Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T17:54:40.344Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Starting Big: The Effect of Unit Size on Language Learning in Children and Adults

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 June 2020

Naomi HAVRON Open the ORCID record for Naomi HAVRON [Opens in a new window]  and
Inbal ARNON
Naomi HAVRON*
Affiliation:
Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel Department of Psychology, ENS, EHESS, CNRS, PSL University, France
Inbal ARNON
Affiliation:
Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
*
*Address for correspondence: Naomi Havron, 29 rue d'Ulm, Paris, France. Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Multiword units play an important role in language learning and use. It was proposed that learning from such units can facilitate mastery of certain grammatical relations, and that children and adults differ in their use of multiword units during learning, contributing to their varying language-learning trajectories. Accordingly, adults learn gender agreement better when encouraged to learn from multiword units. Previous work has not examined two core predictions of this proposal: (1) that children also benefit from initial exposure to multiword units, and (2) that their learning patterns reflect a greater reliance on multiword units compared to adults. We test both predictions using an artificial-language. As predicted, both children and adults benefit from early exposure to multiword units. In addition, when exposed to unsegmented input – adults show better learning of nouns compared to article-noun pairings, but children do not, a pattern consistent with adults’ predicted tendency to focus less on multiword units.

Keywords

Artificial language learningGrammatical genderChild and adult learning
Type
Article
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 48 , Issue 2 , March 2021 , pp. 244 - 260
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abbot-Smith, K., & Tomasello, M. (2006). Exemplar-learning and schematization in a usage-based account of syntactic acquisition. The Linguistic Review, 23(3), 275–290.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arnon, I. (2010). Starting big: The role of multiwordphrases in language learning and use. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Stanford UniversityGoogle Scholar
Arnon, I. (2015). What can frequency effects tell us about the building blocks and mechanisms of language learning? Journal of Child Language, 42, 274–277. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305000914000610CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Arnon, I., & Christiansen, M. H. (2014). Chunk-Based Language Acquisition. In Brooks, P. J. & Kempe, V. (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Language Development (pp. 88–90). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Arnon, I., & Clark, E. V. (2011). Why brush your teeth is better than teeth – Children's word production is facilitated in familiar sentence-frames. Language Learning and Development, 7(November), 107–129. https://doi.org/10.1080/15475441.2010.505489CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arnon, I., & Cohen-Priva, U. C. (2014). Time and again: The changing effect of word and multiword frequency on phonetic duration for highly frequent sequences. The Mental Lexicon, 9(3), 377–400. https://doi.org/10.1075/ml.9.3.01arnCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arnon, I., Mccauley, S. M., & Christiansen, M. H. (2017). Digging up the building blocks of language: Age-of-acquisition effects for multiword phrases. Journal of Memory and Language, 92(February), 265–280. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2016.07.004CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arnon, I., & Ramscar, M. (2012). Granularity and the acquisition of grammatical gender: How order-of-acquisition affects what gets learned. Cognition, 122(3), 292–305.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Asher, J. J., & Price, B. S. (1967). The learning strategy of the total physical response: Some age differences. Child Development, 38(4), 1219–1227.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ayoun, D. (2018). Grammatical gender assignment in French: dispelling the native speaker myth. Journal of French Language Studies, 28(1), 113–148. https://doi.org/10.1017/S095926951700014XCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baayen, R. H., Hendrix, P., & Ramscar, M. (2013). Sidestepping the Combinatorial Explosion: An Explanation of n-gram Frequency Effects Based on Naive Discriminative Learning. Language and Speech, 56(3), 329–347. https://doi.org/10.1177/0023830913484896CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bannard, C., Lieven, E., & Tomasello, M. (2009). Modeling children's early grammatical knowledge. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 106(41), 17284–17289. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0905638106CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bannard, C., & Matthews, D. (2008). Stored word sequences in language learning: The effect of familiarity on children's repetition of four-word combinations. Psychological Science, 19(3), 241–248. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02075.xCrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bates, D., Mächler, M., Bolker, B., & Walker, S. (2014). Fitting linear mixed-effects models using lme4. arXiv preprint:1406.5823.Google Scholar
