Language Acquistion Essays - Language Acquisition, Linguistics

Language Acquistion Language acquisition is the process of learning a native or a second language. Although how children learn to speak is not perfectly understood, most explanations involve both the observation that children copy what they hear and the inference that human beings have a natural aptitude for understanding grammar. Children usually learn the sounds and vocabulary of their native language through imitation, and grammar is seldom taught to them; that they rapidly acquire the ability to speak grammatically. This supports the theory of Noam Chomsky (1959). that children are able to learn the grammar of a particular language because all intelligible languages are founded on a deep structure of universal grammatical rules that corresponds to an innate capacity of the human brain. Adults learning a second language pass through some of the same stages, as do children learning their native language. In the first part of this paper I will describe the process of language acquisition. The second part will review how infants respond to speech. Language Acquisition Language is multifaceted. It contains both verbal and non-verbal aspects that children seem to acquire quickly. Before birth virtually all the neurons (nerve cells) are formed, and they migrate into their proper locations in the brain in the infant. When a baby is born, it can see and hear and smell and respond to touch, but only dimly. The brain stem, a primitive region that controls vital functions like heartbeat and breathing, has completed its wiring. Elsewhere the connections between neurons are wispy and weak. But over the first few months of life, the brain's higher centers explode with new synapses. This helps an infant to be biologically prepared to face the stages of language acquisition. According to the textbook Child Development: A Thematic Approach, 3rd Edition (D. Bukatko & M.W. Daehler, 1996, p. 252) there are four main components to language acquisition. These components are phonology, semantics, syntax and pragmatics. Phonology is the study of how speech sounds are organized and how they function. It is the main linguistic accomplishment during the first year of life. The phonology of language refers to fundamental sounds units and the rules for combining them. Each language has a certain number of sounds called phonemes. Phonemes are the smallest unit of sound that affects the meaning of a word. Infants are able to identify hundreds of variations of sounds. For example, an infant who is six months old can detect the difference between ma and pa. An infant's first year is mainly receiving messages but also working on being able to produce messages. As they physically develop infants form the ability to make sounds. Some of these initial sounds are cooing, vowel like utterances occasionally accompanied by consonants and babbling which are consonant-vowel combinations. During the first 6 months of life, physiological changes, such as the shape of oral cavity, tongue development, motor control of lips, and tooth eruption, also take place that contribute to speech development. One of the infants task is to identify phonemes. According to the textbook (D.Bukatko the fluctuations of the voice. For example, raising your voice to ask a question or lowering it to let the infant know you are serious. This helps infants to learn the phonology of their language and prepares them for the next stage of learning which is semantics. Semantics is the meaning of words or combination of words. Shortly before babies have their first birthday, they begin to understand words, and around that birthday, they start to produce them (Clark, 1993). Words are usually produced in isolation. This one-word stage can last from two months to a year. Children's first words are similar all over the planet. About half the words are for objects: food (juice, cookie), body parts (eye, nose), clothing (diaper, sock), vehicles (car, boat), toys (doll, block), and household items (bottle, light, animals (dog, kitty), and people (dada, baby). At this time children usually start to use gestures to call attention to an object or event defined as protodeclarative communication. Protoimperative communication is the use of a gesture to issue a

Critically discuss the claim that people tend to explain the essays

Critically discuss the claim that people tend to explain the essays A prevailing area in social psychology is that of attribution theory. Attribution evaluates behaviour; seeking explanations for the decisions that people make about why particular events occurred or why certain individuals acted the way they did. A common sense approach taken by Heider (1958, cited in Augoustinos, 1995) views people as naive scientists deducing the causes of events around them as holding cause and effect relations. People tend to attribute behaviour to a single cause residing either within the actor; dispositional, or outside in the situation; situational. Ross (1997, cited in Hogg fundamental attribution error, this refers to a tendency to focus to much on behaviour itself and not enough on the situation or context; overemphasising dispositional causes and underestimating situational ones, even where strong situational pressures exist. In studies aiming to provide empirical support for attribution theory; in particular fundamental attribution error, the focal point was that of the attributions made by the observer of another persons behaviour. Jones polar tendency in attribution; Jones actor observer effect (cited in Augoustinos, 1995). Based on the actor-observer effect Storms (1973, cited in Brown, 1986) predicted that if an actor in conversation with a stranger and an individual observing the conversation were asked to explain the actors behaviour they will disagree. In his study there was a conversation lasting five minutes...

Psychology Experiment on learning by doing vs learning by viewing Essay

Psychology Experiment on learning by doing vs learning by viewing - Essay Example study that targets the determination of the learning theories and techniques specifically the comparative analysis of the experiments and empirical data related to the educational psychology of the techniques such as learning by doing and learning by viewing. The results of the studies that had been chosen are then analyzed and reviewed. I. One of the studies that became the focus of the research and review undertaken is the research conducted by Stull and Mayer on the comparative analysis of the two types of learning process through the comparison of the graphic organizers in materials that are studied. The main objective of the study is to be able to determine which of the said methods are more effective in achievement of understanding of the learners (Stull and Mayer 808). The main hypothesis of the study undertaken is determination if the graphic organizers that are established by the students are more effective in retaining studied concept more than the prepared ones. The said hypothesis had been tested by conducting three (3) set-ups for experimentation, thus, the main methodology used is experimental research. The set-ups differed in the number of the author-provided graphic organizers and the items that students are needed to construct graphic organizers for. The first set up can be considered the most complex, and complexity decreases towards the third set-up. The complexity level had been the independent variable which was measured through the number of items provided. The 1st set-up which is of the highest complexity is composed of 27 author-provided organizers and also items that students need to construct their own. On the 2nd and 3rd set-ups 18 and 10 of each type are made respectively. Basically, the variables had been designed and defined on the basis of the cognitive theory of learning. This can be attributed to the fact that the skills that are required in the analysis, understanding and construction of graphic organizers in