Jean Berko Gleason

The development of language

Preface 1 The Development of Language: An Overview and a Preview Jean Berko Gleason, Boston University An Overview of the Course of Language Development The Biological Bases of Language The Structure of Language: Learning the System The Study of Language Development Summary Suggested Projects Suggested Readings Key Words References 2 Communication Development in Infancy Jacqueline Sachs, University of Connecticut The Expression of Communicative Intent Before Speech The Social Context of the Preverbal Infant Summary Suggested Projects Suggested Readings Key Words References 3 Phonological Development: Learning Sounds and Sound Patterns Lise Menn, University of Colorado Carol StoelGammon, University of Washington English Speech Sounds and Sound Patterns Infant Speech Perception Production: The Prelinguistic Period The Beginning of Phonological Development: Protowords Cognitive Approaches to the Acquisition of Phonology Learning to Pronounce Development after Three Years The Acquisition of English Morphophonology Parental Role in Phonological Development Summary Suggested Projects Suggested Readings Key Words References 4 Semantic Development Barbara Alexander Pan and Paola Uccelli, Harvard Graduate School of Education The Relations between Words and Their Referents Theoretical Perspectives on Semantic Development Early Words How Adult Speech Influences Childrens Semantic Development Later Semantic Development Factors influencing childrens vocabulary development Metalinguistic Development Summary Suggested Projects Suggested Readings Key Words References 5 Putting Words Together: Morphology and Syntax in the Preschool Years Helen Tager Flusberg, Boston University School of Medicine Andrea Zukowski, University of Maryland The Nature of Syntactic Rules Studying Syntactic Development Entering the Complex Linguistic System Measuring Syntactic Growth Two-Word Utterances Developing Grammatical Morphemes Different Sentence Modalities Later Developments in Preschoolers Beyond the Preschool Years Knowledge vs. Processing Summary Suggested Projects Suggested Readings Key Words References 6 Language in Social Contexts: Communicative Competence in the Preschool Years Judith Becker Bryant, University of South Florida Theoretical Approaches to the Study of Communicative Competence Language in Social Contexts The Difficulty of Acquiring Communicative Competence Influences on the Acquisition of Communicative Competence The Significance of Communicative Competence Summary Suggested Projects Suggested Readings Key Words References 7 Theoretical Approaches to Language Development John N. Bohannon III, Butler University John D. Bonvillian, University of Virginia Behavioral Approaches Evaluation of the Behavioral Approaches Linguistic Approaches Evaluation of the Linguistic Approach Interactionist Approaches Summary and New Directions Suggested Projects Suggested Readings Key Words References 8 Individual Differences in Language Development Beverly A. Goldfield, Rhode Island College Catherine E. Snow, Harvard Graduate School of Education The History of Individual Differences in Child Language Research Individual Differences in Early Words Segmenting the Speech Stream Individual Differences in Early Sentences Stability of Individual Differences Sources of Variation Context: The Interaction of Child, Caregiver, and Language Implications of Individual Differences for a Theory of Language Acquisition Summary Suggested Projects Suggested Readings Key Words References 9 Atypical Language Development Nan Bernstein Ratner, University of Maryland at College Park Communicative Development and Severe Hearing Impairment Intellectual Disability and Communicative Development Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)/Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) Specific Language Impairment Atypical Speech Development Evaluation of Suspected Speech and Language Disorders in Children Summary Suggested Projects Suggested Readings Key Words References 10 Language Development in the School Years Gigliana Melzi, New York University Richard Ely, Boston University Interactions with Peers Metalinguistic Development in the School Years Literacy Experiences at Home Reading Writing Bilingualism Summary Suggested Projects Suggested Readings Key Words References 11 Language in Adulthood Loraine K. Obler, City University of New York Language in Adulthood The Language of Peer and Social Groups Language at Work Second Language Acquisition in Adulthood Acquisition of Adult Registers Language Development in Advanced Age Adult Language and Brain Damage Summary Suggested Projects Suggested Readings Key Words References Glossary Index

Taboo Words and Reprimands Elicit Greater Autonomic Reactivity in a First Language Than in a Second Language.

Second language speakers commonly acknowledge that taboo terms can be uttered with greater ease in their second language (L2) than in their first language (L1). To investigate this phenomenon psychophysiologically, 32 Turkish–English bilinguals rated a variety of stimuli for pleasantness in Turkish (L1) and English (L2) while skin conductance was monitored via fingertip electrodes. Participants demonstrated greater autonomic arousal to taboo words and childhood reprimands (“Shame on you!”) in their L1 compared to their L2. This finding provides quantifiable support for the subjective experiences of L2 speakers. Bilingual speakers have reported that it is easier to say some kinds of emotionally charged words or expressions in a language that is not their native language. In this study, we explored the possibility that this difference between a first language (L1) and a second language (L2) has psychophysiological components. In particular, we hypothesized that taboo words in a native language would elicit stronger skin conductance responses than similar taboo words learned later in life in an L2. We also hypothesized that emotional expressions learned early in life in an L1 (such as the kinds of reprimands young children hear) would evoke greater physiological responses, whether the individuals experiencing these responses were fully aware of them or not. A number of authors have remarked that taboo words appear to generate less anxiety when spoken in a foreign language (Ferenczi, 1916; Greenson, 1950; Javier, 1989). Bilingual speakers also feel freer to discuss embarrassing topics

Some linguistic structures in the speech of a Broca's aphasic.