Barbir, M., Havron, N., Recht, S. A., Fiévet, A. C., & Christophe, A. (2019). When one learning method is both a propeller and an obstacle: The effect of translation on second language acquisition in children. The 44th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development, Boston, USA.Google Scholar
Bassano, D., Maillochon, I., & Mottet, S. (2008). Noun grammaticalization and determiner use in French children's speech: A gradual development with prosodic and lexical influences. Journal of Child Language, 35(2), 403.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Braine, M. D., Brody, R. E., Brooks, P. J., Sudhalter, V., Ross, J. A., Catalano, L., & Fisch, S. M. (1990). Exploring language acquisition in children with a miniature artificial language: Effects of item and pattern frequency, arbitrary subclasses, and correction. Journal of memory and language, 29(5), 591–610.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brooks, P. J., Braine, M. D., Catalano, L., Brody, R. E., & Sudhalter, V. (1993). Acquisition of gender-like noun subclasses in an artificial language: The contribution of phonological markers to learning. Journal of memory and language, 32(1), 76–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bulgarelli, F. (2018). Talker Variability as desirable difficulty for language learning. Pennsylvania State University (unpublished doctoral dissertation).Google Scholar
Carroll, S. (1989). Second-Language Acquisition and the Computational Paradigm. Language Learning, 39(4), 535–594.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chevrot, J. P., Dugua, C., & Fayol, M. (2009). Liaison acquisition, word segmentation and construction in French: a usage-based account. Journal of child language, 36(03), 557–596.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Christiansen, M. H., & Arnon, I. (2017). More than words: The role of multiword sequences in language learning and use. Topics in cognitive science, 9(3), 542–551.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Corbett, G. (1991). Gender. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Croft, W. (2001). Radical construction grammar: Syntactic theory in typological perspective. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Culbertson, J., Jarvinen, H., Haggarty, F., & Smith, K. (2019). Children's sensitivity to phonological and semantic cues during noun class learning: Evidence for a phonological bias. Language, 95(2), 268–293.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dewaele, J.-M., & Véronique, D. (2001). Gender assignment and gender agreement in advanced French interlanguage: A cross-sectional study. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 4(3), 275–297. http://doi.org/10.1017/S136672890100044XCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dye, M., Milin, P., Futrell, R., & Ramscar, M. (2018). Alternative Solutions to a Language Design Problem: The Role of Adjectives and Gender Marking in Efficient Communication. Topics in Cognitive Science, 10(1), 209–224. https://doi.org/10.1111/tops.12316CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Elman, J. L. (2009). On the meaning of words and dinosaur bones: Lexical knowledge without a lexicon. Cognitive Science, 33(4), 547–582. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1551-6709.2009.01023.xCrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Elman, J. L. (1993). Learning and development in neural networks: the importance of starting small. Cognition, 48, 71–99. https://doi.org/10.1016/0010-0277(93)90058-4CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ferman, S., & Karni, A. (2010). No childhood advantage in the acquisition of skill in using an artificial language rule. PLoS ONE, 5(10), 27–28. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0013648CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gagliardi, A., & Lidz, J. (2014). Statistical insensitivity in the acquisition of Tsez noun classes. Language, 90(1), 58–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldberg, A. (2006). Constructions at work: The nature of generalization in language. Oxford University Press, USA.Google Scholar
Hallé, P. A., Durand, C., & de Boysson-Bardies, B. (2008). Do 11-month-old French infants process articles? Language and Speech, 51(1-2), 23–44.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Havron, N., & Arnon, I. (2017a). Reading between the words: The effect of literacy on second language lexical segmentation. Applied Psycholinguistics, 38(1), 127–153. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0142716416000138CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Havron, N., & Arnon, I. (2017b). Minding the gaps: literacy enhances lexical segmentation in children learning to read. Journal of Child Language, 44(6), 1516–1538.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Havron, N., Raviv, L., & Arnon, I. (2018). Literate and preliterate children show different learning patterns in an artificial language learning task. Journal of Cultural Cognitive Science, 2(1-2) 21–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Höhle, B., & Weissenborn, J. (2003). German-learning infants’ ability to detect unstressed closed-class elements in continuous speech. Developmental Science, 6(2), 122–127.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holmes, V. M., & de la Bâtie, B. D. (1999). Assignment of grammatical gender by native speakers and foreign learners of French. Applied Psycholinguistics, 20(04), 479–506.