PSY 369: Psycholinguistics Language Acquisition. Announcements On-line Blackboard quiz for chapter 4...

PSY 369: Psycholinguistics

Language Acquisition

Announcements On-line Blackboard quiz for chapter 4 is now up.

You may take it 5 times, top score counts I may end up pushing Exam 2 back a day. I’ll let you

know soon. I’ll hand back Exam 1 at the end of class today Language development section includes information

from Chapter 3, pages 72-87 Homework #2 due Feb. 21st

Acquiring language

Student in my psycholinguistics course

Dr. Cutting, language sure is complicated. How do you

expect us to learn all this stuff?

Acquiring language


2 year old

Whadda’ ya mean, mommy. I can talk.

I can understand what you say. What’s so hard?

Acquiring language


2 year old

How do we (humans) do it? How do we learn to use this complex behavior?

Overview Some of the major issues

Imitation vs Innateness Born to walk Born to talk?

How much explicit teaching do we get? Very little on syntax & phonology, some on meaning

Commonalities across individuals, languages and cultures

Language is complex everywhere Sounds, words, syntax, and more No primitive (simple) languages

Language development is similar everywhere Similar stages

Different approaches Behaviorist accounts

Imitation (& conditioning) accounts e.g., B. F. Skinner – children learn through imitation and

reinforcement. Nativist (Innateness) accounts

o e.g., Chomsky’s Language Acquisition Device (LAD)o Language works by internalizing the rules of grammar to produce

sentences.o They do this without practice, reinforcement, or adult modelingo Universal Grammar & Parameter setting

Different approaches Cognitive hypotheses

Piaget – cognitive development drives language development Vygotsky – language and cognition are initially separate, but as

each develop become tightly interconnected, with each influencing each other

Social hypothesis e.g., Bruner’s Language acquisition socialization system (LASS)

– emphasized the social setting in acquiring language Exposure to language is not enough, learners must experience

language in social/interactive contexts E.g, child-directed speech, turn taking situations

Typical language development

6 Months12 Months

18 Months24 Months

36 Months

Similar stages


6 Months Responds to his name Responds to human voices without

visual cues by turning his head and eyes

Responds appropriately to friendly and angry tones


12 Months Uses one or more words with meaning

(this may be a fragment of a word) Understands simple instructions,

especially if vocal or physical cues are given

Practices inflection Is aware of the social value of speech

18 Months Has vocabulary of approximately 5-20 words Vocabulary made up chiefly of nouns Some echolalia (repeating a word or phrase

over and over) Is able to follow simple commands


24 Months Can name a number of objects common to his

surroundings Is able to use at least two prepositions Combines words into a short sentence (telegraphic) Vocabulary of approximately 150-300 words Volume and pitch of voice not yet well-controlled


36 Months Use pronouns I, you, me correctly Is using some plurals and past tenses Knows at least three prepositions Handles three word sentences easily Has in the neighborhood of 900-1000 words About 90% of what child says should be intelligible Verbs begin to predominate


In the beginning… Prelinguistic communication

and the womb

We experience language before we’re even born

Normal human language uses sounds between 100 and 4000 Hz

Sound travels through skin and fluids too In the womb, sounds up to 1000 Hz

Can’t hear individual words But can hear: Intonation, durations, rhythm, stress

What was that?You’re

mumbling.


and the womb


DeCasper & Spence (1986) Had mothers read stories everyday

to fetuses during final 6 weeks of pregnancy

After babies were born tested to see if babies preferred familiar story over novel one

Results: babies preferred the familiar stories Non-Nutritive Sucking

method


and the womb


Mahler et al. (1988, in France) 4 day old babies Non-Nutritive Sucking method Played French or Russian

Sucking pattern changed if language was switched

Sucking pattern didn’t change if language wasn’t switched

Babies knew (something about) the languages (most likely prosody)


and the womb


DeCasper, et al (1994)Fetal heart monitor


and the womb


DeCasper, et al (1994)

Same story Different story

Had mothers read stories everyday to fetuses during 34-38 weeks of pregnancy

After 38th week, two stories were played to the fetuses (but mom couldn’t hear it)

Fetal heart monitor


and the womb


DeCasper, et al (1994) Had mothers read stories everyday

to fetuses during 34-38 weeks of pregnancy

After 38th week, two stories were played to the fetuses (but mom couldn’t hear it)

Same story Different story

Decreased fetalheart-rate

Baby learned something about the story before it was born!

