Language

Development
• Language is a form of communication—whether spoken,
written, or signed—that is based on a system of symbols.
• Language consists of the words used by a community
(vocabulary) and the rules for varying and combining them
(grammar and syntax).
All human languages have some common characteristics.
• These include infinite generativity and organizational
rules.
• Infinite generativity is the ability to produce an endless
number of meaningful sentences using a finite set of words
and rules.
• When we say “rules,” we mean that language is orderly and
that rules describe the way language works.
• Language involves five systems of rules: phonology,
morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics.
• Phonology- (ध्वनि विज्ञान ) Every language is made
up of basic sounds.
• Phonology is the sound system of a language, including
the sounds used and how they may be combined.
• For example, English has the sounds sp, ba, and ar, but
the sound sequences zx and qp do not occur.
• A phoneme is the basic unit of sound in a
language; it is the smallest unit of sound that
affects meaning.
• A good example of a phoneme in English is /k/, the
sound represented by the letter k in the word ski and
the letter c in the word cat.
• The /k/ sound is slightly different in these two words,
and in some languages such as Arabic these two sounds
• Morphology-(आकृति विज्ञान) Morphology refers to the
units of meaning involved in word formation.
• A morpheme is a minimal unit of meaning; it is a word
or a part of a word that cannot be broken into smaller
meaningful parts.
• Every word in the English language is made up of one or
more morphemes.
• Some words consist of a single morpheme (for example,
help), whereas others are made up of more than one
morpheme (for example, helper, which has two
morphemes, help + er, with the morpheme -er meaning
“one who,” in this case “one who helps”).
• Help
• Help+er
• Syntax- (वाक्य – विन्यास)
• Syntax involves the way words are combined to form
acceptable phrases and sentences.
• If someone says to you, “Bob slugged Tom” or “Bob was
slugged by Tom,” you know who did the slugging and
who was slugged in each case because you have a
syntactic understanding of these sentence structures.
• You also understand that the sentence “You didn’t stay,
did you?” is a grammatical sentence but that “You didn’t
stay, didn’t you?” is unacceptable and ambiguous.
• Semantics (अर्थ विज्ञान ) refers to the meaning of
words and sentences.
• Every word has a set of semantic features, or
required attributes related to meaning.
• Girl and woman, for example, share many
semantic features, but they differ semantically in
regard to age.
• Pragmatics (उपयोगितावाद )-A final set of
language rules involves pragmatics, the
appropriate use of language in different
contexts.
• When you take turns speaking in a discussion,
you are demonstrating knowledge of pragmatics.
• You also apply the pragmatics of English when
you use polite language in appropriate situations
(for example, when talking to a teacher) or tell
stories that are interesting.
• Pragmatic rules can be complex, and they differ
from one culture to another.
 Properties of Language
1. Production of Language- Broca's area, located in the left
hemisphere, is associated with speech production and articulation.
• Our ability to articulate ideas, as well as use words accurately in
spoken and written language, has been attributed to this crucial
area.

2. Comprehension of Language- Wernicke's area is a critical language

area in the posterior superior temporal lobe connects to Broca's area
via a neural pathway. Wernicke's area is primarily involved in the
comprehension. Historically, this area has been associated with
language processing, whether it is written or spoken.
 BIOLOGICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL INFLUENCES in Language Development

• Nativist Theory of Language - Famous linguist Noam Chomsky (1957) argued that
humans are prewired to learn language at a certain time and in a certain way.
• Some language scholars view the remarkable similarities in how children acquire
language all over the world, despite the vast variation in language input they
receive, as strong evidence that language has a biological basis.
• In the spirit of cognitive revolution in the 1950's, Chomsky argued that children will
never acquire the tools needed for processing an infinite number of sentences if the
language acquisition mechanism was dependent on language input alone.
• He proposed the theory of Universal Grammar: an idea of innate, biological
grammatical categories, such as a noun category and a verb category that
facilitate the entire language development in children and overall language
processing in adults.
• The Language Acquisition Device (LAD) is a controversial claim from language
acquisition research proposed by Noam Chomsky in the 1960s.
• The LAD concept is a purported instinctive mental capacity which enables an
infant to acquire and produce language. It is a component of the. This theory asserts
that humans are born with the instinct or "innate facility" for acquiring language.
HOW LANGUAGE DEVELOPS
milestones inn every stage

• Infancy
• Language acquisition advances past a number of milestones in infancy. There are
several language milestones in infancy.
• Babbling occurs in the middle of the first year and infants usually utter their first word
at about 10 to 13 months.
• By 18 to 24 months, infants usually have begun to string two words together.
• In this two-word stage, they quickly grasp the importance of language in
communication, creating phrases such as “Book there,” “My candy,” “Mama
walk,” and “Give Papa.”
• Early Childhood
• As children leave the two-word stage, they move rather quickly into three-, four-, and
five-word combinations.
• The transition from simple sentences expressing a single proposition to complex
sentences begins between 2 and 3 years of age and continues into the elementary
school years.

