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Language Acquisition s
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o
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Speech Perception i
n
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in Infants : u
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Propagating the Effects t
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of Language Experience s
 The speech signal is

Language Acquisition * Speech Perception

complex. There is no one-to-
it o
one mapping of acoustic
u c signal to linguistic unit.
o d
rt
n
In
Moreover, the acoustic
signal is filled with
environmental sounds that
are not relevant to speech.
 Yet, speech perception
abilities develop quite rapidly

Language Acquisition * Speech Perception

it o
in young children.

u c Research on infant speech

o d and word perception supports

rt the importance of audition and
n
In exposure to speech stimuli in
resolving complex mappings
and discovering relevant
linguistic units.
 • Infants demonstrate a number of speech
perception capabilities at birth.
• Typically developing infants are able to
Perceptual discriminate, categorize, and store subtle
Abilities phonetic speech contrasts in long-term
memory.
at Birth
• In order to facilitate speech perception, it is
useful for infants to separate and identify
different sound sources in the acoustic
signal, beginning with distinguishing speech
from nonspeech.
• From birth, infants listen longer to speech
 • This is evidence that infants possess some of
the raw psychoacoustic and cognitive
Perceptual capacities necessary to perceive speech at or
Abilities just before birth.
• To account for the special status of speech, it
at Birth
has been posited that infants possess a bias
for listening to speech over other types of
sounds.
• A predisposition to attend to speech would
enable infants to tune in to important
properties of the speech signal, thus guiding
 BEHAVIORISM
B.F. Skinner

Theories of Universal Grammar

Language Noam Chomsky

Acquisition

Socio-Cognitivism
Jean Piaget
 Behaviorism (B.F. Skinner)
Theories of Language Acquisition

• Goal: Avoid “mentalistic” explanations (mental unmeasurable,

unobservable)
- Focus on observable environmental conditions (stimuli) that
co-occur with or predict observable behaviors (responses)
• Early Work: Language learning depends on reinforcement and
feedback
- Babbling: random syllables similar to real words might be reinforced,
such as providing more food or attention – positive reinforcement
- Grammar: ungrammatical utterances might be ignored or not
complied with – negative reinforcement.
• Lack of Empiricial support
- Parents positively reinforce vocalization of young children
- Negative reinforcement (correction, insistence on correct form) only
for truth value or politeness, not grammaticality.
 Universal Grammar (Noam Chomsky)
Theories of Language Acquisition

• The structure of language is independent of use.

- What the child can learn that is not affected by speaker, context,
frequency of use, etc.
• Nativism – Learning language is genetically encoded
- Universal Grammar: principles and parameters
- Principles (cross-linguistically universal) : sentences have a
hierarchical constituent structure; anaphoric pronouns must have
proper antecedents (Joe, likes his, coffee black. *He, likes Joe’s, coffee
black)
- Parameters (vary by language) : Does your language require an overt
subject for every sentence? Do heads of constituents go on the left or on
the right?
- Analogy to a set of switches or levers with default positions: Every
language has the same switches, the settings vary.
 Socio-cognitivism (Piaget)
Theories of Language Acquisition

• The mechanisms that underlie general cognitive development also

underlie language acquisition
• Language develops as socio-cognitive abilities develop
• Socio-cognitive skills
- object permanence
- imitation
- joint attention
- intention-reading
Stages of Language Acquisition

I. Babbling – from around 6-8 months)

II.One-word stage (from around 1 year
III.Two-word stage – from around 18/20-24 months
IV.Beyond two words.
 Early
Babbling
Cooing, stimulus-response
Receptive knowledge of phonetics
(discrimination abilities)

Later Babbling
Babbling 3 months: coos single syllables
Comstech • Oct. 15, 2020

4 months: repeated consonants

5 months: vocalizes to toys, imitates sounds

6 months: vocalizes pleasure and displeasure

7 months: reduplicated babbling (vocal play)

 Segmentation Problem
How to identify words from the
continuous stream of speech?

Stress (stressed syllable = word beginning,

see syllable deletion above).

One-word Use of words in carrier phrases in child-

directed speech: “Look at the ___”; “There’s

stage
a ___”,
Comstech • Oct. 15, 2020

Followed by pauses.

All these highlight word boundaries and help

the child identify words.
 The Acquisition Process

Phonological Development
Morphological Development
Language Acquisition

Syntactic Development
Semantic Development
 Easy sounds first
Phonological
Development Some sounds are
acquired earlier than
- Ease of production ([t]
easier than [tʃ])
others. - Ease of perception (lip
closure with [p])

In the meantime:
simplification
processes
- Omission
- Substitution
Language Acquisition • Speech Perception
 Morphological Early words are learned
Development as chunks without
internal morphological
structure.

Later, awareness
of morphological
rules

Language Acquisition • Speech Perception

 Lexicon and
By age 6:
Semantics By age 18 months:
50 words 13,000 words

Common Semantic Errors

- Overgeneralization - Undergeneralizatio
(doggie = all animals) n
- (taxi = not a car)

Language Acquisition • Speech Perception

 Easy sounds first
Phonological
Development Some sounds are
acquired earlier than
- Ease of production ([t]
easier than [tʃ])
others. - Ease of perception (lip
closure with [p])

In the meantime:
simplification
processes
- Omission
- Substitution
Language Acquisition • Speech Perception
 Facts About Language
Acquisition
1. There is no genetic predisposition for acquiring
particular languages.
2. All human languages are equally easy to acquire as
first languages
3. Children can acquire two or more first languages
(bilingualism)
4. Acquisition = an effortless and rapid process
5. All essential parts of language ) grammar_ are
acquired by age 5-6
6. Formal instruction is generally unnecessary
7. Outcome is almost always the same