Language development during infancy

Language has no single definition, but Hockett's list of design features is a popular
compromise. By this account, language has the following 9 attributes:
1) Mode of Communication (vocal-auditory, etc)
2) Semanticity (meaningfulness)
3) Pragmatic Function (usefulness)
4) Interchangeability (ability to function as speaker and listener)
5) Cultural Transmission (passed down)
6) Arbitrariness (no necessary relationship between sign and the signified)
7) Discreteness (made up of separable units)
8) Displacement (can refer to something in another place/time)
9) Productivity (can produce a theoretically infinite number of meaningful utterances)
 LISTENING AND RESPONDING

Language learning begins before birth.

Newborns prefer to listen to the language their mother spoke when they were in the
womb, not because they understand the words, of course, but because they are familiar
with the rhythm, the sounds, and the beat.
Surprisingly, newborns of bilingual mothers differentiate between both languages.
 LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT

Young infants attend to voices more than to mechanical sounds (a clock ticking)
and look closely at the facial expressions of someone talking to them.
By 6 months, simply by seeing someone’s mouth movements (no sound), infants can
distinguish whether or not that person is speaking their native language.
By one year, even when they don’t understand the actual content of the speech, they are
more likely to imitate the actions of a stranger speaking their native language than those of
a person who speaks another language.
Child-directed speech the high-pitched, simplified, and repetitive way adults speak to
infants and children. (Also called baby talk or motherese.)
By 4 months, they squeal, growl, gurgle, grunt, murmur, and yell, telling everyone what
is on their minds in response to both their own internal state and their caregivers’ words.
At 7 months, infants begin to recognize words that are highly distinctive: bottle, dog, and
mama, for instance, might be differentiated, but words that sound alike (baby, bobbie, and
barbie) are not.
Babbling an infant’s repetition of certain syllables, such as ba-ba-ba, that begins when
babies are between 6 and 9 months old.
6-9 months, babies repeat certain syllables (ma-ma-ma, da-da-da, ba-ba-ba), a
vocalization called babbling because of the way it sounds.
 Babbling is experience-expectant; all babies babble, even deaf ones. Since babies like to
“make interesting sights last,” babbling increases in response to child-directed speech.
Deaf babies stop babbling but increasingly engage in responsive gesturing.
Toward the end of the first year, babbling begins to sound like the infant’s native
language; infants imitate accents, rhythm, consonants, and so on.
Gradual beginnings
in the first months of the second year, spoken vocabulary increases gradually (perhaps one
new word a week). However, meanings are learned rapidly; babies understand about 10
times more words than they can say.
Initially, the first words are merely labels for familiar things, but early words are soon
accompanied by gestures, facial expressions, and distinctions of tone and loudness.
Holophrase A single word that is used to express a complete, meaningful thought.
Naming explosion A sudden increase in an infant’s vocabulary, especially in the number
of nouns, that begins at about18 months of age.
Grammar composition and language development is completed further.
Mean length of utterance (MLU) the average number of words in a typical sentence
(called utterance, because children may not talk in complete sentences). MLU is often used
to indicate how advanced a child’s language development is.
 THEORIES OF LANGUAGE LEARNING
1. Theory one: infants need to be taught
The core ideas of this theory are the following:
 Parents are expert teachers, although other caregivers help.
Frequent repetition is instructive, especially when linked to daily life.
Well-taught infants become well-spoken children
Original proponents of this theory were behaviorists who mainly focused upon different
forms of learning and reinforcements.
Just as Pavlov’s dogs learned to associate sound with food, infants may associate objects
with words, especially if reinforcement occurs.
Skinner believed that most parents are excellent instructors, responding to their infants’
gestures and sounds, thus reinforcing speech.
 THEORIES OF LEARNING
2. Theory two: social impulses foster infant language
The second theory is called social-pragmatic. It arises from the sociocultural reason for
language: communication.
According to this perspective, infants communicate because humans are social beings,
dependent on one another for survival and joy.
Each culture has practices that further social interaction; talking is one of those practices.
Thus, all infants (and no chimpanzees) master words and grammar
to join the social world in which they find themselves.
According to this perspective, it is the emotional messages of speech, not the words, that
propel communication.
3. Theory three: infants teach themselves
A third theory holds that language learning is genetically programmed to begin at
a certain age; adults need not teach it, nor is it a by-product of social interaction.
It arises from the universal human impulse to imitate.
All infants seek to use their minds to understand and speak whatever language they hear.
They are eager learners and language may be considered one more aspect of neurological
maturation.
The various languages of the world are all logical, coherent, and systematic. Infants are
primed to grasp the particular language they are exposed to, making caregiver speech “not a
‘trigger’ but a ‘nutrient’.”
There is no need for a trigger, according to theory three, because words are expected by
the developing brain, which quickly and efficiently connects neurons to support whichever
language the infant hears. Thus, language itself is experience-expectant, although obviously
the specific words are experience-dependent.
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