Language Acquisition and Language DisruptionTutorial 5: Pragmatic development, The Critical Age Hypothesis

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Lexical and syntactic development:Children use organised patterns in both learning the meaning of words and the grammar of the surrounding language, they don’t make random mistakes.Important definitions and properties in learning the lexicon include: fast mapping, (complexive concepts), overextension, underextension and syntactic bootstrapping.The development of syntax happens in stages: one word stage, two word stage and telegraphic stage. Function words and morphemes appear later. Negation and question forming also happen at a later stage and follow fairly strict patterns.

Pragmatic development:

In addition to acquiring the phonology, meaning and syntax of language children also have to learn the appropriate use of language in context – pragmatics.

Children are not sensitive to the needs of the other person in a conversation.

Handout:A: Age two, mixture of monologue and dialogue, adult does much of the work, many utterances of child are not directed any only listener.

B: Age three, two parties fully involved. Child can initiate conversation. Between 3 and 5 they learn more about turn-taking and responding appropriately. They learn to address properly and politeness markers, please, sorry, they can also make repairs in anticipation of conversation break down.

C: Conversation and persuasive skills, age of 3+.

From 7 they learn jokes, riddles, insults, and maintain group identity,

Twins:Twins develop conversation skills quicker than singletons, they can keep conversations going longer. At 3-4 years they are often 6 months behind in terms of individual language skills. These differences vanish by 7 or 8 years. D: Not a secret language but phonetic play. E: They can share responses.F: Split up responses (phrases).

Conversations: Short pauses mean that exchanges will continue; long pauses mean that responses are not forthcoming.

Pronouns:Context is needed to determine the reference of pronouns. A sentence like ‘He loves her’ is uninterpretable unless both the speaker and hearer understand, who the pronouns he and her refer to.

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However children are not always sensitive to this and they might fail to establish the referents for pronouns. So children might use pronouns out of the blue, i.e. a child might cry to his mother ‘He hit me’, when mom has no idea who did the hitting.The speaker and listener form part of the context of an utterance, the meaning of I and you depend on who is speaking and who is listening. This changes form situation to situation.Children around 2 years of age have difficulty with the shifting reference of these pronouns. They often use ‘you’ when referring to themselves, i.e. they say ‘You want to take a walk’ , when they mean ‘I want to take a walk’. Another confusing notion is here and there, where there means near you and here near me.

Come and go refer to events the same way as deictic expressions, we go in from outside but come in for the people who are inside.

Articles:Like pronouns, the use articles also depend on context.The indefinite article ‘a’ is used when something is referred to the first time and the definite article the can be used when it is known what or who is talked about. For example:

A boy walked into the room.He was in the wrong room.

Children do not always respect these rules. Three year olds are just as likely to use the definite as the indefinite article for introducing a new referent. So children tend to assume that the listener knows, who they are talking about.

Requests:Requests start from one word utterances, with intonation being the way of indicating requesting. This develops to direct requests, ‘Pick me up’, and later to indirect requests, Can you pick me up?. At the age of 4 the use of indirect requests increases although direct requests are still more common.

Paralanguage:Children are intentional creatures like us, and not just passive observers. They are sensitive to subtle cues to a speaker’s referential intentions. So children use aspects of paralanguage from an early stage. They use pragmatic cues to figure word meaning: they follow gaze, for example.

However children are not very good at lying, their paralanguage gives away what they really have done. So their intention and the ability to use paralanguage don’t match..

Conversational abilities:Children’s conversational abilities start from pure non-verbal communicative responses. The responses develop from one-word utterances to longer ones. At first children are able to sustain a topic for one or two turns, the main strategy being repetition of partner’s utterance. By the age of 3 years children are able to maintain conversation for more than two turns. At this age they have learn that short pauses mean that exchanges will continue and long pauses mean that responses are not forthcoming. At the age of 4 years conversational skills are pretty good simply due to sophisticated language.

