LANGUAGE

DEVELOPMENT

P R E S E N T E D B Y:
Z A R M E E N S ID D IQ U I
( 8362 )
 WHAT IS LANGUAGE?
 Language is an organized means of
combining words in order to
communicate.
Receptive language:
comprehension or understanding
of language.
Productive language: language
expression or speaking.
Language learning involves
four kinds of knowledge
Phonology: the sound system of
language.
Semantics: the meaning
conveyed by words and by
sentences.
Syntax: the set of grammatical
rules indicating how words may
and may not be combined to
make sentences.
Pragmatics: the principles
determining how language
Stages of language
development
One-word Stage
Telegraphic period
Subsequent
development
 One-word Stage
Also known as holophrastic period,
meaning that children are trying to
convey much more meaning than
their utterances.
Children till the age of 18 months
try to convey messages through
only one word.
Nelson (1970) studied that children
till this age utter 50 words which
are categorized into 6.
1.Class of objects e.g. cat, dog, car,
3.Action words, e.g. go, come, sit
4.Modifiers, e.g. small, large, less
5.Social words, e.g. please, yes, no,
sorry
6.Function words, e.g. for, where,
there, with
Over extension, that is when a
child uses one word to cover
many objects, e.g. calling every
woman mom. Whereas Under
extension, is the opposite in
which meaning given to a word
covers too few objects e.g.
 Telegraphic period
Begins shortly after 18 months
It consists of mainly 2 word
utterances focusing on the
content word and omitting
function words.
Telegraphic speech is based on
rules, in which distributional
analysis by Braine is included.
This considers the frequency
with which different words
occurred in children’s speech,
This analysis suggested that early
speech consists of two classes of
words:
1.Pivot Words: words always used
in the same place within
children’s speech.
2.Open Words: Words used in
different places within the
speech of children.
Another, more important way in
which telegraphic speech is
based on rules was identified
by Roger Brown. It was the
Subsequent Developments
Children’s language develops a
lot between 2 ½ years and 5
years of age.
It is also a rule based learning
and includes the learning of
grammatical morphemes in a
given order.
MORPHEMES??– the length of
utterance of words is measured
in terms of morphemes which
are meaningful units produced.
GRAMMATICAL MORPHEMES??–
these includes prepositions,
prefixes and suffixes
Over regularization is another
concept which shows the
tendency to use the rule in
situation in which it does not
apply.
 Nativist theories of child
language
Theorists who have put forward the
Nativist theory of child language argue
that infants are born with knowledge of
the structure of human languages.
LANGUALE ACQUISITION DEVICE

Chomsky argued that humans possess a

language acquisition device which

consists of innate knowledge of
grammatical structure.
 There are two kinds of structures in a
sentence:
1.Surface structure- it is based on the
Chomsky also introduced the
notion of transformational
grammar; this allows us to
transform the meaning, or deep
structure, of a sentence into the
actual words of the sentence. It
plays an important part in
language acquisition device.
He also assumed that all humans
have same language acquisition
device.

CRITICAL - PERIOD HYPOTHESIS
The notion that language learning is

easier before puberty than it is

afterwards, as it is a fact that a young
child learns a language faster than an
adult.
 The evidence supporting this theory
comes from the study of Aphasia,
which involves some loss of language
through brain injury. Children who
become aphasic at anytime before
puberty generally recover most or all
of the lost language.
 It is also assumes that the brain is very
flexible, as before puberty if any injury
occurs in the left hemisphere, it gets
 Skinner’s environmental
approach to Language
Skinner argued that language
learning depends on imitation
and reinforcement.
There is much less imitation in
children’s language than
predicted by skinner,
reinforcement principles cannot
explain the learning of
grammatical rules.
Social context plays an important
role in language development,
Motherese and Expansions; both
help language development.
1.Motherese: the short simple
sentences used by mothers
when talking to their young
children
2.Expansions: utterances of
parents and other adults which
consists of fuller and more
accurate versions of what a
child has just said.
THANK
YOU!..