01:830:331 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Language Acquisition Device, Speech Perception, Noam Chomsky
11 Apr 2017
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What is language: theories of language development: nature vs. nurture. Learning theory -- dominated the field until 1970. Children produce sentences they have never heard. Parents do not correct children"s grammatical errors (brown & hanlon) Evidence for the nativist position: biological features. Brain centers: language is a uniquely human ability. Primate studies: mixed results, but evidence of grammar: critical period for language acquisition. Case study: genie https://www. youtube. com/watch?v=vjzolhcrc8e: universal stages of language development. Development of grammar tied to vocabulary development. Both are part of a common, emerging language system little: the environment does not provide enough information for learning. Hypotheses about syntactic rules must be constrained. Hypotheses about possible meanings must be constrained. Social environment provides a support system for language learning. Children hear language in a structured social context. Word meanings can be inferred from the context. Hearing child of deaf mother exposed to oral language from television, but no exposure to sign language (sachs et al. , 1981)
