Admission requirements
Research Master Linguistics students only
Description
In order to produce words according to adult standards, a young language learner needs to simultaneously acquire an adequate segmental representation, a (phonological) grammar, and the means to construct a motor program and execute it in real-time. It is well-known that it takes time to acquire this and that during this time children’s word productions often deviate from the adult target. Because development takes place at different levels simultaneously, it is not always clear what exactly causes these deviations or where in the speech production process they arise. In recent years, psycholinguistic research and speech motor control studies have contributed to the construction of convergent models of speech production by mature speakers. However, the development of the speech production mechanism is still largely unknown because most experimental studies on speech production in children have focused on atypical phonological development and hardly any of these studies have focused on children younger than 4-years-old. In this course we will discuss three well-established and complementary psycho- and neurolinguistic models, namely the Fully Underspecified Lexicon (FUL) model of speech perception and comprehension (Lahiri & Reetz 2002), the word form encoding part of the speech production model of Levelt, Roelofs & Meyer (1999), and the and the DIVA model, which describes the the sensorimotor interactions involved in articulator control during speech production (Tourville & Guenther 2011), and several perception and production studies on/with developing speakers. On the basis of this information we will piece together an outline of the developing word-production system of typically developing toddlers.
Course objectives
Learn about the speech production (in)abilities of toddlers;
Learn about speech production and speech perception models;
Learn about possible sources of phonological error in child language productions;
Learn to assess accounts of phonological development;
Learn about child language data resources and experimental paradigms.
Timetable
The timetables are available through My Timetable.
Mode of instruction
Lecture
Seminar
Assessment method
- Essay, paper
Assessment
Weighing
100%
Resit
In case the paper has an insufficient grade, a resit can be taken.
Inspection and feedback
The papers will be commented on and discussed individually.
Reading list
Background and preparatory readings:
Levelt, W. J., Roelofs, A., & Meyer, A. S. (1999). A theory of lexical access in speech production. Behavioral and brain sciences, 22(1), 1-38.
Chládková, K., & Paillereau, N. (2020). The what and when of universal perception: A review of early speech sound acquisition. Language Learning, 70(4), 1136-1182.
Course readings:
Demuth, K. (2011). The Acquisition of Phonology. In The Handbook of Phonological Theory: Second Edition (pp. 571-595). Wiley-Blackwell, Wiley.
Meier, A. M., & Guenther, F. H. (2023). Neurocomputational modeling of speech motor development. Journal of Child Language, 1-18.
Levelt, W. J. (1998). The genetic perspective in psycholinguistics or where do spoken words come from?. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 27, 167-180.
McMurray, B. (2023). The acquisition of speech categories: Beyond perceptual narrowing, beyond unsupervised learning and beyond infancy. Language, cognition and neuroscience, 38(4), 419-445.
Ramus, F., Peperkamp, S., Christophe, A., Jacquemot, C., Kouider, S., & Dupoux, E. (2010). A psycholinguistic perspective on the acquisition of phonology. Laboratory phonology, 10(3), 311-340.
Levelt, C., van den Brink, E., & Karlsson, J. (2023). Prompted Self-Repairs in Two-Year-Old Children. In: van de Weijer, J. (Ed.). Segmental Structure and Representations (Vol. 32). Walter de Gruyter, 227 – 248.
And more...!
Registration
Enrolment through MyStudyMap is mandatory.
General information about course and exam enrolment is available on the website.
Contact
For substantive questions, contact the lecturer listed in the right information bar.
For questions about enrolment, admission, etc, contact the Education Administration Office: Reuvensplaats
Remarks
None.