Topic 3 Five major domains of language within content, form, and use
Language that focuses on the immediate context is contextualized, and typically the highly contextualized content is concrete and supported by cues within the environment such as gestures, facial expressions. Otherwise, language with little reliance to the context for conveying content is decontextualized.
1. Semantics (content): Rules of language governing the meaning of a word or word combinations. Knowledge of semantics tells you that something is wrong with the sentence ‘Colorless green ideas sleep furiously’, though the grammar of this sentence is correct, the way to organize words into a sentence.
2. Syntax (form): Rules of language governing the internal organization of sentences. In short, semantics provides the meaning of words, syntax provides the structure.
3. Morphology (form): Rules of language governing the internal organization of words. Words consist of morphemes, and words are morphed to change their meanings by adding morphemes in a variety of ways such as prefixes and suffixes. Thus a single base vocabulary can be expanded exponentially into a much larger pool of word families.
4. Phonology (form): Rules of language governing the sounds used to make syllables and words. General American English (GAE) has 39 phonemes (15 vowels and 24 consonants, give or take depending on the dialect). Allophones (變音) are the subtle variations of phonemes due to contextual influences such as s[t]and. Phonotactics (拼音規則) are rules governing how sounds are organized into words, different from language to language.
5. Pragmatics (use): Rules of language governing how language is used for various social purposes. It can be divided into three aspects: a. For different functions and intentions, b. For conversation, and c. For choosing vocabulary at the right time and right situation. It contains linguistic, extralinguistic, and paralinguistic communication.
Topic 4 Five remarkable features of language
Why is language such a mystery? In part, its mysteriousness relates to the following remarkable features of language, which continues to capture the attention of numerous scholars around the world.
1. Acquisition Rate: “The acquisition of a child’s first language is one of the mysteries of human life.” (Lieberman, 1991, p. 127) Scholars admit that the sheer acquisition rate is very hard to study. Anyway they conclude that:
a. Young children learn and use new words at a stunning rate. Language reveals the genius in all children.
b. Each child has apparently a powerful array of learning procedures at his or her own disposal.
c. The first 5-7 years of life are a critical period for language development, meaning a window of opportunity exists during which language develops most rapidly and with the greatest ease.
d. The person who learned English as a second language before age 7 had the most sophisticated English abilities, whereas those who learned English after age 17 had the least.
2. Universality: Language is ubiquitous among the world, and all are equally complex. All persons apply the same cognitive infrastructure to the task of learning language. Although world languages vary, the cognitive infrastructure is the same for all. Therefore, the way in which children learn language and the time points at which they achieve certain milestones appear to be fairly invariant among global language communities.
3. Species Specificity: Language is strictly human capacity. No other animals share this aptitude. Thus human language shows species specificity. Other animals communicate iconically and symbolically, not syntactical.
4. Semanticity: Human language allows people to represent decontextualized events, or remove from the present. It is an aspect of language that allows people to represent the world and is shared by no other species.
5. Productivity: It describes the principle of combination of a small number of discrete units into seemingly infinite novel creations. Children at 18 months show the ability to combine and recombine their some 50 words of vocabulary to sentences whether they may have heard of or not. This ability is also unique to humans.
Topic 5 Differences and disorders of language development
Language differences are influenced by the language being learned, gender, temperament, learning environment. In addition, some children show language disorders as a result of innate genetic predispositions, developmental disability, or injury or illness.
1. Language differences:
a. Dialect: It is the natural variation of a language that evolves within specific cultural or geographic boundaries which affects form, content, and use.
b. Bilingualism: Interchanges between two or more languages learned at the same time (simultaneous bilingualism) or one after another (sequential bilingualism) may happen as referred to as code switching; that is, a child who is bilingual in Chinese and English may produce a sentence in Chinese that includes an English phrases, or an English sentence that reflects Chinese syntax.
c. Gender: Girls seem to have an advantage over boys in language development. Also, boys are more likely to have significant difficulties with language impairment at a ratio of 2 or 3 boys to 1 girl. But these gender differences in language are minor. The reason of this is still unclear. Education preferences and hormonal factors may contribute to these differences.
d. Genetic predisposition: Language ability is unlikely to reside on a single gene. Evidence points to the influence of different alleles from a set of genes on all aspects of language development, including syntax, vocabulary, and phonology. Twin Studies are one method for estimating the contribution of genetics to language development, as well as the heritability of language disorders. According to the studies, 16% of the variability in language ability in 4-year-old children could be attributed to heritability. If one monozygotic (identical) twin has a language impairment, the other twin has about an 85% likelihood of also having it.
e. Language-learning environment: It exerts considerable influence on language development. The neutral architecture that supports language acquisition is an ‘open genetic program’! The learning ability is calibrated on the basis of ‘actual evidence’ children receive from the environment.(i) Quantity: The more stimuli, the larger the vocabulary.
(ii) Quality: The finer the syntactical and semantic sentences are given, the more sophisticated contexts the children can utilize.
(iii) Caregiver responsiveness: The term refers to the promptness, contingency, and appropriateness of caregiver responses to children’s bids for communication through words or other means. Highly degrees of caregiver responsiveness during infancy and early toddlerhood are associated with accelerated rates of language development in children.
2. Language disorders:
a. Heritable language impairment: Because of without other concomitant impairment of intellect, it is also called specific language impairment (SLI). Evidence suggests that SLI is a heritable condition. Family pedigree studies show a strong likelihood for a child to have SLI if a parent is affected.
b. Developmental disability: If language impairment co-occurs with certain developmental disabilities, it is thus considered a secondary disorder because it results secondary to a primary cause, which includes intellectual disability and autism spectrum disorder.
What is then counted as being intellectual disability? It must show limitations in adaptive behavior and in the activities of daily living as the conceptual skills (academics, communication), social skills (befriending), or practical skills (self-care, work). Down Syndrome, which is due to a chromosomal anomaly during the initial stages of fetal development, is the main cause of such disability.
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is an umbrella term describing a variety of developmental conditions characterized by significant difficulties in social relationships and difficulties in communication by repetitive behaviors and by overly restricted interests, which includes four types of disabilities: autism, childhood disintegrative disorder, Asperger’s syndrome (similar to autism, but without significant language developmental impairment), and pervasive developmental disorder – not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS). These four together affect 1 in 500 children.
c. Brain injury: It can occur in utero (before birth), perinatally (during birth), or after birth, so-called acquired brain injuries, which are the leading cause of death and disability of young children. Acquired brain injuries are mostly result from physical trauma, particularly blunt trauma to the head, referring to as traumatic brain injury, or TBI. Causes of TBI include abuse (e.g. shaken baby syndrome), intentional harm (hitting or beating in the head), food poisoning (medications, pesticides), car accidents, and falling. These injuries may be diffuse, affecting large areas of the brain, or focal, affecting only one specific brain region. Frontal and temporal lobes of the brain which execute the functions of reasoning, planning, hypothesizing, and language functions are often damaged in head injuries. The severity of language impairment depends on the severity of brain injury, the site of damage, and the characteristics of the child before the injuries occurred. The child suffering such damage has less chance of a full language recovery, at whichever age status. The impact is long-lasting.
Rearranged and highlighted from www.prenhall.com/pence
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