The Four Components of Language

BAB 5 Development
 Language is a symbolic system. That is, each word (and sometimes even parts of words)
means something, stands for something or refers to something else.
 Thalamocingulate division: part of the human brain suggested within Paul mac Lean’s
‘triune Brain’ theory (that we have three brains, each developed from the preceding ones
through evolution) as important in family-related behavior.
The four components of language
1. Phonology: the sound system of a particular language.

 It is important to develop the ability to recognize and to tell the difference, or
discriminate, between different phonemes within a language
 Discriminate: in speech-sound perception, to be able to tell the difference between
speech sounds of a language.
 Category: a set of sounds or words perceived as belonging to the same group (e.g. all
instances of the sound /s/ or all words relating to female humans).
2. Semantics: the part of language concerned with the meanings of words and parts of words.
3. Syntax: the part of language concerned with the rules which govern how words can be
combined to make sentences.
4. Pragmatics: the part of language concerned with its use in social contexts.
How do infants’ early social interactions prepare them for later language?
 Turn taking in feeding

researchers have found evidence that early social interactions which infants have with
their caregivers may be important in preparing them for turn taking in formal
conversations later on.
 Cycles of attention
Interactions between babies and their caregivers are very stimulating for babies. These
early social interactions pave the way for later communicative exchanges and language.
 Infant-directed speech
the kind of speech that is heard when adults talk to infants. This kind of speech has a
number of distinct characteristics which make it quite different from normal adult-to-adult
speech. It is generally of a higher pitch.
Theories of development
 Learning theory accounts

o Learning theorists argue that language is just another kind of behavior which
we learn, albeit a verbal behavior. If we accept this account, then it implies
that there are no in-born language abilities.
o Learning theorists point out that from the time they are born, children are
surrounded with language.
o Shaping: a process by which children’s utterances move closer to correct
speech as the result of positive reinforcement, which leads to a series of
successive approximations.
 The Nativist account
o Noam Chomsky (see Recommended Websites) is a leading linguist who has
suggested that humans are born with something called a language
acquisition device (LAD).
o Language acquisition device: a hypothetical cognitive structure predisposed
towards the acquisition of language and sensitive to rule-based regularities
in everyday speech, therefore allowing for the development of grammar and
syntax.
o Lateralization: the principle that some specific psychological functions are
located in one or the other side of the brain’s two cortical hemispheres.
o Pierre Paul Broca, a French neurosurgeon and pathologist, was the first to
identify a specific part of the left hemisphere which is involved in language.
o found lesions in a particular part of the posterior of his left hemisphere
which has come to be known as “Broca’s area”
o Critical period hypothesis: the suggestion that there is a specific period of
time in the early part of a child’s life (suggestions about when this begins
and ends vary), during which language learning should occur in order to
develop normally.
o Plasticity: the ability of the brain to reorganize neural pathways either to
recover lost functioning due to damage, or in response to learning from new
experiences.
 Interactionist accounts
o Some interactionist accounts of language development make us think about
the interaction between the development of language and the development
of cognition and thinking abilities in general.
o Other interactionist accounts emphasize the fact that children do not
develop language in isolation, and allow us to consider how input from the
external world works with innate abilities that a child brings into the world.
Phonological development
The development of speech-sound perception
Hearing and understanding spoken words requires auditory perceptual abilities. For adults
to use language effectively, it is important to be able to discriminate (to hear the difference)
between different categories of speech sound, and there is little point in us being able to
discriminate between different sounds within a category of speech sound.
In a piece of ground-breaking research published in the esteemed journal Science in 1971,

four psychologists presented convincing evidence that children are able to make these kinds of
discriminations between categories of speech sounds, yet not within categories of speech sound, at
a surprisingly early age (Eimas et al., 1971).
Using a habituation technique and a non-nutritive dummy, infants from English-speaking

families aged just 1 and 4 months of age were exposed to the phonemes /p/ and /b/. Even at
1 month of age infants could tell the difference between /p/ and /b/ and would respond to them as
different sounds, but that they did not discriminate within the categories of /p/ and /b/.
The development of speech-sound production
Following a Piagetian approach to development in this area, initial research identified a

series of stages through which children’s vocalizations progress, and which seem to be remarkably
similar across children despite differences in language, culture and context.
Referential words: common nouns used to denote real objects.

