ACTIVITY

Pick a partner and decide who will speak first and second
Each will get a chance to tell the story of when they first started to learn language
Guiding Questions:
 First sound(s)?
 First word(s)?
 First sentence?
 Favourite word?
 Any stories that parents/guardians/grandparents/siblings tell you about when you were learning
language?
HOW DO WE ACQUIRE AND The Psychological Answer
MANIPULATE LANGUAGE?
LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT IN YOUNG Psychologists have studied
development of language in

CHILDREN young children and categorized

it into several steps:
STAGE 1
Age: 3 months – 1 year
Characteristics:
Series of meaningless sounds known as babbling
Children tend to imitate sounds, pitches and tones made by those around
them
By the end of the first year, children can express short words beginning with
consonants
i.e. mama, dada
Babbling Twins
Early comprehension even though they cannot clearly express themselves
STAGE 2
Age: 1 – 3 years
Characteristics:
Start to learn more complicated language structures using 2-3 word
combinations as vocab improves
Estimated that by 2 years old, children possess a vocabulary of about 50
words
This number doubles in less than 6 months
Start to produce short “telegraphic sentences”
i.e. “I saw cat”
Interview with a Two-Year Old
STAGE 3
Age: +3 years
Characteristics:
By 3 years old, words are pluralized and some forms of the past tense are
used
“We went to the park tomorrow”
Do not fully comprehend rules of speech and tend to overgeneralize
i.e. add “ed” to some verbs – “I sawed a bird”
4-Year Old Storytelling
By 5 years old, most children have acquired the basic rules of language but
still have a lack of complete vocabulary and the ability to apply all
grammatical rules
DO CHILDREN WHO HAVE SIGNIFICANT HEARING
LOSS GO THROUGH THESE STAGES?
YES! Sign language development follows spoken language patterns
Babbling Baby
2-Year Old Sign Language
4-Year Old Conversations
Motivational speaker Drisana Levitzke-Gray - TedTalk
 Psychologists have proposed 2

LEARNING VS. INNATE AQUISITION theories on HOW people go

through stages of language
development
LEARNING THEORY
LEARNING THEORY
At an early age children are rewarded with hugs and praise when they say
words
B.F. Skinner – believed that this process evolved into more complicated
language
Findings that support this theory
The more parents or guardians speak to their children, the more capable
they become of using language
The more sophisticated the vocabulary used by the parents or guardians, the
greater vocabulary growth in their children
Feral children
Children who are isolated and denied social interaction
Never able to develop proper language skills that included proper syntax
because of the absence of social stimuli
INNATE ACQUISITION
INNATE ACQUISITION THEORY
Proposed by linguist Noam Chomsky
Believed that children are born with a natural ability to acquire
language
That this ability to use and comprehend language developed with age
Universal Grammar – all the worlds languages share a similar structure
Believed humans have a language-acquisition device:
A neural system in the human brain
Helps us understand the structure of language
Gives us the ability to learn any language
Also believes that we are anatomically prepared for speech at birth
It is through our environment that we gain the skills required to understand
the structure of language
 VIDEO, QUESTIONS AND ACTIVITY
Language: Crash Course
Complete questions 1, 2, 3, and 5 on pg. 82
For question 6, in groups of 3 or 4 play descriptive Charades
( http://www.wordgenerator.net/charades-generator.php )
Be aware of how others use language to describe a word, phrase, movie,
book, or celebrity
Make it interesting – see who can get the most right in a minute