Components of Language Linguistic study involves a search for patterns in the way speakers use language; linguists aim to describe these patterns by reducing them to a set of rules called a grammar. Components of language include: phonology, semantics, syntax, morphology, and pragmatics. Phonology: As children hear and perceive oral language, they learn that language is embedded in a sound-symbol system. o Phonology refers to the study of the sound-symbol relations in a language. o A phoneme is the smallest linguistic unit of sound, which is combined with other phonemes to form words. Example: book = 3 phonemes (b-u-k) o The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is used to represent the sounds of a language which exceeds the number of letters in the alphabet. For example, bow (bend) and bow (decorative tie using a ribbon); present vs. present o Consonant sounds vs. vowel sounds: All vowel sounds are voiced and produced with little or no obstruction in vocal tract; while consonant sounds are described in terms of place, manner and voicing. o There are phonotactic constraints of a language: For example, not every sequence of speech sounds is a possible word in English (e.g., ng, lp, rt do not appear at the beginning of a word in English). In English, the major constraint on initial consonant cluster is that a word cannot begin with two stop consonants in a row. Most initial sequences of a stop is followed by a liquid, /s/ followed by a stop, and /s/ plus stop plus liquid are pronounceable, as in ‘true’ ‘stew’ and ‘strew’ respectively. o Child speech: Adult-like words vs. protowords (e.g., pill for spill; tore for store; bed for bread, lellow for yellow; wabbit for rabbit; bulu/boo for blue: na, weei weei) There is nothing wrong unless it progresses into later years. Make reference to the speech acquisition chart o Children’s development of phonology is fostered by their perceptual ability to distinguish sounds and also by the ways in which language is used around them. Young infants around two months of age have been found to be able to distinguish between /p/ sound and /b/ sound long before being able to produce them. Children’s discrimination of sounds precedes their ability to produce those same sounds, due to the complex coordination of the speech mechanism in making those sounds. o In every language and culture, some speech sounds are more important than others. Gradually, young children learn to discriminate and produce the speech sounds that are found in their home language. Phonological knowledge is influenced by semantic knowledge (eg., differentiating between ‘car’ and ‘cat’ o Children’s phonological knowledge during infancy and toddlerhood is evident when they produce and distinguish between the sounds used in their home languages in communicating with those around them. o As children move into preschool years, they may acquire a more conscious awareness of language segments (onset and rime) = phonological awareness and distinct speech sounds in their language (phonemic awareness) and begin to deliberately manipulate their language. This conscious awareness of language segments and speech sounds contribute significantly to children’s understanding of the relation between speech and print as they begin to acquire knowledge of written language during reading and writing interactions. o In addition to the perception of sounds in a language, young children notice differences in the way sounds are used in a language to add meaning to what is said. Prosodic features (suprasegmental aspects) in a language represent the way something is said. These include: intonation, loudness, rate, rhythm. Infants learn to sense when caregivers or parents are happy, excited, calm, tense, or angry based on those prosodic features of the adult’s speech. These features are used in storybook reading. Morphology: o Morphology is the study of how words are put together or how words are structured. o A word is a building blocks of sentences o Words are composed of one or more meaningful linguistic units. o The smallest unit of meaning in a language is the morpheme. There are two types of morphemes: (a) free morphemes (used alone as words e.g., dog, man, bike), and (b) bound morphemes (must be attached to a free morpheme,; e.g., ‘s’ in dogs, ‘ly’ in slowly, and ‘ing’ in going o Bound morphemes are of two types: derivational and inflectional. Derivational morphemes include prefixes, such as un (unhappy), and suffixes, such as ness (happiness). Derivational morphemes can change the part of speech of a word (e.g., develop = verb; development = noun). Inflectional morphemes are word endings added to change verb tense (e.g., walking, walked), possession (Bill’s) or plurality (cats). Activity: How many morphemes are in the following words? Antidisestablishment Imperfection Unhappiness Continuously Antiaging o The ability to use morphemes appropriately is one of the characteristics of an effective language user. Knowledge of morphology allows children to comprehend others’ speech better, such as understanding plural nouns and verb tenses. o As children’s speech progresses beyond the one-word and two word stages, their understanding of how words are formed is used as they attempt to communicate. In the production of an utterance, children use their morphemic knowledge of how words are formed to create their message. As they acquire more knowledge of morphemes, their language