LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT F OURTH EDITION ± ± ± ± Erika Hoff ± ± Florida Atlantic University Australia • Brazil • Japan • Korea • Mexico • Singapore • Spain • United Kingdom • United States Language Development, Fourth Edition © 2009, 2005 Wadsworth, Cengage Learning Erika Hoff ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this work covered by the copyright Publisher: Michele Sordi herein may be reproduced, transmitted, stored, or used in any form or by any means graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including but not limited to Assistant Editor: Rachel Guzman photocopying, recording, scanning, digitizing, taping, Web distribution, in- Technology Project Manager: Lauren formation networks, or information storage and retrieval systems, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Keyes Copyright Act, without the prior written permission of Marketing Manager: Sara Swangard the publisher. 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To Brett About the Author Erika Hoff is Professor of Psychology at Florida Atlantic University. She has also taught courses on language development at the University of Wisconsin–Parkside and, as guest instructor, at the University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland. She has held visiting scholar positions at Marquette University (Milwaukee), McGill University, and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Dr. Hoff holds an M.S. in psychology from Rutgers–The State University of New Jersey (1976) and a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Michigan (1981). She conducts research on the process of language development in typically developing monolingual and bilingual children. She has received funding for this research from the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and the Spencer Foundation. Dr. Hoff’s research has been published in Child Development, Developmental Psychology, First Language, The International Journal of Behavioral Development, The Journal of Applied Psycholinguistics, The Journal of Child Language, and the Merrill-Palmer Quarterly. She is Associate Editor of the Journal of Child Language and co-editor of the Blackwell Handbook of Language Development (2007) and of Childhood Bilingualism: Research on Infancy through School Age (2006). iv Brief Contents chapter 1 Introduction to the Study of Language Development 3 chapter 2 Biological Bases of Language Development 39 chapter 3 Communicative Development: Foundations and Functions of Language 89 chapter 4 Phonological Development: Learning the Sounds of Language 135 chapter 5 Lexical Development: Learning Words 183 chapter 6 The Development of Syntax and Morphology: Learning the Structure of Language 221 chapter 7 Language, Culture, and Cognition in Development 271 chapter 8 Childhood Bilingualism 297 chapter 9 Language in the School Years 329 chapter 10 Language Development in Special Populations 373 v Contents chapter 1 Introduction to the Study of Language Development 3 Language and the Scientific Study of Language Development 4 A Definition of Language 4 A Chronological Overview of Language Development 6 Reasons for the Scientific Study of Language Development 8 Language Development as a Basic Research Topic 8 Language Development as an Applied Research Topic 8 The History of the Study of Language Development 9 Big Questions and Studies of Special Cases 10 The Language in the Brain 10 “Wild Children” and the Nature of Humankind 10 Baby Biographies 11 Normative Studies 12 The Chomskyan Revolution 12 The Current Study of Language Development 13 Current Topics 13 Current Approaches 14 Major Issues in the Field of Language Development 17 Is It Nature or Nurture? 18 The Nativist View 18 The Interactionist View 18 What Is the Nature of Nature? 19 A Language-Specific Module 20 Alternatives to Language-Specific Innateness 20 vi contents vii What Kind of Learning Mechanisms Does the Child Have? 21 Babies as Statistical Learners 21 Babies as Rule Learners 22 What Kind of Knowledge Does the Child Acquire? 23 Is There Continuity or Discontinuity in Development? 24 What Is the Relation between Communication and Language? 25 Formalist Views 25 Functionalist Views 25 Theories of Language Development 26 Methods of Research in Language Development 28 Cross-Cultural and Cross-Linguistic Research 28 Research Designs 28 Assessment of Productive Language from Speech Samples 29 Speech Sample Collection 29 Speech Sample Transcription 30 Transcript Coding and Analysis 30 CHILDES—A Data Archive 31 Standardized Tests and Measures of Language Development 32 Computational Modeling 32 Sources for Research on Language Development 33 Journals 33 Indexes 33 chapter 2 Biological Bases of Language Development 39 Language as a Human Universal 40 Language Creation 40 Pidgins 40 Creoles 41 The Development of Nicaraguan Sign Language 42 The Common Basis of Language Creation and Acquisition 43 The Human Vocal Tract and Language 43 The Human Brain and Language 45 Some Basic Neuroanatomy 45 Methods of Neurolinguistic Investigation 47 Language as a Left-Hemisphere Function 49 Evidence from Brain Injury and Aphasia 49 Evidence from Split-Brain Patients 50 Evidence from Studies of Undamaged Adults 50 Language as Not Exclusively a Left-Hemisphere Function 52 Right-Hemisphere Contributions to Language 52 Individual and Sex-Related Differences 53 Other Neurological Divisions of Labor 53 Brain Development and Language Development 55 The Development of the Left-Hemisphere Specialization for Language 56 The Hypotheses 56 viii CONTENTS Evidence from Processing Studies with Children 56 Evidence from Childhood Aphasia 57 Evidence from Brain Injury Prior to Language 58 Basic Processes in Neurological Development 59 Neural Plasticity in Childhood 59 Where Does Plasticity Come From? 59 Changes in Functional Asymmetry 60 The Critical Period Hypothesis 61 “Wild” Children 61 The Case of Genie 62 Late Acquisition of American Sign Language 64 The Evidence from Second Language Acquisition 64 Age Effects on Second Language Acquisition 65 Continuity or Discontinuity in Age-of-Arrival Effects 66 Nonbiological Influences on Second Language Acquisition 67 The Genetic Basis of Language Development 69 The Genetic Basis of Language Universals 69 The Heritability of Individual Differences 70 The Genetics of Language Impairment 71 Language and Other Species 72 The Natural Communication Systems of Other Species 72 What Constitutes a Language? 72 Communication among Primates 72 The Birds and the Bees 73 The Acquisition of Human Language by Other Species 74 Efforts to Teach Chimpanzees to Speak 74 Signing Apes 75 Artificial Language Projects 79 Language in a Bonobo 79 Why Can’t Chimpanzees Acquire Language? 80 The Origin of the Human Capacity for Language 83 Language as an Evolved Capacity 83 Language as a Module and an Adaptation 84 Language as the Modification of Other Cognitive Capacities 84 Language as a By-Product of Evolution 85 chapter 3 Communicative Development: Foundations and Functions of Language 89 Early Communicative Behavior 90 The Development of Intentionality 90 The Development of Joint Attention 92 The Use of Gesture 93 The Role of Communicative Experience in Language Development 95 Communication as the Motive for Language Development 95 contents ix Communicative Interaction as a Contributor to the Process of Language Development 96 The Role of Maternal Responsivity 97 The Role of Joint Attention 97 The Relation between Language Function and Language Form 99 Communicative Function as the Gateway to Language Form 99 Communicative Function as the Basis of Language Form 100 Communicative Function as Independent of Language Form 100 Children’s Development of the Communicative Functions of Language 101 First Communicative Intentions Expressed in Language 101 Expansion of the Communicative Functions of Language 102 Children’s Development of Discourse Skill 104 Discourse Competence 104 The Nature of Young Children’s Discourse 106 Piaget’s Description of the Egocentric Child 106 Private Speech 107 Solitary Monologues 107 Vygotsky’s Theory of the Function of Private Speech 108 The Development of Conversational Skill 108 Conversations with Prelinguistic Infants 109 Responding to Speech 109 Differential Responding