Intonation:

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Children use intonation at a very early stage. At one word-stage the utterance ‘Up’ can mean either a statement, like ‘The teddy is up an on the shelf’, or a request, like ‘Pick me up’.

Presuppositional skills:Presupposition: what is taken for granted in the utterance.At around 3 years of age children develop primitive presuppositional skills, i.e., understand what the listener needs to know and provide appropriate information.

Deixis‘Verbal pointing’. Includes expressions like:Personal or possessive pronouns I, you, mine yours, Demonstrative pronouns this, thatSpatial/temporal adverbs here, there, then, nowPersonal and possessive adjectives my, yourDemonstrative adjectives this, thatArticles the, a

Additional information:

In addition to acquiring the phonology, meaning and syntax of language children also have to learn the appropriate use of language in context – pragmatics.

Stages in pragmatic development, not quite nailed down, difficult to define

Stage 2, 27 to 30 months (around 2years 5 months)Continues to use language to request, to obtain information, and to respond.Fewer nonverbal responses than in Stage One.Sustains topic for one or two turns.Attempts conversational repairs when the listener does not understand

Stage 3, 31 to 34 months (around 2 years 9 months)Most exchanges are still limited to one or two turns per topic.Primary strategy for maintaining a topic is repeating part or all of the utterance produced by his partner.Continues to attempt conversational repairs, usually by using a different word even if it is not a more appropriate word

Stage 4, 35 to 40 months (around 3 years)Learns that short pauses mean that exchanges will continue; long pauses mean that responses are not forthcoming.By the end of Stage Four, is able to sustain conversation for more than two turns.Developing primitive presuppositional skills, i.e., understanding what the listener needs to know and providing appropriate information.Beginning to make indirect requests, e.g., "Can you pick me up

Stage 5, 40 to 46 moths (around 3,5 years)Conversational skills improve as a direct result of more sophisticated language.Increases his use of indirect requests, although direct request are still far more common.

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The Critical Age Hypothesis:

Article points: Eric Lenneberg: neural ‘plasticity’ is absent after puberty. Evidence from Brain damaged children and adults. Adults could not recover but

children could. Possibility of using right hemisphere. Problems:

o Mixed results. o Comparisons were difficult to make. o Lateralisation occurs long before puberty but does take time to be

established. o Some aspects of language are acquired over longer periods than others,

some later than others.

Genie was thirteen and a half, she had been emotionally deprived and kept isolated. She had no linguistic stimulation between 2 and puberty. She developed a good vocabulary and was making progress in syntax and morphology. But her use of syntactic rules varied and there were gaps in her syntax, there was also a marked gap in her production and comprehension.

Genie is said to have had a pidgin type language, examples of her phrases included: Mike paint. Applesauce buy store. Neal come happy; Neal not come sad. Genie have Momma have baby grow up. I like elephant eat peanut.

Isabelle was 6 ½ when she was introduced to language, her mother was mute and brain damaged. She had grown up in a silent environment. Within a year and a half she had produced sentences such as the following: Why does the paste come out if one upsets the jar? What did Miss Mason say when you told her I cleaned my classroom? Do you go to Miss Mason’s school at university?

Isabelle received linguistic stimulus within the critical period and developed normally.

In Genie’s case there is suspicion that the emotional trauma suffered has effected the ability to develop.

The case of Chelsea removes this doubt. Chelsea was born deaf, but she was diagnosed as retarded and disturbed. She grew up languageless but otherwise emotionally and neurologically normal. Her family did not believe she was retarded, she did not suffer the emotional trauma that Genie did. At thirty-one she was correctly diagnosed as being deaf and fitted with hearing aids. She underwent intensive therapy and reached a IQ level equivalent to a ten year old. She knew 2000 words could read and write and worked in a veterinarian’s office. But her syntax is bizarre The small a the hat. Richard eat peppers hot. Orange Tim car in. Banana the eat. I Wanda be drive come. The boat sits water on. Breakfast eating girl.

