adult can point to the animal in the
picture or to many parts of the animal
and apply the same kind of declaratory
statement: that’s a ____. How do
children know what is being referred to?
(George Miller, 1991)

5. Problem of Grammar• Comprehensible sentence must be governed by
grammar, rules for sequencing words in a sentence &
ordering of parts of words for a particular lg
• 7m infants: sensitive to word orderings in simple S &
extract word patterns
• Learn grammatical rules from errors: “My doggy runned
away” “Mommy, Johnny camed late”
• Children confuse grammatical forms
• Problem of central coherence (recursion): embedding of
S within each other
• Recursion: provides language with great economy and
flexibility of expression
i.e., the boy who went to the beach saw some fish and
got a sunburn (3 propositions)

6. Four Subsystems of
Language
• Language is a system
• Central parts of languages:
sounds, words, methods of
combining words, communal
uses that language serves
• Each of parts is connected to
the others & social world
• Learning language takes time &
practice

7. I. Sounds
• 1y children begin to vocalize particular sounds &
sound sequences that make up words in language of
their community
• Takes several years for children to master
pronunciation of words
• Children’s native sound system develops unevenly
• Some sounds master late, i.e., /l/
lucky vs. Yucky (substitution)
• Children understand phonemes by minimal pairs
• Children’s attention to differences bet sounds is not
simply a mechanical skill but develops along with
growing understanding of meanings of words

8. International Phonetic
Alphabet: Consonant

9. International Phonetic
Alphabet: Vowel

10. II. Words
• Words are more than a set of
sounds that communicate
• Words are symbols: stand for
something beyond
themselves
• The earliest vocabularies:
13-14m 10 words (production)
+300 words (comprehension)
17-18m 50 words
• 2y 300 words
• Nouns referring to objects
make up large proportion of
early vocabularies of young
children & actions
accomplish with things
named (hat & sock > sweater
& diaper)
• Objects that can change or move to
capture children’s attention (cars &
animals) > large & immobile objects
(trees & houses) > adjectives & verbs
(2y verbs > nouns) > changes in states
& object locations & relational words
• NO: communicative function as
rejection, protest, denial; one of the
earliest & most frequently used words
in child’s early vocabulary

11. Overextension vs. Underextension
• Underextension: 1.5y
children use words in a
narrower way than
adults do
i.e., bottle only for
plastic bottle; cat only to
family’s cat
• Overextension: 2y a
single label refers to
circumstances that
adults use
i.e., daddy to all men in
a room & kitty to small
four-legged animals
• Overextension: a term for the error of
applying verbal labels too broadly
• Underextention: a term used for
applying verbal labels in a narrower
way than adults do
• Children learn words from contexts

12. Levels of Abstraction
• Children choose words that are at
appropriate level of abstraction with
time and experience
i.e., Mommy, look at Sally/that girl/
her/that person
• 2-4y label basic levels of generality
• 4-5y are close to adults with more
naming of flowers than adults
• Children’s limitation in categorizing
does not mean failing in
understanding differences bet objects

13. Changing Structure of
Children’s Vocabularies
• Structure of children’s word
meanings changes based on
developmental course of
children’s use of single words (i.e.,
dog)
• Initially children take ‘dog’ to
evoke a range of situations which
dog is only one element (dog
growls, barks, is petted, runs
away, fights); each connects in a
specific way as part of an action
(graph a)
• With experience, words begin to
acquire conceptual meanings; not
depending on any one context or
a real-world context (graph b)

14. Words as Mediators• Humans have a double world: objects &
situations can be perceived by senses;
indirectly manipulate things which cannot
be perceived
• 11-12m infants discover sound sequences
can recruit adults’ attention & help; making
sounds to anticipate/guide/stimulate own &
others’ actions & feelings
• Language acts as mediator; children make
something happen without doing the thing
themselves
• As children start understand words,
children can be influenced by others
directly (nonverbal actions) & indirectly
(words & culturally organized knowledge
that words embody)
• Beautiful intellectual power of human

15. III. Sentences
• Is single word a sentence? (1)
holophrases: children utter
single words to represent
sentences to communicate; (2)
single words + gestures +
facial expressions = whole
sentences
‘shoe’ = ‘you want daddy to tie
your shoelace’
• It’s difficult to say how much of
child’s meaning & how much
of adult’s interpretation
• Two-word combinations mark
birth of grammar, i.e., No eat!

