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The Little Magpies Lab’s primary focus of research is infant language acquisition, specifically from early infancy to around 3 years of age. The research field of infant language acquisition is relatively new with its beginnings being traced back to the mid-19th century. However, even before the use of empirical methods to test theories of language acquisition, early philosophers of the ancient times were curious to know how individuals acquired the ability to understand and produce language. For example, Plato thought word-to-meaning mapping was an innate process, and, to a certain extent, he was correct based on today’s most widely accepted theories on child language acquisition.
We can examine the history of infant language acquisition research by comparing methodologies of certain time periods. There were three distinct periods of time that were characterized by its own dominant methodology:
The Period of Diary Studies (1876-1926)
The Period of Large Sample Studies (1926-1957)
The Period of Longitudinal Studies (1967-Present)
via freepik.com
The Period of Diary Studies
The period of diary studies marked the early beginnings of the research field of infant language acquisition. The “parental diary” method was used during this period and involved a linguist or psychologist parent recording observations of their child’s language development over a period of time in a diary. Some of the most detailed reports of child language acquisition were produced during this time period. Even now diary studies are important because they provide a rich database for the field of language acquisition and language development research.
The Period of Large Sample Studies
The next methodology that dominated the history of infant language acquisition research was brought about by the emergence of behaviorism. The emergence of behaviorism in the world of psychology fundamentally changed the approach to studying the nature of child language acquisition.
During this time, the research field of child language acquisition moved solidly into the scientific realm with its use of empirical methods in collecting and analyzing data. Behaviorism emphasized the impact of experience, environment, and external factors on an individual and rejected the innate or genetic basis of behavior. Based on the core beliefs of behaviorism, linguists turned their focus onto the linguistic environment surrounding a child and how it influences a child’s language development.
During this period, numerous cross-sectional studies were carried out with data collected from a large number of subjects — hence the name “period of large sample studies”. The defining characteristics of large sample studies involved its cross-sectional aspect, systematic observation of child’s behavior, and its emphasis on measurements as an experimental methodology. They studied language simply at the level of vocabulary, utterance length, and speech sounds, nothing more. Ultimately, these studies were weakened by its attempt to explain child language acquisition from a behavioral perspective and generally ignoring the innate dimension of language development.
The Period of Longitudinal Studies
The period of longitudinal studies followed. This involved visiting and observing children’s language development on a regular schedule at predetermined times in order to collect a representative sample of a child’s general language ability. Longitudinal studies aimed to describe the developing grammar of a child acquiring language by figuring out the rules that govern the structure of language.
This time period marked a renewed interest in the field of child language acquisition and coincided with a paradigm shift in the world of linguistics brought about by Noam Chomsky’s proposal of nativism which highlighted the innate and biological nature of language. Chomsky’s work continues to remain very influential in modern linguistics to this day (Khodareza et al., 2015).
These three major shifts in the methodologies used in the field of infant language acquisition research all laid the groundwork for the current state of modern-day linguistics and the research that occurs in our Little Magpies Lab.
At the Little Magpies Lab we are currently running two studies: “Shapes and Sounds” and “Dialects of English”. We are recruiting infants from 12- to 16-months-old and 18- to 24-months-old, respectively, for these studies! If you, or someone you know, is interested in participating in the research, please email us at magpies@ualberta.ca for more information. If you’d like to be contacted for future studies, we encourage you to sign up for the ChIRP list to be contacted when a new study is recruiting participants.
Join our studies to help us uncover more about the fascinating processes behind infant language acquisition!
Nayeon Kim
April 2023
Linguistics & Psychology Student at the University of Alberta
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