Despite the loving environment she grew up in Chelsea, like Genie failed to acquire language normally. Emotional damage can be removed from the equation.

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So it appears that normal language is guaranteed up to the of six and after that the ability is compromised until puberty when it is rare.

Physical Explanation: During the early school years metabolic rate and the number of neurons decline. Also the language learning circuitry of the brain is more plastic in childhood. A child can reacquire language after the loss of the left hemisphere, although not to normal levels. An adult usually suffers permanent aphasia.

Other examples of critical periods:Ducklings learn to follow large moving objectsKittens’ visual neurons become tuned to vertical, horizontal and oblique linesWhitecrowned Sparrows duplicate their father’s songs.

Why the demise in learning ability? Why would nature remove such a useful skill? We incorrectly view genes as the blueprints from which we are built, and that the parts we are fitted with are permanent (e.g. arms). We cannot comprehend the loss of one of these parts, (language learning ability included) but especially arms and legs.

But a more accurate way to view genes is that they produce a product when it is needed, (the set building in a theatre company producing different stages at different times, it alters the make up of the same set). Metamorphosis for example, “genes build an eating machine, let it grow, build a container around it, dissolve it into a puddle of nutrients, and recycle them into a breeding machine” p294.

Human genes work from a time scale, puberty for example, this process is initiated at a particular stage and ends at a particular stage. Genes work throughout the life of a species. Features emerge only when they are useful. We still have arms at 60 because they are still useful. So we must ask the question:

When is the ability to learn language needed? As early as possible, so as to enjoy language for as long as possible. ***Remember that learning language and using language is not same thing.

Compare to borrowing technology to convert formats, tape to CD. After we use it that we can return it. The CDs will be useful forever, we no longer need the technology.

The ability to learn language should not be kept if doing so incurs cost. It is likely that there would be a cost. The brain uses one fifth of the bodies oxygen and so any unnecessary activity should be removed.

Humans have the ability to acquire all the languages in the surrounding environment and then the system shuts down. Nature is not responsible for accommodating mans twisted actions, in normal circumstance language is acquired.

Second language;It is useful, but having the ability to acquire it natively is not necessary. For the use that it is put for the majority of cases an incomplete acquisition serves the purpose. A balance must be found, the advantages of having an active language learning process in the brain do not out weigh the advantages of shutting the system down and reducing the energy demand of the brain. Why have a computer program open, using resources if it is not being used.

Society may have developed beyond the scope of nature in a way, increased opportunity to travel has created more language contact situations. Viewing humans as animals it is logical to deem it adequate to have the ability to acquire only those language in the surrounding area.

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Further evidence of the Critical Age:Deaf people are the only neurologically normal people who can make it to adulthood without having acquired a language. These are deaf children brought up in the “oralist” tradition, without introduction to signing until it is too late. When the try to learn sign they are significantly below their peers in proficiency.

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A CRITICAL PERIOD LANGUAGE?

The notion of a ‘critical period’ was first used by ethologists studying the origin of species-specific behaviour. It was found that with certain species (e.g. rats, goslings) there were periods in which a particular kind of stimulus had to be present if the baby was to develop normal behaviour.

The question was therefore raised whether there were critical periods in human maturation also. The American psycholinguist Eric Lenneberg (1921—75) argued that such a period existed in the case of language acquisition. The development of language was said to be the result of brain maturation: the hemispheres were equipotential at birth, with language gradually becoming lateralized in the left hemisphere (p. 262). The process began at around the age of 2 and ended at puberty, when the brain was fully developed, and lateralization was complete. At this point, there was no longer any neural ‘plasticity’ which would enable the right hemisphere to take over the language function if the left hemisphere was damaged.