Fetal heart monitor

The early days

After birth

Prelinguistic communication

Phonological differences are key Slower Higher in pitch More variable in pitch More exaggerated intonation

All may help to orient and maintain attention of infant

Typically deal with the “here & now” May help “bootstrap” later learning

Child-directed speech (motherese)

The early days

After birth

Prelinguistic communication

Turn taking behaviors From the movie - breast feeding

“conversations” Parents interpret infant’s

vocalizations as having meaning (also from the movie, Snow’s work)

Early “conversations”

The early days: gestures Prelinguistic gestures (around 8 months)

Demonstration that the infant is trying to communicate in some way

e.g., pointing behaviors Criteria

Waiting Persistence Development of alternative plans

Sharp phoneme boundary

1 ... 3 … 5 … 7

% /ba/

100

0

Eimas et al, (1971) Categorical perception in infants (1 month olds)

The early days: phonology

Young infants can distinguish different phonemes


A number of studies suggest that very young infants can perceive between a number of phonemic distinctions (e.g., Kuhl & Meltzhoff, 1997)

Not limited to their language context However, as they age/experience their context

language the ability to perceive some of these distinctions are lost (~10 to 12 months)

Categorical perception in infants

Nature/nurture debate: Are humans “pre-programmed” to distinguish speech

sounds?

1 ... 3 … 5 … 7

% /ba/

100

0

Sharp phoneme boundary

Eimas et al, (1971) Categorical perception in infants (1 month olds)


Chinchillas do it too!Kuhl and Miller (1975)

Are they “pre-programmed to perceive human speech?

We’re listening

The early days: speech production

Vocal track differences

Infants vocal tracts are smaller, and initially shaped differently The infant’s tongue fills the entire mouth, reducing the range of

movement As the facial skeleton grows, the range for movement increases (which

probably contributes to the increased variety of sounds infants start to produce)

May be (in part) why production lags behind comprehension

Infant Adult

Speech production

The progression of cooing and babbling follows a universal pattern. Role of both nature and nurture

Nature/Biology plays an important role in the emergence of cooing & babbling.

The form of the child’s vocalization is also affected by the linguistic environment.

Babbling & other videos

Pre 6 weeks – “vegetative” sounds Cry, burp, sucking noises

Post 6 week – “cooing” and later “babbling”

6 - 8 weeks: cooing 4 - 6 months: babbling

The progression of cooing and babbling follows a universal pattern. Babies, until around 6 months old, can produce

sounds/phonemes that their parents cannot produce or distinguish

Clear consonants and vowels are produced “da”, “gi”

Speech production




6 - 7 months: Reduplicated babbling “dada”, “gigi”

Speech production

Speech production




6 - 7 months: Reduplicated babbling 8 - 9 months: CVC clusters may appear

“bod”, “tat”

Speech production



10 or 11 months: Variegated babbling Combining “incomprehensible words”

“dab gogotah” Intonation patterns

May reflect phonological rules of spoken language context

By 12 to 14 months some evidence of language specific phonological rules

The first words

Of course he said “arf.” What else did you expect

his first word to be?

