How Children Learn Language

PHSYCOLINGUISTICS

The topic we are talking about is dealing with

1. How children acquire language.

2. Children language development.

3. Words used by children.

4. Children utterances to express thoughts.

The Development Of Speech Production

1. Vocalization

2. The One-Word Utterance

3. The many uses of a single word

4. Two – and three-word utterances

Vocalization

1. While babies a few months old do not speak, they do make sound through their mouths. In fact, they make quite a variety of sound. They cry, they coo like pigeons, they gurgle, suck, blow, spit and make a host of other virtually indescribable noises.

2. Babbling is a type of vocalization where the child uses speech sound, mainly vowels and consonant-vowel syllables, e.g. ‘a’, ‘u’, ‘ma’, ‘gi’, ‘pa’. the child repetitive uttering of these sounds give them a speech-like quality, e.g. ‘mama’, ‘gigi’, ‘papa’, especially when these sounds are involved with the features of the intonation pattern of their language, as they tend to be.

The One-Word Utterance 1. On the average, it would seem that

children utter their first word around the age of 10 months.

2. Undoubtedly, too, certain brain of development is also involved since the creation of speech sound must come under the control of speech areas in the cerebral cortex.

The many uses of a single word.

A single word, even the same one, can be used for many different purposes, to:

1. name (mama mother)

2. request (banana I want banana)

3. emphasize something (hi greeting)

4. express complex situations(Mama dog mother was bitten by a dog)

Two – and three-word utterances

At 18 months or so, many children start to produce two-and three-word utterances. Again the reader is cautioned that this is but an average and that there is great individual variation in this regard.

(Exmples, look at your paper on page 3)

LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT BABY PHASE

Thanks.