The argument in favour of a critical period was based largely on claims about the patterns of recovery in brain damaged adults and children. If adults with left-hemisphere damage failed to recover language within a few months, it was argued, they would never do so. Children, however, showed an ability to recover over a longer period — and could make a complete recovery if they were very young at the time of the damage. In such cases, even total removal of the left hemisphere did not preclude the reacquisition of language.

Controversial evidence The critical-period hypothesis has been controversial. The pathological evidence is mixed, because comparisons of adult and child cases are extremely difficult to make, and paths of recovery have not been studied in a detailed linguistic way. It may be that aspects of child recovery are helped by the involvement of the right hemisphere; but there are also cases of left-hemisphere damage producing severe and long-lasting aphasia in children.

The evidence of normal language acquisition (Part VII) is also mixed. Aspects of phonological and grammatical acquisition do continue until around puberty; however, most of these skills are well established before the age of 5, and some linguistic skills (in semantics and pragmatics) are still developing in teenage children and young adults.

The neuropsychological evidence generally fails to support the Lenneberg hypothesis, showing lateralization to be established long before puberty—some studies suggest this may even be as early as the third year. Cere-bral anatomical asymmetries have been found at birth, and several functional asymmetries have been noted in infants (e.g. a preference for rightward turning and right-hand grasping). Certain dichotic listening advantages (p. 261) are also present from a very early age, including some related to speech perception.

On the other hand, lateralization plainly takes some years before it is firmly established, and this overlaps the main period of language acquisition in a way that is not yet understood. The relationship between lateralization and language is thus an extremely complex one, and presents a continuing research challenge in developmental neuropsychology and neurolinguistics.

B:CHILD: Hester be fast asleep, mummy.MOTHER: She was tired.CHILD: And why did her have two sweets, mummy?MOTHER: Because you each had two, that’s why. She had the same as

you. Ooh dear, now what?CHILD: Daddy didn’t give me two in the end. MOTHER: Yes, he did.CHID: He didn’t.MOTHER: He did.CHILD: Look he given one to - two to Hester, and two to us.MOTHER: Yes, that’s right.CHILD: Why did he give?MOTHER: ‘Cos there were six sweets. That’s two each.

(P Fletcher, 1985, p. 91.)

C:A: Say yes.B: No.A: I’ll be your best friend if you say yes. ******A: Change lunch boxes.B: No.A: You’ll have a bigger one, so you will. (M. McTear, 1985, p. 109.)

D:A: zæki suB: (laughing) zæki su zæki (bothe laugh) æ:A: api:B: olp olt oltA: opi: opi:B: api: api: (laughing) api api apiA: ai juB: (laughing) ai ju api (repeated several times)A: kaki (repeated several times)B: ai i: o:A: ai I: o o:

(E. O. Keenan, 1974, p. 171.)

E:MOTHER: What can you see in the picture?TWIN A: A cat.TWIN B: And a dog.

F:MOTHER: What do you want me to read?TWIN A: PussTWIN B: In boots.

Source: Crystal, David. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language (Second Edition). Cambridge, 1997.

GENIE The tragic case of ‘Genie’ bears directly on the critical period hypothesis. Genie was discovered in 1970, at the age of 13 1/2, having been brought up in conditions of inhuman neglect and extreme isolation. She was severely dis-turbed and underdeveloped, and had been unable to learn language. In the course of her treatment and rehabil-itation, great efforts were made to teach her to speak, She had received next to no linguistic stimulation between the ages of 2 and puberty, so the evidence of her language-learning ability would bear directly on the Lenneberg hypothesis.

Analysis of the way Genie developed her linguistic skills showed several abnormalities, such as a marked gap between production and comprehension, variability in using rules, stereotyped speech, gaps in the acquisition syntactic skills, and a generally retarded rate of development. After various psycholinguistic tests, it was concluded that Genie was using her right hemisphere for language (as well as for several other activities), and that this might have been the result of her beginning the task of language learning after the critical period of left-hemisphere involvement. The case was thus thought to support Lenneberg’s hypothesis, but only in a weak form. Genie was evidently able to acquire some language from exposure after puberty (she made great progress in vocabulary, for example, and continued to make gains in morphology and syntax), but she did not do so in a normal way. (For other ‘lost’ children, see §49.) (After S. Curtiss, 1977.)

