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Block 3 Unit 1 Language Acquisition

1) Describe some of the processes involved in language?

Language involves several key processes, including:

• Production: The act of creating language through speech or writing. This involves selecting appropriate words and arranging them according to grammatical rules.
• Perception: The process of receiving and interpreting language through hearing or reading. This includes recognising the sounds (phonemes) and meaningful units (morphemes) of language, as well as the grammatical structures and meaning of phrases and sentences.
• Comprehension: The ability to understand the meaning of language, including the literal meanings of words, phrases and sentences, as well as the speakers' intentions. This is an active process of formulating hypotheses based on the context.
• Communication: The overall process of conveying and exchanging information through language. It involves conveying meaning, intentions, motives, feelings and beliefs.

2) Why study of language is important for cognitive psychologists?

The study of language is crucial for cognitive psychologists for several reasons:

• Abstraction: Human language development represents a unique form of abstraction that is basic to cognition. Language allows us to represent concepts, ideas and events not tied to the present.
• Information Processing: Language processing is an important component of information processing and storage. It plays a crucial role in how we perceive, understand and remember information.
• Thinking and Problem Solving: Thinking and problem-solving can be conceptualised as internal processes involving language. Abstracting puzzles into verbal symbols helps us find solutions.
• Communication: Language is the primary means of human communication and the way most information is exchanged.
• Insights into the Human Mind: Studying language acquisition provides insights into the cognitive processes involved in learning, memory and abstraction.

3) There is a universal course of development every child follows in the learning of language. Describe.

Although not detailed in this unit, the sources suggest that language development follows a similar pattern in all human infants, regardless of the language spoken or the environment they grow up in. For instance, all infants with normal hearing babble, coo, produce their first words, begin using telegraphic speech and overgeneralise at roughly the same ages. This universal course suggests a biological predisposition for language acquisition.

4) How do we acquire the ability to use language?

The ability to use language is acquired through a complex interplay of factors:

• Biological Predisposition: The human organism is genetically prepared to process and organise information in specific ways, including language.
• Exposure: Children learn language through exposure to their environment. This includes hearing the language and engaging in communicative interactions with other speakers.
• Cognitive Development: Language acquisition is closely linked to cognitive development. Children's cognitive abilities, such as abstraction and symbolic thought, play a key role in their ability to acquire language.
• Learning and Practice: Learning a language is an active process requiring that the learner engage and construct and test hypotheses about language.

5) Compare and contrast the behaviourism and innateness theories of language acquisition.

• Behaviourism: This theory suggests that language is learned through imitation and reinforcement, similar to other behaviours. Children learn language through the use of mechanisms of classical and operant conditioning.
• Innateness: This theory posits that humans are born with a predisposition for language, with an innate understanding of the universal principles of language. This theory proposes a ‘language acquisition device’ is built into our neural structures. It suggests that children are able to acquire language so quickly because they already have a basic knowledge of how language works.
• Contrast: Behaviourism emphasises the role of the environment and learning, while innateness emphasizes the biological and inherited aspects. The innateness theory was developed largely as a criticism of behaviourism.

• The sources note that language development follows a similar course across all cultures and languages, suggesting a biological predisposition. This can be seen in the universal pattern of babbling, cooing and first words in infants across different linguistic environments. This is an example of the influence of 'nature' on language acquisition.

• However, the environment and interactions are also necessary to trigger the development of a particular language in the individual. This demonstrates the importance of 'nurture' in language acquisition.

7) Illustrate cognitive theory of language acquisition in detail.

The cognitive theory of language acquisition proposes that language development is driven by general cognitive development.

• This theory suggests that children learn language by actively constructing their understanding of the world and how it is represented in language. They learn by making hypotheses about how the world works and testing their hypotheses through language.
• Language develops as a consequence of a child's cognitive growth and general processes of learning.

8) Give a sample of an utterance one might reasonably expect to hear from an 18-month-old child.

An 18-month-old child is likely to use telegraphic speech, which involves short, simple phrases that include essential words. An example could be "ball gone". These utterances lack grammatical structure and consist of nouns, verbs, and adjectives only.

9) Give a detailed biological account of language acquisition.

The sources suggest that:

• Maturation: Language acquisition is linked to maturation of the brain. Neural circuits and systems enable the learning and retention of language.
• Brain Regions: Specific regions in the brain are dedicated to processing language. There is evidence of neural specialisation for language.
• Neural Networks: The brain forms neural networks that are adapted for language processing.
• Arousal and Attention: The brain stem and reticular activating system provides the appropriate level of arousal and attention required for language processing.

10) Make a worksheet showing the initial stages of language acquisition in a child with elaborate examples and reference studies.

The initial stages can be summarised as follows:

• Prelinguistic Stage (0-12 months):

  • Cooing: Infants make vowel-like sounds.
  • Babbling: Infants produce consonant-vowel combinations.
  • Perception: Infants show preference for human faces and voices. They can discriminate sounds of all languages but increasingly focus on the sounds of their own language.

• First Words Stage (12-18 months):

  • Single words: Children begin to produce single words to represent objects and events.
  • Overextension: Children may overgeneralize the use of words (e.g., calling all animals "doggy").

• Telegraphic Speech Stage (18-24 months):

  • Two-word phrases: Children combine words into simple sentences, omitting grammatical words such as articles and prepositions.
  • Examples: "More milk", "Ball gone".

• Early Grammatical Development (24+ months):

• Children rapidly expand their vocabularies and start using increasingly complex grammatical structures.

These stages are not strictly defined, and language acquisition is a continuous, developing process.