16. Increasing Complexity
• Children increase complexity,
variety of words & grammatical
devices
2y: you can’t pick up a big kitty
coz a big kitty might bite!
• More complex utterances
communicate more explicitly
• MLU (mean length of
utterance): average number of
morphemes per utterance
• MLU accesses linguistic
complexity by counting
morphemes but not words
• MLU provides index of
children’s potential for making
meaning in particular utterance
Ex1: That big bad boy plays ball.
(six words & seven morphemes)
Ex2: Boys aren’t playing. (three
words & six morphemes)

17. Grammatical Morphemes
location
number
subject & time of the action

18. Figurative Speech
• Metaphors = figurative speech
2.5y banana: telephone
• Creative process of language; essential tool of
human thought
• Children have to recognize similarity bet two
things & express it in a new way
• 2-6y children use metaphors without
understanding figurative meaning of adult speech
耳邊風 碰釘子
• Develop through childhood into adulthood

19. IV. The Use of Language• Master language = grammatical rules + word
meanings + pragmatic uses
• Pragmatics: ability to select words & orderings
in contexts
• Conversational acts: actions that achieve goals
through lg
• Protoimperatives: engage another person to
achieve desired object, i.e., a child holds up a
cup & say ‘more’
• Protodeclaratives: initiate & maintain dialogues
with adults, i.e., pointing & giving (toys)
• Word sequence accomplish alternative goals (Is
the door shut? = please shut the door; you have
forgotten to shut the door again)
• 2y can understand alternative goals

20. Conversational Conventions
• 3-4y children can solicit information (what happened?),
action (put the toy down), assert facts & rules (we have a
boat), utter warnings (watch out)
• Four basic rules in conversation: cooperative principle
(1)the maxim of quantity
(2)the maxim of quality
(3)the maxim of relevance
(4)the maxim of clarity
• Irony violates rules
• Children acquire social knowledge that regulate what is to
be said & how to say it

21. Explanations of Language
Acquisition
• Biological-maturation perspective: nativist approach
•Nativism: language acquisition is attributed largely to
nature
•Children mature language-using capacity naturally with
minimum input from E & special training
•Environmental-learning approach: attributes language to
nurture (language environment & teaching activities)
•En-learning does not come from imitation
•Imitation cannot explain two basic puzzles (how children
learn referents of words & how they master grammar) &
En-learning still contains nature (connectionism)
•Nativism agrees that E contributes to lg acquisition

22. The Nativist Explanation
• Noam Chomsky: children acquire lg quickly effortlessly
with no instruction & learning mechanisms
• Lg is innate & develops through universal process of
maturation
• Lg learning is like maturation of child’s body in a
predetermined way with appropriate nutrition & E
stimulation
• Lg = mental organ, special psychological mechanism
(children acquire verbal & nonverbal beh by causal
observation & imitation of adults & children)
• Lg = distinct piece of biological makeup of our brains;
distinct from general abilities processing info or intelligent
beh

23. The Nature of Language
• Surface structure: actual Ss people produced
• Deep structure: basic set of rules of lg derives Ss
• LAD (language acquisition devise): innate lg-processing
capacity that is programmed to recognize universal rules
that underlie lgs that a child hear
• LAD = lg genetic code; with maturation & interaction with
E, LAD enables children increasing complex lg forms to
form adult capacity
Child: Nobody don’t like me
Mother: No, say “nobody likes me”
Child: Nobody don’t like me
Mother: No, now listen carefully; say “nobody likes me”
Child: No! Nobody don’t likes me

24. The Interactionist Explanation
• Lg acquisition = social process
• Social E incorporates children as
members of existing lg-using group
• Formats: earliest social structures for
lg development; recurrent socially
patterned activities in which adult &
child do things together
i.e., routines surrounding bathing,
bedtime, meals, peekaboo 
providing structures for
communication bet babies &
caregivers
• Formats: crucial vehicles in passage
from communication to lg
 Emphasizing cognition
 Emphasizing cultural
context & social
interaction
Lg is not simply
triggered by children’s
exposure to it

25. Emphasizing Cognition
• Large word vocabularies =>
complex grammar
• Positive correlation bet
grammatical complexity &
number of words
• Grammar emerges from using
many words to convey
complex messages
• > 400 words grammatical
complexity accelerates
• >18m children changes word
usage (reason hidden objects/
vary actions to reach goals/
social words)