Language Sponges

About 3,000 new words per year, especially in the primary grades

As many as 8 new words per day Production typically lags behind comprehension

Learning words

12 ms first words

2 yrs 200 words

3 yrs 1,000 words

6 yrs 15,000 words

Language Sponges Lots of individual differences But there is also a consistent pattern

Vocabulary growth Methods used to study this

Observational data (60s to present) Diary studies

Parents record their kids language development Taped language samples (Roger Brown)

Small numbers of children (Eve, Adam, Sarah) Went to home every month made tape recordings Extensive study needed

Hard to kids to “say all the words you know” or “say a question”

Early phonological production isn’t like adult production, often need to take great care deciding what the child meant

Large database CHILDES Many kids, many languages, including children with language

difficulties

Language Sponges Learning words

General patterns and observations Sounds Meaning

Proposed Strategies Fast mapping Whole object Mutual exclusivity

Learning Syntax Learning Morphology

Early word learning

First words (Around 10-15 months) Emergence of systematic, repeated productions of

phonologically consistent forms 1 word stage typically lasts around 10 months Have learned first 50 words by 15 – 24 months Typically focused on the “here and now”

Early word learning

Developed in systematic ways Not simply imitation, rather are creative Learned importance of consistency of names

First words (Around 10-15 months) Emergence of systematic, repeated productions of

phonologically consistent forms Idiomorphs - personalized words

“Adult words” - Typically context bound (relevant to the immediate environment)

Important people, Objects that move, Objects that can be acted upon, Familiar actions

Nouns typically appear before verbs

What kinds of words? 1-general names

“dog” 2- specific names

“mommy” 3-action words

“bye-bye” 4-modifiers

“red” 5-personal/social

“yes, no, please” 6-functional

“what”

Early speech production Transition to speech

This is your fis?Your fis?Oh, your fish.

No. … my fis.No. My fis!Yes, my fis.

Early speech production

This is your fis? Transition to speech

No, … my fis.

Your fis. No, my fis.

Oh, your fish. Yes, my fis.

Can’t hear the difference? Rejects adult saying fis

Can’t produce the correct sounds?

Sometimes, but evidence suggests not always the case

More general process of simplification

“frees up” resources for concentrating on other aspects of language learning

Early speech production

Common Phonological processes Reduction

Delete sounds from words (“da” for dog) Coalescence

Combine different syllables into one syllable (“paf” for pacifier)

Assimilation Change one sound into a similar sound within the

word (“fweet” for sweet) Reduplication

One syllable from a multi-syllabic word is repeated (“baba” for bottle)

Transition to speech individual diffs, but some common processes

Extensions of meaning

Extension Finding the appropriate limits of the meaning of

words Underextension

Applying a word too narrowly Overextension

Applying a word too broadly

Applying the words to referents


“tee”


“tee”1:9,11


“tee”1:9,111:10,18


“tee”

“googie”

1:9,111:10,18

1:11,1


1:9,111:10,18

“tee”

1:11,1

1:11,2“googie”


1:9,111:10,18

“tee”

1:11,1

1:11,2“googie”

1:11,24


1:9,111:10,18

“tee”

1:11,1

1:11,2“googie”

1:11,24

1:11,25 “tee/hosh”


1:9,111:10,18

“tee”

1:11,1

1:11,2“googie”

1:11,24

1:11,25 “tee/hosh”1:11,26 “hosh”


1:9,111:10,18

“tee”

1:11,1

1:11,2“googie”

1:11,24

1:11,25 “tee/hosh”1:11,26 “hosh”1:11,27 “pushi”


1:9,111:10,18

“tee”

1:11,1

1:11,2“googie”

1:11,24

1:11,25 “tee/hosh”1:11,26 “hosh”1:11,27 “pushi”2:0,10 “moo-ka” “hosh”


1:9,111:10,18

“tee”

1:11,1

1:11,2“googie”

1:11,24

1:11,25 “tee/hosh”1:11,26 “hosh”1:11,27 “pushi”2:0,10 “moo-ka” “hosh”2:0,20

“biggie googie”


1:9,111:10,18

“tee”

1:11,1

1:11,2“googie”

1:11,24


“biggie googie”

One-word-per-referent heuristic If a new word comes in for a referent that is already named, replace it Exception to that was “horse,” but it only lasted a day here

Strategies for learning

1:9,111:10,18

“tee”

1:11,1

1:11,2“googie”

1:11,24


“biggie googie”

Expansion and contraction can occur at the same time


1:9,111:10,18

“tee”

1:11,1

1:11,2“googie”

1:11,24


“biggie googie”

Child tries different things, if a word doesn’t work then try something else

e.g., hosh didn’t for for the large dog, switched to biggie doggie

Indeterminacy: Frog

FrogFrog?

