Lecture XIII

Neurolinguistics and first

language acquisition

May, 7th, 2008

Structure of the talk



Language acquisition – definition of the term

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A chronological overview of language development

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Psychological approaches to language development:
behaviourism and cognitivism

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Nature or narture?

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Language as a human universal

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The human brain and language

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Brain development and language development

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The critical period (age) hypothesis

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Wild children

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Phonological development - babbling

Language acquisition



Human are so constructed that one brain responds in much
the same way to a given trigger as does another brain, all
things being equal. This is why a baby can learn any
language; it responds to triggers in the same way as any
other baby.



Language acquisition – the phenomenon of linguistic
development that results in the creation of a grammar, i.e. the
mental system that allows people to speak and understand a
language.



Children develop different sorts of linguistic knowledge
concurrently, however, for practical purposes, it is convenient
for researchers of language development to analyse the
development of the subcomponents of language separately.

A chronological overview of language acquisition

Major psychological theories of
language development -
behaviourism



Behaviourism – change in behaviour

occurs in response to the

consequences of prior behaviour.



The stick and carrot method



The major tenet of behaviorism – we

do not need to know what happens

in the mind of a child (animal) to

explain the change in the child’s

behaviour

Major psychological theories of
language development - cognitivism



Cognition – the act or faculty of knowing, the

product of this act, a perception or insight



Cognitive psychology – responses are affected by the

point of view of the receiver of the stimulus as well

as by his/her environment



Cognitivism asserts that we cannot understand

behaviour without understanding what is going on in

the mind of the organism producing the behaviour.



It is generally assumed that general cognitive

development influences language development and

language acquisition is crucial to other aspects of

cognitive development

Noam Chomsky



The Chomskyan revolution (1957) – the LAD

(language acquisition device) – a brain centre

that takes as its input certain information from

the environment and produces as its output

the ability to speak and understand language.



The LAD contains some knowledge of the

structure of language in order for language

acquisition to take place.

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This knowledge is not language specific,

therefore it is frequently termed Universal

Grammar (UG).

Current approaches to
language development



The biological approach sees language development

as a biological process connected with maturing.



The linguistic approach seeks to describe UG and

how it interacts with language experience to produce

linguistic knowledge



The social approach sees language as a social

phenomenon (it rejects the existence of the LAD) –

language acquisition is regarded as language

socialisation



The domain-general cognitive approach starts from

the premise that language acquisition is not different

from any other learning problem (it also rejects the

existence of the LAD).

Nature or nurture?



Empiricism – the mind at birth is a
blank slate all knowledge and
reason come from experience
(Locke)



Nativism – the mind must have
some preexisting structure in order
to organise and interpret
experience (Plato, Kant).

Language as a human
universal



Language – a system for communication that uses symbols
that stand for things and syntax, i.e. a productive system
for combining symbols to express new meaning.



Pidgin languages – contact languages – use lexical items
from one or more contact languages, but has its own very
primitive grammar



Creoles – languages that were once pidgin languages and
which subsequently became native languages for some
people (creolisation – a process of adding grammatical
features characteristic of human language). Swahili is
thought to be the result of contact between Arabic and
Bantu languages.



Nicaraguan Sing Language

The brain and language



Neurolinguistics – the study of the relation of the
brain to language functioning.



Crucial parts of the brain:

-

the cerebral cortex – controls higher mental
functions

-

subcortical structures – control more primitive
functions (e.g. breathing, eating)

-

the corpus collosum – the band of nerve fibres that
connects the two cerebral hemispheres

-

contralateral connections – the right side of the brain
controls the left side of the body and vice versa.

The human brain

The human brain

Cross-section of the
human brain

Parts of the human brain and
their functions

Lateralisation

Aphasia



Aphasia – language deficit caused by damage to the
brain.



Broca’s aphasics – speech is very halting and they find
it difficult to accurately produce phonemes, e.g.

It’s hard to eat with a spoon.
[...har.i:t....wit...pun]



Fluent aphasia – patients do not have problems
producing fluent speech but cannot fully control
speech production



Wernicke’s aphasia – speech is fluent, characterised by
good intonation paterns, but the patient hardly ever
makes sense.

Broca’s and Wernicke’s
area

Critical period hypothesis



Critical period hypothesis – the notion

that a biologically determined period

exists during which language

acquisition must occur, if it is to occur

at all.



Wild children: Genie,

- Mama wash hair in sink.
- At school scratch face.
- Like go ride yellow school bus.

Phonological development –
babbling



Vowels acquired before consonants

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Stops acquired before other consonants

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Labials acquired before velars and alveolars

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New phonemic contrast manifest
themselves first in word-initial position



High-frequency sounds will be acquired
before low-frequency ones (// before //)

Cross-linguistic similarities in
babbling