26. Emphasizing Cultural Context &
Social Interaction
• Children constitute language acquisition support
system (LASS) from formatted events in
acquisition
• LASS: parental behaviors and formatted events
for children to acquire language; E complement to
innate biological LAD
• Language acquisition emerges from different
contributing factors, e.g., general cognitive
capacities & culturally organized E

27. Essential Ingredients of
Language Acquisition

28. Biological Prerequisites for
Language
• Is language uniquely human?
• Humans: powerful language; other
species: communication systems
• Genetic basis for process of
language development
• Chimpanzees can learn to
comprehend spoken words &
phrases; or signs referring to things;
but never produce language
• Kanzi: using lexical keyboard to
communicate; telegraphic
utterances to combine symbols

29. Language & Brain Damage
• Human brain supports lg development
• LH: lg dominance
• 19th century: aphasia (speech disorders);
genetically programmed brain areas for
lg (nativism)
• Brain plasticity: infants’ brains
(predisposed)
Broca’s area: Left frontal lobe
(named after 1861 French
physician Paul Broca)
Wernicke’s area: Left frontal
lobe (named after 1861 French
physician Wernicke)

30. Language & Cognitive Development
• Chromosome deficit: Down syndrome
• Restricted vocabularies + simple talk
• Failure in understanding complex linguistic
constructions
• Normal cognitive functioning for lg development
• Williams syndrome

31. The Environment of
Language Development
• Lg-support system in
acquisition (e.g., Genie)
• Active participation in
human activity to learn lg
(deaf children delay learning
in hearing E)
• Deaf children are forced to
learn lip-reading but not
signs (home-sign system
invention)
• Home sign starts as pointing
• Hearing children one-word
stage = home-sign children
sign one words
• Hearing children multiword
sentence = home-sign
children sign >3 signs

32. Nicaraguan Sign Language
• Children generate signed utterances of greater
complexity than gestures
• <1970s deaf Nicaraguans were socially isolated &
marginalized
• 1977 25 deaf children in school to 100
• 1979 >400 adolescents in a vocational school
• Little success in lipreading or fingerspelling
• Children started using invented home signs &
complexity increase
• Pidgin creation: combination of simple phrases; no
formal grammar; proto-language
• Later conventionalized & stylized lg generates with
spatial arrangements to make grammatical distinctions

33. Interaction & Fast Mapping
• Children quickly acquire words in community
without efforts
• Color-naming test: chromium color from olives
• 1-week or 6-week after children have influence of
this test
• Children learn lg ≠ from adults’ explicit reward ≠
from imitation
• Fast mapping: children quickly form idea of
meaning of unfamiliar words in familiar & highly
structured social interaction

34. Cognitive Principles for
Fast Mapping
• (1) whole-object principle: children connect whole
objects with new words
• (2) mutual-exclusivity principle: children learn one
name for one object & exclude known objects &
application for new objects
• (3) categorizing principle: extend to similar objects
e.g., categorization test of three picky puppets on
animals (“name”, examples, “grouping” only);
only “name” works

35. Social Context Contribution• Social contexts solve puzzle of word
reference
• Well-timed interaction & joint attention
support word-learning for children
• Attention A + object B was slower than
attention A + object A in new word
learning
• Social conditions enable rapid
acquisition of vocabularies
• Explicit rewards for learning lg are
unnecessary
• Reinforcement = children’s increased
success at communicating & enhanced
participation with others in valued
activities

36. Deliberate Instruction
• No firm conclusions about parental feedback work
• No effect on children’s lg development by
expanding & correcting incorrect sentences
• Kaluli (New Guinea) children are taught lg as they
are taught other culturally valued forms (“elema”
repeat words that their mother say); Samoans;
working class mothers in Baltimore, Maryland
• Motherese: speech directed to young children with
high-pitched voice, boundary-emphasis bet clauses;
simplified vocabulary

37. Language Exposure
Influences Development
• Grading lg (isolated constituents) helps model
correct grammatical structure, e.g., “put the red
truck in the box now…the red truck…no, the red
truck…in the box”
• Adults’ reformulations of children’s utterances, e.g.,
“Mommy wash”, ”Yes, Mommy is washing her
face”, “Daddy sleep”, “Yes, Daddy is sleeping.
Don’t wake him up”

38. Teaching Implications
卡爾威特資優教育法

39. Questions?