Green?Ugly?

Jumping?

Quine’s gavagai problem The problem of reference:

a word may refer to a number of referents (real world objects)

a single object or event has many objects, parts and features that can be referred to

FrogFrog?

Green?Ugly?

Jumping?

Learning word meanings

Fast mapping (Carey & Bartlett, 1978) Using the context to guess the meaning of a word

Learning words

Please give me the chromium tray. Not the blue one, the chromium one.

All got the olive tray Several weeks later still had some of the meaning

Constraints on Word Learning

Perhaps children are biased to entertain certain hypotheses about word meanings over others

These first guesses save them from logical ambiguity Get them started out on the right track

Object-scope (whole object) constraint Taxonomic constraint Mutual exclusivity constraint

Learning words Cognitive Constraints (Markman, 1989)

Object-scope (whole object) constraint Words refer to whole objects rather than to parts of

objects


Dog

‘Show me another lux’

‘Here is a lux’

Taxonomic constraint Words refer to categories of similar objects Taxonomies rather than thematically related obejcts


But in ‘no-word’ conditions, they would be shown the first picture

See this? Can you find another one?


they choose the corkscrew because it is a less well known object for which they

don’t have a label yet.

‘Show me a dax’:

Mutual exclusivity constraint (Markam and Watchel 1988)

Each object has one label & different words refer to separate, non-overlapping categories of objects

An object can have only one label


Problem with constraints

Most of the constraints proposed apply only to object names.

What about verbs? (Nelson 1988) There have been cases where children have been

observed violating these constraints Using for example the word ‘car’ only to refer to ‘cars moving

on the street from a certain location’ (Bloom 1973) The mutual exclusivity constraint would prevent

children from learning subordinate and superordinate information (animal < dog < poodle)

The language explosion is not just the result of simple semantic development; the child is not just adding more words to his/her vocabulary.

Child is mastering basic syntactic and morphological processes.

Language explosion continues

Syntax Mean length of utterance (MLU) in morphemes

Take 100 utterances and count the number of morphemes per utterance


Daddy coming. Hi, car. Daddy car comed. Two car outside. It getting dark. Allgone outside. Bye-bye outside.

# morphemes: 3, 2, 4, 3, 4, 2, 2‘-ing’ and ‘-ed’ separate morphemes‘allgone’ treated as a single word

MLU = morphemes/utterances = 20/7 = 2.86

Syntax Mean length of utterance (MLU) in morphemes


Proto-syntax (??) Holophrases (around 1-1.5 years)

Single-word utterances may be used to express more than the meaning usually attributed to that single word by adults


“dog” might refer to the dog is drinking water

Typically idiosyncratic, but some conventional/common (e.g., indicate the existence of an object, request recurrence of object or event)

Often combined with intonation or gesture Controversial claim: May reflect a developing sense of syntax,

but not yet knowing how to use it (e.g., see Bloom, 1973)

Syntax Roger Brown (1973) proposed 5 stages

Stage 1: Telegraphic speech (MLU ~ 1.75; around 24 months) Children begin to combine words into utterances Limited to a small set of semantic relations (e.g., nomination, recurrence,

attribution, possession [see table 10.3 for examples]) Debate: learning semantic relations or syntactic (position rules)

“baby sleep” agent+action or Noun Verb


Children in telegraphic speech stage are said to leave out the ‘little words’ and inflections:

e.g. Mummy shoe NOT Mummy’s shoe Two cat NOT two cats


Syntax Roger Brown (1973) proposed 5 stages

Innateness accounts Semantic bootstrapping

Learned accounts Acquired from the linguistic input from the environment

It is in the stimulus

How do kids learn the syntax?

