Description
Please choose to answer only one of the following questions for your writing assignment. In your answer, please provide an opening statement, three arguments in support of your opening statement (opinion), three pieces of empirical research (i.e., studies) as support for your arguments, and a closing statement.
You may use any empirical, rigorous scientific research as support however, do not use anecdotal evidence, or unpublished work. You should use 3 journal articles that report original data/studies as evidence. If you do not know what this means or what kinds of papers to look for then you must ask me or your TA. Do not use textbooks, websites, chapters of edited books, review papers or meta-analyses as evidence. Please be sure to provide references for your empirical support (APA-format; with reference list and paper citations in text). Your paper must adhere to a 5-paragraph format that is detailed in writing assignment instruction link below.
Option 1: In your opinion and based on scientific evidence, do you think scientific evidence supports a formalist view or a functionalist view on the relation between language and communication? That is, do you think that the need to communicate and/or the act of communication plays a role in the development of language form (i.e., syntax; morphology)?
What, if any, properties of children’s early communicative experience support their development of communicative skills and their development of language? How important is early communicative experience to later language development? Some argue that communication and early communicative experience is the primary driver or force behind later language development. That is, some theories explain language development as motivated by the urge to communicate. Others argue for a more moderate position saying that communicative interaction contributes to language development but is not the sole reason or purpose for language development. Both of these positions would be akin to the functionalist view of the relation between communication and language, that is, language is a system shaped and/or supported by the communicative functions it serves. Still, others argue for the formalist view of the relation between communication and language, that is, the structure and development of language has nothing to do with its communicative role. In your answer to the proposed question, you will want to consider whether you think there is evidence to link early communicative skill to later language development. You may want to consider research by Jean Berko-Gleason, Anne Fernald, Susan Goldin-Meadow, Michael Tomasello, Erika Hoff, Catherine Snow, Noam Chomsky and Steven Pinker.
Option 2: In your opinion and based on scientific evidence, what mechanisms/biases/experiences/assumptions do you believe are important for a typical infant’s/children’s (0-5 years) lexical development (first/native language only)?
What mechanisms support infants’ ability to learn the meanings of words? Some argue that that infants use word-learning assumptions, like mutual exclusivity (e.g., Ellen Markman), the whole-object assumption (e.g., Ellen Markman and Sandra Waxman) or the shape bias (e.g., Linda Smith). Others argue that children use the syntax of a sentence to guide word meaning (Syntactic Bootstrapping Hypothesis; e.g., Leticia Naigles, and Roger Brown). Some place a particular importance on pragmatic principles for word learning, such as understanding the communicative intentions of the speaker (e.g., Dare Baldwin and Amanda Woodward). Finally, there are some theories of word learning that suggest that all of these mechanisms have a role, but that some are more important to the beginning word learner, while others are used by only children who have some words already in their lexicon (e.g., Emergentist Coalition Model; Kathryn Hirsh-Pasek and Roberta Golinkoff). You may want to consider research discussed in the section of your textbook called “The Process of Word Learning” (pp153-163, 5th Edition).
Further instructions attached in a document as well as the class textbook, this may be used as an additional source, but you must still find at least three other journal articles to use.
Sample Solution