Semantic development
The growth of vocabulary in infancy
 This is commonly referred to in the literature as the vocabulary spurt (a point in language
development where the rate of acquisition of new words is thought to accelerate rapidly).
Cognitive development and semantic development
 Naming insight: the realization that all things have names, leading to a fundamental change
in the way children think about the world.
In one study, infants between 15 and 21 months of age were observed playing with different
sets of objects (Gopnik and Meltzoff, 1987). Each set of eight objects consisted of four objects of
one type (e.g. four plastic boxes) and four objects of another type (e.g. four balls). The infants’
behaviour as they played with and manipulated these objects was observed, with the
researchers paying particular attention to whether the infants exhibited any of three different
levels of grouping behaviour:
1. single category grouping – this is when a child systematically displaces four objects
of one type and groups them together.
2. serial touching of both object types – this is when a child touches the four objects of
one type one after the other.
3. two category grouping – this is when a child moves all eight objects from their
original locations and systematically sorts them into two distinct groups.
Learning the meanings of words
After the vocabulary spurt, children’s vocabularies continue to grow, so that by the time
they reach 6 years of age some estimates suggest that their vocabularies may be as large as 14 000
words. Initially, the words which infants produce are primarily common nouns and action verbs, but
they also include sound effects such as animal noises (e.g. ‘moo’) and people words (e.g. ‘Daddy’).
Using children’s errors to understand referential word learning
 Under extension : when a child uses a word to refer to only a sub-group of

the category of objects to which that word applies.
 Overextension : almost the opposite of under extension, and occurs when a
child uses a word to refer to the whole category of objects to which it refers.
 Overlap : Overlap can be thought of as a cross between under
extension and overextension.
 Mismatch : when there are no correct associations between a word
and its category of referents.
Syntactic development
Single-word utterances
Once infants have produced their first words, we have seen that their vocabularies then
continue to grow. The period before children start to combine words is known as the one-word
period. However, there is evidence to suggest that, even in this period, children are condensing
more complex meanings into their single words, which go beyond just naming objects or labelling
things.
Holophrase: a single word which expresses some more complex idea.
Combining two words
Children begin to put words together in combinations from about 18 months of age.
Telegraphic speech: speech consisting of phrases of a small number of words (usually nouns, verbs
and adjectives) combined to make sense, but without complex grammatical forms.
Combining three and four words
After the end of the second year, children begin to put three and four words in combination. Their
word combinations are still condensed and telegraphic in nature, and are not yet grammatically
correct.
The development of pragmatics
As this develops, children become more sensitive to the needs of other people in
conversations, and show a greater awareness of, for example, what other people know and do not
know. Enables children to be confident and competent users of language in the social world.
Dyslexia: a learning difficulty which affects a person’s ability to read despite otherwise normal levels
of intelligence.
Infanticide: intentionally causing the death of an infant.
Colic: a condition where babies cry for long periods of time (most commonly in the first three
months of life) without obvious reason, but possibly due to trapped wind or infant temperament.
Shaken baby syndrome: a type of child abuse which occurs when a baby is vigorously shaken; it can
result in neurological damage and may be fatal

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BAB 5 Development

The four components of language

1. Phonology: the sound system of a particular language.

 Turn taking in feeding

 Learning theory accounts

The development of speech-sound perception

In a piece of ground-breaking research published in the esteemed journal Science in 1971,

Using a habituation technique and a non-nutritive dummy, infants from English-speaking

The development of speech-sound production

Following a Piagetian approach to development in this area, initial research identified a

Referential words: common nouns used to denote real objects.

The growth of vocabulary in infancy

Cognitive development and semantic development

Learning the meanings of words

Using children’s errors to understand referential word learning

 Under extension : when a child uses a word to refer to only a sub-group of

Holophrase: a single word which expresses some more complex idea.

Combining two words

Combining three and four words

The development of pragmatics

Infanticide: intentionally causing the death of an infant.

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