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hudson Kam, C.L. & Newport, E.L. (2005). Regularizing Unpredictable Variation: The Roles of Adult and Child Learners in Language Formation and Change. Language Learning and Development, 1(2), 151–195, doi: 10.1080/15475441.2005.9684215CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Karmiloff-Smith, A. (1979). A Functional Approach to Child Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kirjavainen, M., Theakston, A., & Lieven, E. (2009). Can input explain children's me-for-I errors? Journal of Child Language, 36(5), 1091–1114. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305000909009350CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lieven, E., Salomo, D., & Tomasello, M. (2009). Two-year-old children's production of multiword utterances: A usage-based analysis. Cognitive Linguistics, 20(3), 481–507. https://doi.org/10.1515/COGL.2009.022CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lew-Williams, C., & Fernald, A. (2007). Young children learning Spanish make rapid use of grammatical gender in spoken word recognition. Psychological Science, 18(3), 193–198.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lew-Williams, C., & Fernald, A. (2010). Real-time processing of gender-marked articles by native and non-native Spanish speakers. Journal of Memory and Language, 63(4), 447–464.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
MacWhinney, B. (1978). The acquisition of morphophonology. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 43(1/2), 1–123.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacWhinney, B. (2005). Emergent fossilization. Studies of Fossilization in Second Language Acquisition, pp. 134–156.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McClelland, J. L. (2010). Emergence in Cognitive Science. Topics in Cognitive Science, 2(4), 751–770. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1756-8765.2010.01116.xCrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mirkovic, J., MacDonald, M. C., & Seidenberg, M. S. (2005). Where does gender come from? Evidence from a complex inflectional system. Language and Cognitive Processes, 20(1-2), 139–167.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nesselhauf, N. (2003). The Use of Collocations by Advanced Learners of English and Some Implications for Teaching. Applied Linguistics, 24, 223–242+268. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/24.2.223CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Newport, E. L. (1990). Maturational constraints on language learning. Cognitive Science, 14(1), 11–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paul, J. Z., & Grüter, T. (2016). Blocking effects in the learning of Chinese classifiers. Language Learning, 66(4), 972–999.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pinker, S. (1991). Rules of language. Science, 253(5019), 530–535.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sabourin, L., Stowe, L. A., & de Haan, G. J. (2006). Transfer effects in learning a second language grammatical gender system. Second Language Research, 22, 1–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scherag, A., Demuth, L., Rösler, F., Neville, H. J., & Röder, B. (2004). The effects of late acquisition of L2 and the consequences of immigration on L1 for semantic and morpho-syntactic language aspects. Cognition, 93(3), B97–B108.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Shi, R., & Lepage, M. (2008). The effect of functional morphemes on word segmentation in preverbal infants. Developmental Science, 11(3), 407–413.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Shi, R., Marquis, A., & Gauthier, B. (2006). Segmentation and representation of function words in preverbal French-learning infants. In Proceedings of the 30th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (Vol. 2, pp. 549–560). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla.Google Scholar
Shi, R., & Melançon, A. (2010). Syntactic Categorization in French-Learning Infants. Infancy, 15(5), 517–533. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1532-7078.2009.00022.xCrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Siegelman, N., & Arnon, I. (2015). The advantage of starting big: Learning from unsegmented input facilitates mastery of grammatical gender in an artificial language. Journal of Memory and Language, 85, 60–75. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2015.07.003CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Siyanova, A., & Schmitt, N. (2007). Native and nonnative use of multi-word vs. one-word verbs. IRAL – International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching, 45, 119–139. https://doi.org/10.1515/IRAL.2007.005Google Scholar
Slobin, D. I. (1985). The crosslinguistic study of language acquisition. London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers.Google Scholar
Soderstrom, M. (2007) Beyond babytalk: re-evaluating the nature and content of speech input to preverbal infants. Developmental Review, 27(4):501–532.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tomasello, M. (2003). Constructing a language: A usage-based theory of language acquisition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Wray, A. (1999). Formulaic language in learners and native speakers. Language Teaching, 32, 213–231. https://doi.org/10.1017/S027226310000629XCrossRefGoogle Scholar