Innateness account Pinker (1984, 1989)

Semantic bootstrapping


Child has innate knowledge of

syntactic categories and linking rules

Child learns the meanings of

some content wordsChild constructs some semantic representations

of simple sentences Child makes guesses

about syntactic structure based on surface form and semantic meaning

“It is in the stimulus” accounts (e.g. Bates, 1979) Speech to children is not impoverished (Snow, 1977) Children learn grammar by mapping semantic roles (agent,

action, patient) onto grammatical categories (subject, verb, object)

In all languages there are multiple potential cues indicating semantic/syntactic relations (e.g., word order, case marking)

Similar words occur in similar linguistic contexts Acoustic information (e.g., prosody) may provide syntactic cues

Children do not need innate knowledge to learn grammar


Morphology Typically things like inflections and prepositions start around

MLU of 2.5 (usually in 2 yr olds) Remember the Wug experiment (Berko-Gleason, 1958)

Acquiring Morphology

Morphology


This person knows how to rick. She did the same thing yesterday.

Yesterday she ________.

Typically children say that she “ricked.”


Age (yrs) Morpheme Example(s)

2 Present progressive I driving

2 Articles A dog, the doctor

2 Plural Balls

2 Uncontractible Copula He is asleep, am, are

3 Third person singular He wants an apple

3 Full progressive Be + ing, I am singing

3 Regular past tense She walked

Morphology: order of acquisition

Acquiring Morphology Children sometimes make mistakes.

My teacher holded the baby rabbits.Yes

She holded the baby rabbits.

Did you say your teacher held the baby rabbit?What did you say she did?

No, she holded them loosely.

Did you say held them tightly?


This is ungrammatical in the adult language Shows that children are not simply imitating In this case, what they produce something that is not in their

input.

Children sometimes make mistakes.

My teacher holded the baby rabbits.

Why do they make errors like these? In the case at hand, we have what is called overregularization The verb hold has an irregular past tense form, held Because this form is used, the regular past tense-- that with -

ed-- is not found (*hold-ed)

Acquiring Morphology Children sometimes make mistakes.

My teacher holded the baby rabbits.


Examples: Horton heared a Who I finded Renée The alligator goed kerplunk

The case of verb past tense: Regular verb forms require no stored knowledge of the

past tense form (wug test) Past tense is accomplished by applying a past tense

rule (e.g., add -ed) to the verb stem With irregular verbs something must be memorized

Stages in the acquisition of irregular inflections


With regular verbs, the default form -ed is used With irregulars, lists associating the verb with a

particular form of the past tense have to be memorized: Past tense is -t when attached to leave, keep, etc. Is -> was Dig -> dug Has -> had

The case of verb past tense:


Stages in the acquisition of irregular inflections

time

On the face of it, learning these morphological quirks follows a peculiar pattern:

Early: correct irregular forms are used Middle: incorrect regular forms are used Late: correct forms are used again

Memory & Rules Why do we find this type of pattern?

Memory and rules The use of overregularized forms starts at around the

same that that the child is beginning to apply the default -ed rule successfully

Early: All forms-- whether regular or irregular-- are memorized

Middle: The regular rule is learned, and in some cases overapplied

Late: Irregulars are used based on memory, regulars use the rule (the idea is that if the word can provide its own past tense from memory, then the past tense rule is blocked)

Memory & Rules Why do we find this type of pattern?

Memory and rules Other accounts

Maratsos (2000) – frequency explanation It is possible to predict which verbs will be subject to

overregularization The more often an irregular form occurs in the input, the

less likely the child is to use it as an overregularization This is evidence that some part of overregularization

occurs because of memory failures Something about irregulars is unpredictable, hence

has to be memorized

What kind of “teaching” do kids get?

If language is learned (and not innate), how do kids do it?

What kind of feedback do they get?

Claim: Positive evidence is not sufficient for learning a language.


Are the kids even aware of mistakes? The children are apparently aware of the fact that their

forms are strange: Parent: Where’s Mommy? Child: Mommy goed to the store Parent: Mommy goed to the store? Child: NO! Daddy, I say it that way, not you

Positive and negative evidence

Positive evidence: Kids hear grammatical sentences

Negative evidence: information that a given sentence is ungrammatical

Kids are not told which sentences are ungrammatical(no negative evidence)

Let’s consider no negative evidence further…

What kind of feedback is available for learning?


