Language Acquisition

1. Lecture Two
Phonological Development

2. Phonological development …
• This lecture deals with how
children develop the ability to use
and understand the sounds of
language.

3. The first year …
• The phonological
development that occurs
during the first year of a
child’s life was outlined
last week:
 Crying
 Cooing
 Babbling
 Phonemic expansion and
contraction

4. Be careful …
• Be careful not to make sweeping
generalisations when talking about later
phonological development.
• Order in which vowels and consonants are
acquired varies from child to child.
• Sometimes children appear to have
mastered a sound in one word, but then not
in another.

5. General trends …
• Age 2 ½ : all vowels and 2/3 of consonants
mastered.
• Age 4: difficulty with only a few
consonants.
• Age 6-7: confident use.

6. General trends …
• Consonants are first used correctly at the
beginnings of words.
• Consonants at the end of words present
more difficulty.
• Example: ‘push’ versus ‘rip’

7. General trends …
• Frequency: generally, sounds which occur
frequently in a large number of words will
be acquired before sounds that occur less
frequently.

8. Making words easier (phonemic
simplification) …
• Deletion
• Final consonants
may be dropped.
• Unstressed syllables
are often deleted.
• Consonant clusters
are reduced.

9. Making words easier (phonemic
simplification) …
• Substitution
• Easier sounds are
substituted for harder
ones:
• ‘r’ becomes ‘w’
• ‘th’ becomes ‘d’, ‘n’
or ‘f’
• ‘t’ becomes ‘d’
• ‘p’ becomes ‘b’

10. Understanding …
• Remember: last week we learned that
comprehension is often ahead of speech
(e.g. first words).
• The same can be true in phonological
development.

11. Berko and Brown (1960) …
• Child: fis
• Adult: This if your fis?
• Child: No-my fis.
• Adult: Oh, this is your fish.
• Child: Yes, my fis.

12. Berko and Brown (1960) …
• Child with indistinguishable pronunciation
of:
mouse/mouth
cart/card
jug/duck
• Could point to corresponding pictures in a
comprehension task.

13. Intonation …
• As a child grows older, a wider range of
meanings is expressed through intonation.
• Example: two-word stage:
• ‘my car’ versus ‘MY car’

14. Intonation …
• Although intonation patterns can be
reproduced from an early stage,
understanding of their meaning is still
developing into the teenage years.

15. Cruttenden (1974) …
• Football results.
• Intonation used in first team’s score
enabled adults to accurately predict home
win, away win or draw.
• Children (aged 7-11): youngest were
largely unsuccessful and oldest were
significantly less successful than adults.

16. New vocabulary …
• Phonemic simplification
• Deletion
• Substitution