Rules Versus Objectives: What is Most Salient in Toddlers' Language Acquisition?
Date
2017
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Producer
Director
Performer
Choreographer
Costume Designer
Music
Videographer
Lighting Designer
Set Designer
Crew Member
Funder
Rehearsal Director
Concert Coordinator
Advisor
Moderator
Panelist
Alternative Title
Department
Swarthmore College. Dept. of Linguistics
Type
Thesis (B.A.)
Original Format
Running Time
File Format
Place of Publication
Date Span
Copyright Date
Award
Language
en_US
Note
Table of Contents
Terms of Use
Full copyright to this work is retained by the student author. It may only be used for non-commercial, research, and educational purposes. All other uses are restricted.
Rights Holder
Access Restrictions
Terms of Use
Tripod URL
Identifier
Abstract
How do young children learn the complex rules of language? Prior research has shown
that infants as young as 7 months of age can learn simple rules, such as abstracting an ABB
pattern after hearing strings of sounds "ga-ti-ti; gi-la-la, ta-ni-ni" (Marcus et aI., 1999). But later
in development, research on visual (non-language) rules showed that 3-year-olds ignored rules in
favor of matching objects. For example, given [00] and a choice between [xx] and [ox], children
matched the look-alike [ox] more frequently than the same-rule [xx] (Christie and Gentner,
2007). Here I asked how this attention to object matches affects rule abstraction ability in
language acquisition. In Experiment 1, I asked whether 3- and 6-year-olds are able to abstract
simple patterns, just as 7-month-olds had in Marcus et aI., (1999). Children were familiarized
with a string of syllables such as "li-ti-ti" and tested with novel syllables of the familiar pattern
(wo-fe-fe) or of a new pattern (wo-fe-wo). Surprisingly, unlike infants, young children did not
learn the rule easily, choosing randomly between the familiar and unfamiliar patterns. In
Experiment 2, I asked how 3- and 6-year-olds learned a rule when it was pitted against object
matches. 3- and 6-year-olds heard the same familiarization as in Experiment l(li ti ti ), but now
were tested with a familiar rule (wo-fe-fe) versus a new rule with object matches (li-wo-li).
Contrary to predictions, children, even adults, did not strongly prefer either object or rule
matches. I discussed the implication of these results for language acquisition.