How much Positive Evidence is there? Estimated 5000 – 7000 utterances a day Between ¼ and 1/3 are questions Over 20% are not “full” adult sentences (typically Noun or

prepositional phrases) Only about 15% have typical English SVO form Roughly 45% of all maternal utterances began with one of 17

words (e.g., “what”, “that”, “it”, “you”)Cameron-Faulkner, et al (2003)

• So what kids do hear may be somewhat limited.

Negative evidence Negative evidence could come in various

conceivable forms. “The sentence Bill a cookie ate is not a sentence in

English, Timmy. No sentence with SOV word order is.”

Upon hearing Bill a cookie ate, an adult might Not understand Look pained Rephrase the ungrammatical sentence

grammatically

Kids resist instruction…McNeill (1966)

Child: Nobody don’t like me. Adult: No, say ‘nobody likes me.’ Child: Nobody don’t like me.

[repeats eight times]

Adult: No, now listen carefully; say ‘nobody likes me.’ Child: Oh! Nobody don’t likes me.

Kids resist instruction…Cazden (1972) (observation attributed to Jean Berko Gleason)

Child: My teacher holded the baby rabbits and we patted them. Adult: Did you say your teacher held the baby rabbits? Child: Yes. Adult: What did you say she did? Child: She holded the baby rabbits and we patted them. Adult: Did you say she held them tightly? Child: No, she holded them loosely.

So there doesn’t seem to be a lot of explicit negative evidence, and what there is the kids often resist

Negative evidence via feedback?

Do kids get “implicit” negative evidence? Do adults understand grammatical sentences and not understand

ungrammatical ones? Do adults respond positively to grammatical sentences and

negatively to ungrammatical ones?

Brown & Hanlon (1970):Case study of “Adam” - looked at things that were said to

him by adults, and what he said to them Adults understood 42% of the grammatical sentences. Adults understood 47% of the ungrammatical ones.

Adults expressed approval after 45% of thegrammatical sentences.

Adults expressed approval after 45% of the ungrammatical sentences.

Suggests that there isn’t a lot of good negative evidence.

Negative evidence via feedback?

In a way, it’s moot anyway… One of the striking things about child language is how few

errors they actually make. For negative feedback to work, the kids have to make the errors

(so that it can get the negative response). But they don’t make enough relevant kinds of errors to determine

the complex grammar. Pinker, Marcus and others, conclude that much of this stuff

must be innate. But this isn’t the only view. There is an ongoing debate about

whether there are rules, or whether these patterns of behavior can be learned based on the language evidence that is available to the kids

Critical (sensitive) periods


Certain behavior is developed more quickly within a critical period than outside of it. This period is biologically determined.

Examples: Imprinting in ducks (Lorenz, ; Hess, 1973)

Ducklings will follow the first moving thing they see Only happens if they see something moving within the first

few hours (after 32 hours it won’t happen) of hatching Binocular cells in humans

Cells in visual system that respond only to input from both eyes.

If these cells don’t get input from both eyes within first year of life, they don’t develop


Some environmental input is necessary for normal development, but biology determines when the organism is responsive to that input.

That “when” is the critical period

Certain behavior is developed more quickly within a critical period than outside of it. This period is biologically determined.

Critical period for language

It assumes that language acquisition must occur before the end of the critical period

Estimates range from 5 years up to onset of puberty

Lenneberg (1967) proposed that there is a critical period for human language

Evidence for critical period for language

Feral Children Children raised in the wild or with reduced exposure to

human language What is the effect of this lack of exposure on language

acquisition? Two classic cases

Victor, the Wild Boy of Aveyron Genie

Victor, The Wild Boy of Aveyron Found in 1800 near the outskirts of Aveyron, France

Estimated to be about 7-years-old Considered by some to be the first documented case of autism

Neither spoke or responded to speech Taken to and studied by Dr. Jean-Marc-Gaspard Itard, and

educator of deaf-mute and retarded children Never learned to speak and his receptive language ability was

limited to a few simple commands. Described by Itard as “an almost normal boy who could not speak”

Genie Found in Arcadia, California in 1970, was not

exposed to human language until age 13.5.