A:CHILD: Ball. Kick. Kick. Daddy kick.MOTHER: That’s right, you have to kick it, don’t you.CHILD: Mmm. Um. Um. Kick hard. Only kick hard. Our play that. On

floor. Our play that on floor. Now. Our play that. On floor. Our play that on floor. No that. Now.

MOTHER: All right.CHILD: Mummy, come on floor me.MOTHER: Yes.CHILD: You tip those out.MOTHER: Mm. All right. CHILD: That one broke.

(P Fletcher, 1985, p. 64.)

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C: Age 3+ Conversation Skill, Persuasive tactics (Data: 4 yrs old).

A: Say yes.B: No.A: I’ll be your best friend if you say yes. ******A: Change lunch boxes.B: No.A: You’ll have a bigger one, so you will.

A CRITICAL PERIOD LANGUAGE?

The notion of a ‘critical period’ was first used by ethologists studying the origin of species-specific behaviour. It was found that with certain species (e.g. rats, goslings) there were periods in which a particular kind of stimulus had to be present if the baby was to develop normal behaviour.

The question was therefore raised whether there were critical periods in human maturation also. The American psycholinguist Eric Lenneberg (1921—75) argued that such a period existed in the case of language acquisition. The development of language was said to be the result of brain maturation: the hemispheres were equipotential at birth, with language gradually becoming lateralized in the left hemisphere (p. 262). The process began at around the age of 2 and ended at puberty, when the brain was fully developed, and lateralization was complete. At this point, there was no longer any neural ‘plasticity’ which would enable the right hemisphere to take over the language function if the left hemisphere was damaged.

The argument in favour of a critical period was based largely on claims about the patterns of recovery in brain damaged adults and children. If adults with left-hemisphere damage failed to recover language within a few months, it was argued, they would never do so. Children, however, showed an ability to recover over a longer period — and could make a complete recovery if they were very young at the time of the damage. In such cases, even total removal of the left hemisphere did not preclude the reacquisition of language.

Controversial evidence The critical-period hypothesis has been controversial. The pathological evidence is mixed, because comparisons of adult and child cases are extremely difficult to make, and paths of recovery have not been studied in a detailed linguistic way. It may be that aspects of child recovery are helped by the involvement of the right hemisphere; but there are also cases of left-hemisphere damage producing severe and long-lasting aphasia in children.

The evidence of normal language acquisition (Part VII) is also mixed. Aspects of phonological and grammatical acquisition do continue until around puberty; however, most of these skills are well established before the age of 5, and some linguistic skills (in semantics and pragmatics) are still developing in teenage children and young adults.

The neuropsychological evidence generally fails to support the Lenneberg hypothesis, showing lateralization to be established long before puberty—some studies suggest this may even be as early as the third year. Cere-bral anatomical asymmetries have been found at birth, and several functional asymmetries have been noted in infants (e.g. a preference for rightward turning and right-hand grasping). Certain dichotic listening advantages (p. 261) are also present from a very early age, including some related to speech perception.

On the other hand, lateralization plainly takes some years before it is firmly established, and this overlaps the main period of language acquisition in a way that is not yet understood. The relationship between lateralization and language is thus an extremely complex one, and presents a continuing research challenge in developmental neuropsychology and neurolinguistics.