• In terms of phonology, most preschool children gradually become sensitive to the

sounds of spoken words. They notice rhymes, enjoy poems, make up silly names for
things by substituting one sound for another (such as bubblegum, bubblebum,
bubbleyum), and clap along with each syllable in a phrase.

• As children move beyond two-word utterances, there is clear evidence that they know
morphological rules.
• Children begin using the plural and possessive forms of nouns (dogs and dog’s); putting
appropriate endings on verbs (-s when the subject is third-person singular, -ed for the
past tense, and -ing for the present progressive tense); and using prepositions (in and
on), articles (a and the), and various forms of the verb to be (“I was going to the
store”).
• In fact, they overgeneralize these rules, applying them to words that do not follow the
• children often use words in away in which they have
different understanding compared to adult usage.
• They also claimed that a word is considered mastered
by the child when it has phonetics similarity to adults
and has a stable relationship to its reference.
• Based on this view, it seems that many children may
not understand the word-reference relationship correctly
even though they mayproduce the word or phrase
accurately. Since this condition happened, thechildren
may commonly face the situation known as
Over-generalization, Under-generalization, and No-generalization
• Over-generalization, also often named as over-
extension, occurs when the children refer to too wide a
category of things (Wray, Trot, and Bloomer, 1998).
• Saidan (2011) in Matiini (2016) further stated that over-
generalization is the phenomenon when one overextends
one rule to cover instances.
• This situation may also occur when the children mention
the things with their first known-utterances.
• The children may name orange to refer to all fruits, or
book to refer to all printed materials, for example
• Under-generalization or under-extension occurs
when the children use a word to refer to too small a
category of things (Wray, Trot, and Bloomer, 1998).
• This also may occur since the children difficult to
understand complex words.
• The example can be seen when the children call
cat for his family pet, but not for his neighbor’s.

• Kitty might mean the family cat, but not other cats.
• No-generalization or no-extension, next, occurs
when the children difficultto understand the word’s
meaning.
• Close to under-generalization, no-generalization may
also occur since the children difficult to understand
complex words.
• No-generalization can be found, for example, when the
children shout go away to things around them, such as
tables or chairs
• What are some important aspects of how word learning optimally
occurs? Kathy Hirsh-Pasek and Roberta Golinkoff emphasize six
key principles in young children’s vocabulary development:
• Children learn the words they hear most often. They learn
the words they encounter when interacting with parents,
teachers, siblings, peers, and also from books. They especially
benefit from encountering words that they do not know.
• Children learn words for things and events that interest
them. Parents and teachers can direct young children to
experience words in contexts that interest the children; playful
peer interactions are especially helpful in this regard.
• Children learn words better in responsive and interactive
contexts than in passive contexts. Children who experience
turn-taking opportunities, joint focusing experiences, and
positive, sensitive socializing contexts with adults encounter the
scaffolding necessary for optimal word learning. They learn words
less effec- tively when they are passive learners.
• Children learn words best in contexts that are meaningful.
Young children learn new words more effectively when new words
are encountered in integrated contexts rather than as isolated
facts.
• Children learn words best when they access clear
information about word meaning. Children whose parents and
teachers are sensitive to words the children might not understand
and provide support and elaboration with hints about word
meaning learn words better than children whose parents and
teachers quickly state a new word and don’t monitor whether the
child understands its meaning.
• Children learn words best when grammar and vocabulary
are considered. Children who experience a large number of
words and diversity in verbal stimulation develop a richer
vocabulary and better understanding of grammar. In many cases,
vocabulary and grammar development are connected.
Language and
Thought
Most of our thinking seems to involve words

So
What is the relationship between language
and thought?

• Is language essential for thinking?

• Does thought determine language?
 Language as Determinant of Thought
• We use different words for various kinship
relationships
• We have different terms for father’s brother,
mother’s brother, mother’s sister’s husband, father’s
sister’s husband and so on
• An English person uses Uncle to describe all these
relationship
• Does an Indian child find it easier to think about and
differentiate between various kinship relationships
compared to his/her English speaking counterpart?
Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis
(Linguistic Determinism)
Benjamin Lee Whorf, 1956
•

‘Language shapes thought’

People who speak different languages may perceive

the world in different ways, because their thinking is
determined by the words available to them
Thought as Determinant of
Language
• Jean Piaget
Thought precedes
language
Children form an internal representation
of the world through thinking.
• Children first sees something and later copy it,
thinking does take place, which does not
involve language.
• A child’s observation of other’s behavior and
imitation of the same behavior, no doubt
involves thinking but not language.

Language is just a vehicle of thinking