Raised in isolation a situation of extreme abuse

Genie could barely walk and could not talk when found

Dr. Susan Curtiss made great efforts to teach her language, and she did learn how to talk, but her grammar never fully developed.

Only capable of producing telegraphic utterances (e.g. Mike paint or Applesauce buy store)

Used few closed-class morphemes and function words

Speech sounded like that of a 2-year-old

Genie By age of 17 (after 4 years of extensive training)

Vocabulary of a 5 year old

Poor syntax (telegraphic speech mostly) Examples

Mama wash hair in sink

At school scratch face

I want Curtiss play piano

Like go ride yellow school bus

Father take piece wood. Hit. Cry.

What Do These Cases Tell Us? Suggestive of the position that there is a critical

period for first language learning (in particular for syntax and phonological development)

If child is not exposed to language during early childhood (prior to the age of 6 or 7), then the ability to learn syntax will be impaired while other abilities are less strongly affected

Not uncontroversial: Victor and Genie and children like them were deprived in many ways other than not being exposed to language

Genie stopped talking after age 30 and was institutionalized shortly afterward (Rymer, 1993)

What Do These Cases Tell Us? Suggestive of the position that there is a critical

period for first language learning (in particular for syntax and phonological development)

Why? Nativist explanation (see pg 79 of text) Maturational explanation: “less is more”

Second language learning Learning a new language

What if we already know one language, but want to learn another?

Adults learning another language typically have a persistent foreign accent – perhaps a critical period for phonology (Flege & Hillenbrand, 1984)

Adults typically do better initially at learning a new language compared to kids, but kids typically do better over the long term (Krashen, Long, & Scarcella, 1982)

Second language learning Johnson and Newport (1989)

Native Chinese/Korean speakers moving to US Task: Listen to sentences and judge whether

grammatically correct

Tes

t sc

ore

Age of arrival2 17

R = -.87

Tes

t sc

ore

Age of arrival17 40

R = -.16

Second language learning Johnson and Newport (1989)

Native Chinese/Korean speakers moving to US Task: Listen to sentences and judge whether

grammatically correct Concluded that around the age of 16 something

happens Different factors operate on language acquisition before

and after the age of 16

Birdsong and Molis (2001) Replicated the Johnson and Newport study in

Spanish/English speakers. Did not find a discontinuity around the age of 16

Effects of the Critical Period Learning a language:

Under 7 years: perfect command of the language possible Ages 8- c.15: Perfect command less possible progressively Age 15-: Imperfect command possible

But these claims are far from universally accepted

Bilinguals & Polyglots Many people speak more than one language

Tucker (1999) - multilinguals outnumber monolinguals What is the impact of knowing/using more than one

language? Factors affecting second language acquisition? What does the lexicon look like? Interesting effects in bilinguals

Interference Code switching Cognitive advantages

Second language acquisition Contexts of childhood bilingualism

Simultaneous Both languages are acquired at the same time

Vocabulary growth of bilinguals is similar to that of monolinguals Some aspects of acquisition may be slowed, but by age of 4

typically caught up Doesn’t seem to matter whether languages are “related” or not

(e.g., English - French versus English Japanese) Can achieve “fluency” in both languages

Sequential acquisition The second language is learned after a first language

When the second language (L2) is acquired is important Early versus late learning (e.g., see the Johnson and

Newport study)

Second language acquisition Frequency of usage of both languages

How often and in what contexts do you use the two languages “Use it or lose it” - language attrition

Mode of acquisition Native bilingualism - growing up in a two language environment Immersion - schooling provided in a non-native language Submersion - one learner surrounded by non-native speakers

Language dominance effects Relative fluency of L1 and L2 may impact processing

How do we represent linguistic information in a bilingual lexicon?