B: Turn taking and Maintaining a topic Data: Age 3

CHILD: Hester be fast asleep, mummy.MOTHER: She was tired.CHILD: And why did her have two sweets, mummy?MOTHER: Because you each had two, that’s why. She had the same as

you. Ooh dear, now what?CHILD: Daddy didn’t give me two in the end. MOTHER: Yes, he did.CHID: He didn’t.MOTHER: He did.CHILD: Look he given one to - two to Hester, and two to us.MOTHER: Yes, that’s right.CHILD: Why did he give?MOTHER: ‘Cos there were six sweets. That’s two each.

D: Phonetic playA: zæki suB: (laughing) zæki su zæki (bothe laugh) æ:A: api:B: olp olt oltA: opi: opi:B: api: api: (laughing) api api apiA: ai juB: (laughing) ai ju api (repeated several times)A: kaki (repeated several times)B: ai i: o:A: ai I: o o:

(E. O. Keenan, 1974, p. 171.)

E:MOTHER: What can you see in the picture?TWIN A: A cat.TWIN B: And a dog.

F:MOTHER: What do you want me to read?TWIN A: PussTWIN B: In boots.

Source: Crystal, David. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language (Second Edition). Cambridge, 1997.

GENIE The tragic case of ‘Genie’ bears directly on the critical period hypothesis. Genie was discovered in 1970, at the age of 13 1/2, having been brought up in conditions of inhuman neglect and extreme isolation. She was severely dis-turbed and underdeveloped, and had been unable to learn language. In the course of her treatment and rehabil-itation, great efforts were made to teach her to speak, She had received next to no linguistic stimulation between the ages of 2 and puberty, so the evidence of her language-learning ability would bear directly on the Lenneberg hypothesis.

Analysis of the way Genie developed her linguistic skills showed several abnormalities, such as a marked gap between production and comprehension, variability in using rules, stereotyped speech, gaps in the acquisition syntactic skills, and a generally retarded rate of development. After various psycholinguistic tests, it was concluded that Genie was using her right hemisphere for language (as well as for several other activities), and that this might have been the result of her beginning the task of language learning after the critical period of left-hemisphere involvement. The case was thus thought to support Lenneberg’s hypothesis, but only in a weak form. Genie was evidently able to acquire some language from exposure after puberty (she made great progress in vocabulary, for example, and continued to make gains in morphology and syntax), but she did not do so in a normal way. (For other ‘lost’ children, see §49.) (After S. Curtiss, 1977.)

A: Age 2, Monologue vs. DialogueCHILD: Ball. Kick. Kick. Daddy kick.MOTHER: That’s right, you have to kick it, don’t you.CHILD: Mmm. Um. Um. Kick hard. Only kick hard. Our play that. On

floor. Our play that on floor. Now. Our play that. On floor. Our play that on floor. No that. Now.

MOTHER: All right.CHILD: Mummy, come on floor me.MOTHER: Yes.CHILD: You tip those out.MOTHER: Mm. All right. CHILD: That one broke.

(P Fletcher, 1985, p. 64.)

claim:

evidence:

Genie later, could perform cognitive skills that required right hemisphere well but not the other way

problem (4)

but:

Problems: (1) Mixed evidence (2) Hard to compare adult and child (3) Aspects of acquisition continue longer than others

9Genie:

Mike paint.

Applesauce buy store.

Neal com

e happy; Neal not com

e sad.G

enie have Mom

ma have baby grow

up.I like elephant eat peanut.

IsabelleW

hy does the paste come out if one upsets the jar?

What did M

iss Mason say w

hen you told her I cleaned my classroom

?D

o you go to Miss M

ason’s school at university?

Chelsea

The small a the hat.

Richard eat peppers hot.

Orange Tim

car in.B

anana the eat.I W

anda be drive come.

The boat sits water on.

Breakfast eating girl.

Pronouns:

1. He loves her

2. He hit me

Context:

1. John and Mary are in the park. John invited Mary......

2. I hate John....

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Articles:

A clown walks into the a bar. The barman says to the clown: “Is this some kind of joke?”.

Requests:Direct: Pick me up.Indirect: Can you pick me up?

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