the critical period

babbling begins and becomes variable and language specific by 12 months

first words are produced, for many children word learning accelerates dramatically around 18 months called the vocabulary explosion

complex morphology appears on words

two word utterances

function words and longer utterances

more complex syntax (transformations)

many people associate speech milestones with age, but there is much variation in the ages that children hit milestones for language

go through the same stages in the same order, all children go from first word utterances to two word utterances in that order, but they may do it at slightly different speeds

birth - 6 years old

is up until puberty, after the critical period is over language acquisition changes.

people are less successful at language acquisition after puberty.

girl kept in isolation until she was discovered at age 13 who had absolutely no language input. after she was rescued she works with psychologists and linguists to learn everything she had missed. by age 17 she had the language ability of a five year old, but never passed this and acquired language normally.

she was discovered after the critical period began to close, and no longer was able to acquire language correctly

discovered at age 6, and was locked in a room with her deaf mother for 6.5 years and had no language.

unlike genie, isabelle made remarkable progress. by age 9 she had learned an extensive vocabulary, had acquired complex syntactic constructions and was scoring in the normal range on IQ tests.

the difference appears to be a difference in age of first exposure to language, genie was found after the critical period began to end, and isabelle was in the middle of the critical period

a system of communication that had the following properties:1) one dominate language contributed most of the words, although the other languages also contributed some words2) the grammar of the communication system was a comprehensive mix of grammatical properties of the contributing languages3) the system had a lot of variation from speaker to speaker in terms of both word choice and grammar. over time the system becomes more rigid, but some amount of individual variation is maintained.

the language the contributes the most words to the language, in hawaiian it's english

a general process that happens wherever large communities of adults who speak different languages are put into close contact and have to find a way to communicate, but are past the critical period of language acquisition

1) the lexifer is the language that contributes most of the vocabulary2) the grammar of the pidgin is a simplified compromise mix of grammatical properties of the contributing languages3) the pidgin shows variation from speaker to speaker in terms of both word choice and grammar. over time, the pidgin becomes more and more rigid, but maintains some amount of individual variation.

4) there are no native speakers of pidgins. pidgins are only spoken by the adults who speak other languages natively. pidgins are learned by adults who are too old to learn a new language natively.

they acquire and create a creole

1) larger vocabulary2) regular rules for phonology, morphology and syntax3) very little variation between speakers of the creole4) is the native language of the speakers

the language created by the children who were exposed to hawaiian pidgin english during their critical period. HCE is a full language spoken by 600,000 people today.

it is a rule based language and has a set of phonemes, lexical items and syntactic rules that are similar to standard english, but are different.

the children who create a creole are hearing pidgin being spoken around them which is less complex than a full-fledged language and also shows much more variation, so the complexity and regularity of the creole cannot come from the pidgin. possible theory? it comes from substantial innate knowledge, modern nativism.

it looks like these properties are brought by the children, if modern nativism is true, they have substantial innate knowledge about how languages should work. they appear to take the simple and variable input from the pidgin, and turn it into a complex, regular, full-fledged language.

adults that speak the pidgin are unable to create the creole, they are also unable to learn the native languages of the other immigrants. adults can't learn another native language and cannot turn a pidgin into a full language (a creole) because of the critical period. humans only have access to their innate language learning mechanisms for a short period after birth (approx birth until puberty). after the critical period is over. language acquisition no longer proceeds the same way.