Language Development
Introduced| English |
|---|
| Language/ˈlæŋɡwɪdʒ/ |
| arbitrary symbols/ˈɑːbɪtrəri ˈsɪmblz/ |
| Phonemes/ˈfəʊniːmz/ |
| morphemes/ˈmɔːfiːmz/ |
| Semantics/səˈmæntɪks/ |
| syntax/ˈsɪntæks/ |
| Cooing/ˈkuːɪŋ/ |
| babbling/ˈbæblɪŋ/ |
| one-word stage/wʌn wɜːd steɪdʒ/ |
| telegraphic speech/ˌtelɪˈɡræfɪk spiːtʃ/ |
| Overgeneralisation/ˌəʊvəˌdʒenərəlaɪˈzeɪʃn/ |
A pointed finger is already language
- Before any words, infants point to direct another person's attention.
- That gesture already does what language does: it coordinates two minds on one thing.
- The CED begins language development here, in every culture studied.
The CED says people across all cultures use manual gestures such as pointing to communicate.
Pointing coordinates two minds on one object — the job language later does with words.
What language is
- Language 语言 is a shared, mutually agreed system of arbitrary symbols 任意符号.
- "Arbitrary" means nothing about the sound of a word resembles its meaning.
- Because the link is agreed rather than natural, a language must be learned socially.
Saying a language's symbols are ____ means nothing about a word resembles its meaning.
Because the link is agreed rather than natural, language must be learned socially.
The levels of a language
- Phonemes 音素 are the smallest sound units; morphemes 语素 are the smallest units carrying meaning.
- Semantics 语义 is meaning; syntax 句法 is the rules for combining units.
- A sentence can be syntactically perfect and semantically empty, which is why the two are named separately.
Which level of language?
Sort each term by the level of language it describes.
Match each term to the level it names.
Sound, meaning and structure are three separate levels of the same system.
Do not treat a child's grammatical mistakes as simply wrong. "Goed" and "foots" are evidence of rule learning — the child produced a form no adult modelled. Reporting them as errors misses the point the CED is making.
Put the stages of language acquisition in order.
The order is the same across languages; only the timing varies.
The order of acquisition
- Cooing 咕咕声, then babbling 咿呀语, then the one-word stage 单词阶段, then telegraphic speech 电报式语言.
- The order is the same across languages and cultures; the timing varies.
- That regularity is the strongest evidence that acquisition is not simply imitation.
A child saying "goed" instead of "went" is evidence that the child...
No adult models "goed", so the form must come from a rule the child worked out.
Overgeneralisation is evidence, not error
- A child who says "goed" has never heard an adult say it.
- Overgeneralisation 过度泛化 shows the child has extracted a rule and applied it.
- A mistake that could not have been copied is proof that a rule was learned, not a phrase.
A two-year-old says "Daddy go car". Three words, no articles or inflections, and the meaning is unmistakable — telegraphic speech keeps the content words and drops everything the listener can supply.
Language is a shared system of arbitrary symbols, built from phonemes and morphemes and governed by semantics and syntax. Acquisition runs cooing → babbling → one-word → telegraphic in the same order everywhere, and overgeneralisation proves a rule was learned rather than copied.