becomes more precise and meaningful. o Young children acquire morphemic knowledge that is present in their linguistic environments. In figuring out how language is used and words are structured, children appear to be looking for patterns and hypothesizing. Children’s overgeneralizations of morphological patterns are evidence of this. o Children’s overgeneralizations occur when they assume a particular word follows a regular pattern when, in fact, it follows an irregular pattern. For example: verb tense, comparatives of adjectives and use of prefixes (eg., using ‘ed’ on ‘run’ = runned; funner, funnest; bestest; insist = unsist, uncomplete for incomplete). o We can calculate the MLU to determine a child’s syntactic and morphological growth. MLU = # of morphemes divided by the # of utterances (no less than 50) Refer to Brown’s stages of morphological development (google it) Syntax: Sentence Structure o The study of how individual words and their most basic meaningful units are combined to create sentences is known as syntax o To use language effectively it is necessary to know how to combine words to create meaningful expressions. o Each language system has rules or a grammar that prescribes how words are combined to create sentences or meaningful phrases or utterances. o Children learn that word order, or syntax, is important in creating meaning and in comprehending another’s message. For example: “Did you see Mary?” asks for different information than “Did Mary see you?” o Children use correct word order before they can verbalize their understanding of that concept. For example, in their use of adjectives as noun modifiers. E.g., “The beautiful girl kissed the boy.” instead of “The girl beautiful kissed the boy.” o As words are grouped together when we communicate, we must follow the rules of grammar/syntax for our language. o It is the knowledge of syntax that allows us to recognize that the following two sentences, while containing different word order and levels of complexity, have the same meaning. The boy hit the ball. The ball was hit by the boy. Syntax also allows us to accept “I went to the store” as a meaningful (grammatical) sentence while “To store went I” would not be acceptable English. Examples of syntactic relationships include: 1. NP + V : The baby cries 2. NP + V + NP : Mary eats an apple 3. NP+ V + Adj: Mother is ill 4. NP + V + Adv: The exam is in the gymnasium. Can you think of other sentences that reflect the patterns/relationships cited? Semantics: Study of meaning Semantics refers to the ways in which a language conveys meaning. Multiple meaning of words (run, bank, grave, fan, face) It is our mental dictionary, or lexicon. In learning that spoken words have meaning, semantic knowledge is acquired. The development of semantic knowledge is closely related to the acquisition of conceptual knowledge. Semantic knowledge refers to the word labels that specify concepts and also to the semantic networks, or schemata, that represent the interrelations between concepts. Semantic networks – schemata – are thought to be cognitive structures in our memory that organize our conceptual knowledge. These semantic networks facilitate new learning and recall and contribute to the reorganization and elaboration of prior conceptual learning. For example, the semantic network or schemata for Ball (colours – white, red, black, patterned; materials – rubber, plastic, leather, felt; Actions – bounce, roll, throw, kick, hit; Purpose – baseball, football, cricket, tennis, basketball; texture – smooth, rough, fuzzy, dimpled; shape – oblong, spherical, oval) Dog (types, actions, physical features, etc.) In acquiring concepts, children learn that objects and actions with similar features or functions can be grouped into the same category or into related categories. A semantic network or schema develops when a child begins to see relations between 2 concepts. A child’s schema is more limited than that of an adult. Meaning is a cognitive construct. The meaning of a word resides in the speakers of a common language, not in the world of objects. The word is a sign that signifies a referent, but the referent is not the meaning of the word. If, for example, you say to a child, “Look at the kitty,” the cat is the referent, but not the meaning of kitty --- if the cat should run away, or be run over by a truck, the word would still have meaning. Vocabulary development is closely related to general linguistic competence and to reading comprehension. Children with larger and more developed vocabularies have more options for expressing what they want to say and, therefore, have greater linguistic flexibility. One activity that contributes to vocabulary development is storybook reading. Vocabularies used in storybooks are more descriptive and precise than vocabulary used in daily conversations. It is our understanding of semantics that allows us to recognize that someone who is “green with envy” has not changed hue, or that “having cold feet” has less to do with the appendage at the end of our legs and more to do with our anxiety about a new experience. Because semantics moves beyond the literal meaning of words and is culture-dependent, this is among the most difficult aspects of language for individuals who are not native speakers and even those who speak the same language, but come from different cultures and convey meaning using words in unique ways. Anyone who has