Summary A Story Completion Test for eliciting predetermined syntactic constructions is described, with a detailed report on one patient with Broca’s aphasia and agrammatism. The principal observations are that 1 The best preserved syntactic unit is the verb + object, the transition from subject to verb being more difficult. 2 There are several deviations from the theoretical order of linguistic complexity in that WH-questions are second only to the imperative in ease of production; the passive is more often correct than the indicative because the latter requires a verb inflection. 3 Auxiliary verbs and verb inflections are the elements most rarely produced. 4 There is a high degree of variability among successive trials of the same item, although the patient’s successive attempts on each trial usually improve the grammaticality of the output. It is concluded that the patient does not have a consistent simplified grammar, nor does his performance represent an economy of effort, but rather it is an effort to approximate his residual knowledge of standard English.

CODE SWITCHING IN CHILDREN'S LANGUAGE

Publisher Summary This chapter reviews code switching in childrens language. In order to investigate code switching in childrens language, it is necessary to observe the same child in a number of different speech situations. In listening to the tapes of the childrens speech, the generally recognized kinds of language styles that linguists talk about are to be kept in mind. The chapter presents a study to see if children talk in different ways to different people. Infants are selective about whom they talk to at all. Four-year-olds may whine at their mothers, engage in intricate verbal play with their peers, and reserve their narrative, discursive tales for their grown-up friends. By the time they are eight-years old, children have added to the foregoing some of the politeness routines of formal adult speech, baby-talk style, and the ability to talk to younger children in the language of socialization. The details of the emergence of these codes are yet to be elaborated.

Developmental perspectives on politeness:: Sources of children's knowledge☆

Abstract The question addressed in this paper is how children come to understand the three dimensions of social distance, power, and degree of imposition that control the use of politeness forms. Parent-child interactions in 110 families drawn from four different sources were analyzed to determine relative frequency of use of standard politeness forms (please, thank, excuse), and to explore the conditions under which such forms are used by parents to children. Although no robust social class differences in frequency of politeness form use were found, mothers used approximately twice as many politeness forms in addressing developmentally delayed (Down Syndrome) children as normally developing children. Requests to children to observe the basic rules of family interaction were relatively direct and unmitigated, sometimes even aggravated. Parents did, however, address childrens positive and negative face needs when requesting favors of them, or when requesting or prohibiting activities that fell outside the realm of minimal civilized behavior. Although we found very few instances in which children received direct instruction about how the politeness system works, ample information about the rules governing the use of both positive and negative politeness strategies is available to children from their interactions with their parents.

What's the magic word: Learning language through politeness routines∗

This study examines the use of politeness routines at the dinner table in the homes of eight middle‐class American families with preschool‐age children. Politeness routines, for example please, thank you, may I please be excused, were used pervasively. In addition, in six of the eight families parents used routinized prompts for eliciting politeness from their children, for example, What do you say? and Whats the magic word? The discussion considers the acquisition of routines not only as social markers and as evidence of linguistic socialization, but as having a linguistic function as well. Adults provide children with their earliest lessons in stylistic variation when they insist that the children change the form of their utterances to more polite variants (routines; politeness formulas: linguistic socialization; parental teaching; stylistic variation; developmental pragmatics).

Lexical Retrieval: The Tip-of-the-Tongue Phenomenon.

An experiment is reported in which university undergraduates were given word definitions and asked to say aloud all responses that came to mind in the course of their attempts to retrieve the target words. Results showed that phonologically similar responses and word-fragments are good predictors of target word knowledge and the likelihood of eventual success in retrieval. Responses which were semantically related to the target word were less predictive of eventual success. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for interpreting tip-of-the-tongue analyses as a “window” on the process of word retrieval.

Hi, thanks, and goodbye: More routine information*

This study examines childrens acquisition of three politeness routines: hi, thanks, and goodbye . Twenty-two children, eleven boys and eleven girls, and their parents participated. At the end of a parent-child play session, an assistant entered the playroom with a gift to elicit routines from the children. Spontaneous production of the three routines was low, with thank you the most infrequent. Parents actively prompted their children to produce routines, however, and children usually complied. Further, parents themselves used the routines, with more mothers than fathers saying thank you and goodbye to the assistant. Results were discussed in relation to the role of parents in linguistic socialization and to the importance of routines in social interaction. (Routines; politeness formulas; linguistic socialization; parental teaching; mother-father differences; sex role socialization)

Sex Differences in Parental Directives to Young Children.

This study investigated how children learn sex-associated strategies for requesting action. We compared the directives which mothers and fathers address to their 2 1/2- to 5-year-old children. Ten children, 5 boys and 5 girls, engaged separately with each parent in a construction task. Fathers produced more directives than mothers and tended to phrase them as imperatives (e.g., Put the screw in) or as highly indirect “hints” (e.g., The wheels going to fall off) more often than mothers, who relied more on relatively transparent indirect forms (e.g., Can you put the screw in?). There were no differences in the form of the directives addressed to girls and boys, nor were there any cross-sex effects. Parental modeling, rather than differential socialization of girls and boys, appears to be the mechanism by which children learn to request action in sex-associated ways.

The study of language loss: Models and hypotheses for an emerging discipline

The study of language acquisition has enjoyed a robust history in recent years, with the advent of developmental psycholinguistics as a separate field, and with much attention to bilingualism and the acquisition of second languages by both children and adults. The loss of language skills by individual speakers has, by contrast, been a little researched area, with the exception of the field of aphasiology, which has developed roughly parallel with modern psycholinguistics. Typical situations in which language skills may be lost occur when an individual speaker of a language moves to an area where another language is dominant; when an ethnolinguistic minority child enters school and adopts the societal language; when a second language is no longer studied or needed; when a local language drops out of use and its speakers must adopt a more dominant language. As they grow older, young children appear to lose some language-related skills, such as the ability to make fine phonetic discriminations (see Burnham, this issue) and aging adults lose some language skills they once had.