Probably depends on many of the factors just discussed Let’s look at some models and research focusing on the

situation where L1 is dominant relative to L2

Bilingual Representations

Models of the bilingual lexicons

L1=First LanguageL2=Second Language

Potter et al (1984): Separate Stores Models – separate lexicons for each language

L1 L2

CONCEPTS

Word Association Model

L1 L2

CONCEPTS

Concept Mediation Model

Models of the bilingual lexicons

L1=First LanguageL2=Second Language

Paivio, Clark, & Lambert (1988): Common Stores Models – words from both languages in same store

L1 & L2

CONCEPTS

Revised Hierarchical Model

L1 L2

concepts

lexicallinks

conceptuallinks

conceptuallinks

Kroll & Stewart (1994) Proposed that the fluency of

L2 needs to be considered in the processing model

The results are mixed, supporting more complex models

May be different in different bilinguals depending on things like age of acquisition, relative proficiency, etc.

Interesting effects in bilinguals Interference Code switching Cognitive advantages

Interference Does knowing two languages lead to interference? When found, interference is at multiple levels

Phonological - least amount of interference Lexical - mixing words from different languages

Initially, appear to use a one word per thing strategy But as they realize there that they’re speaking two language,

then they’ll use words from both languages simultaneously Syntactic

Until year two, may use only one syntactic system which is common to both languages

Then a brief period with two sets of lexical items, but still a common syntax

Finally, two lexicons and two sets of syntax

Interesting effects in bilinguals

Interesting effects in bilinguals Determine who or what is the one performing the action.

The waitress pushes the cowboys. The telephones pushes the cowboys. Kisses the table the apple. The baskets the teacher kicks.

As a native speaker of English we can use many cues:

Word order Animacy Verb agreement

Not all languages use the same cues to the same extent

e.g., German doesn’t rely as much on word order, but relies more on agreement processes

Interesting effects in bilinguals Determine who or what is the one performing the action.

The waitress pushes the cowboys. The telephones pushes the cowboys. Kisses the table the apple. The baskets the teacher kicks.

Kilborn (1989, 1994) Found that bilinguals (English as second language)

typically carry over the dominant processing strategies from their native languages.

This interacts with their level of fluency in the second language

Code switching When bilinguals substitute a word or phrase from one

language with a phrase or word from another language

“I want a motorcycle VERDE”

Switching is systematic, not random

When bilinguals substitute a word or phrase from one language with a phrase or word from another language


Code switching

The Spanish adjective “verde” follows a grammatical rule that is observed by most bilingual speakers that code-switch

“I want a VERDE motorcycle” Would be incorrect

because language switching can occur only if the adjective is placed according to the rules of the language of the adjective

In this case, the adjective is in Spanish; therefore, the adjective must follow the Spanish grammatical rule that states that the noun must precede the adjective



Code switching

Generally, bilinguals take longer to read and comprehend sentences containing code-switched words

May be due to a “mental switch mechanism” that determines which of the bilingual’s two mental dictionaries are “on” or “off” during language comprehension.

This mental switch is responsible for selecting the appropriate mental dictionary to be employed during the comprehension of a sentence.

E.g., if reading an English, a Spanish code-switched word is encountered, the mental switch must disable the English linguistic system, and enable the Spanish linguistic system.



Code switching

Generally, bilinguals take longer to read and comprehend sentences containing code-switched words

This time difference depends on similarity of the languages Chinese-English bilinguals take longer to recognize English code-

switched words in Chinese sentences only if the English words contain initial consonant-consonant (e.g., flight) clusters, simply because the Chinese language lacks this phonotactic structure.

Another current view suggests that language dominance (i.e., which language is used more frequently) plays an important role in code-switching

Some evidence suggest that being bilingual can have an impact on cognition outside of language

Bialystok and colleagues Bilinguals are very proficient at switching between languages Bilinguals also have to be good at suppressing the contextually

inappropriate language

Cognitive advantages

PSY 369: Psycholinguistics Language Acquisition. Announcements On-line Blackboard quiz for chapter 4...

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