attempted to converse with a teenager in his own vernacular can appreciate the importance of sharing a semantic base for communicating clearly. Children’s acquisition of semantic knowledge is also influenced by their awareness of grammatical structure in which language is used. Word order affects the meaning of what is said. Pragmatics: How language is used o Pragmatics’ refers to the ways the members of the speech community achieve their goals using language. o Pragmatics refer to the knowledge or awareness of the overall intent of the communication and how language is used to achieve that intent. o Pragmatic knowledge encompasses the intent of the speaker, the specific form of the utterance, and the anticipated effect the utterance will have on the listener. o Children learn that language can serve many purposes and intents. The selection of intent or purpose in communication and the way in which language is used contribute to a child’s level of communicative competence in early childhood and beyond. o Early on in the development of communicative competence, children’s efforts appear to have purpose and intent. The 8-months old child who looks at her mother with outstretched arms and produces strained vocalizations [/uh/ /uh/] is assumed to be communicating that she wants to be picked up. If not initially successful, the child may repeat her request, vocalize louder, or gesture more emphatically. o In addition to communicative intent, 3 other components of pragmatics are learning conversational rules, learning to be polite, and learning to produce connected discourse such as narratives (Nino &Snow, cited in Gleason, 2012). o Conversational skills are a critical part of pragmatic knowledge, because they impact a child’s ability to engage in classroom and social interactions. o Children who cannot differentiate how to use language in different settings may be excluded from social interactions with peers or may be unable to request assistance from teachers during class activities. o The term social register refers to the specific ways of using language differently in different social settings. Different types of conversation include social conversations, classroom discourse, telephone conversations, jokes, doctor-patient talk, among others. Through their direct experiences, children become aware of the rules or expected ways in which conversations are initiated, maintained, and discontinued. In conversation, both people take on the roles of speaker and listener. Conversational competence depends on the development of specific skills of taking turns, keeping similar or related topics as the focus of the conversation, encouraging participation from the other person/s, and clarifying or repairing areas of confusion. o Language use is embedded in social-cultural contexts. Different contexts are characterized by differences in the way language is used. Through social-cultural interactions we learn when to speak; when not to speak; what to talk about with whom; and when, where, and in what manner to speak. For example, the way we speak to our parents is not the same as the way we interact with a sibling. o The language used in a formal speech may bear little resemblance to what we would hear at a lunch with five friends. The conversational style of day-to-day interactions is quite different from the language used even when reading a storybook to a toddler. Knowing the difference and when to use which style is the essence of pragmatics. o Pragmatic knowledge also includes the awareness of how to use language to be polite. Children learn to distinguish different times when quiet voices and loud voices are used and they pick up social conventions such as saying “please” and “thank you.” Children learn how to talk most effectively to adults and to each other. For example, language behaviours at home may not occur at school (e.g., verbal whining). o Children also acquire knowledge of how language is used in relation to gender. Topics for boys differ from topics for girls. o Children also acquire pragmatic knowledge of how language is used to tell story narratives and communicate information through their early experiences with storybooks and information books. Exposure to various genre of text will provide children with a variety of ways of expressing themselves. For example: Fairy tale creation would include: Once upon a time, they lived happily ever after, the end, and some magical element. If exposed to alphabet book and asked to create one such they would incorporate that genre “ A is for apple etc.” Facility with language is critical to social interactions. Our ability to effectively communicate with others through spoken and written language is considered one of the ultimate goals of our educational system. Children can experience language deficits in any of the five components of language. Hence, they can have phonological deficits, morphological deficits, syntactic deficit, semantic deficits or pragmatic deficits. Activity: 1. Visit: https://quizlet.com/...five components-of-language-learning-and-deficitsflash-cards/ (Five components of language learning and deficits flashcards) 2. Complete all seven activities to assist you in reinforcing the concepts (Flashcards – gravity exercises) Sources: Gleason, J.B. (2012). The development of language (8th Ed.). Boston: Pearson. Otto, B.W. (2017). Language development in early childhood education (3 rd Ed.). Boston: Pearson.
