Language Acquisition in Computers

This project explores the nature of language acquisition in computers, guided by techniques similar to those used in children. While existing natural language processing methods are limited in scope and understanding, our system aims to gain an understanding of language from first principles and hence minimal initial input. The first portion of our system was implemented in Java and is focused on understanding the morphology of language using bigrams. We use frequency distributions and differences between them to define and distinguish languages. English and French texts were analyzed to determine a difference threshold of 55 before the texts are considered to be in different languages, and this threshold was verified using Spanish texts. The second portion of our system focuses on gaining an understanding of the syntax of a language using a recursive method. The program uses one of two possible methods to analyze given sentences based on either sentence patterns or surrounding words. Both methods have been implemented in C++. The program is able to understand the structure of simple sentences and learn new words. In addition, we have provided some suggestions regarding future work and potential extensions of the existing program.Comment: 39 pages, 10 figures and 6 table

Language acquisition and machine learning

In this paper, we review recent progress in the field of machine learning and examine its implications for computational models of language acquisition. As a framework for understanding this research, we propose four component tasks involved in learning from experience - aggregation, clustering, characterization, and storage. We then consider four common problems studied by machine learning researchers - learning from examples, heuristics learning, conceptual clustering, and learning macro-operators - describing each in terms of our framework. After this, we turn to the problem of grammar acquisition, relating this problem to other learning tasks and reviewing four AI systems that have addressed the problem. Finally, we note some limitations of the earlier work and propose an alternative approach to modeling the mechanisms underlying language acquisition

Ecological Theory of Language Acquisition

This poster outlines an Ecological Theory of Language Acquisition (ETLA). The theory views the early phases of the language acquisition process as an emergent consequence of the interaction between the infant and its linguistic environment. The newborn infant is considered to be linguistically and phonetically naïve but endowed with the ability to register a wide range of multi-sensory inputs along with the ability to detect similarity between the multi-sensory stimuli it is exposed to. The initial steps of the language acquisition process are explained as unintended and inevitable consequences of the infant’s multisensory interaction with the adult. The theoretical model deriving from ETLA is tested using the experimental data presented in the two additional contributions from our research team (Gustavsson et al, “Integration of audiovisual information in 8-months-old infants”; Lacerda, Marklund et al. “On the linguistic implications of context-bound adult-infant interactions”). The generality of the ETLA’s concept is likely to be of significance for a wide range of scientific areas, like robotics, where a central issue concerns addressing general problems of how organisms or systems might develop the ability to tap on the structure of the information embedded in their operating environments

Learner internal psychological factors

Book synopsis: What is language and how can we investigate its acquisition by children or adults? What perspectives exist from which to view acquisition? What internal constraints and external factors shape acquisition? What are the properties of interlanguage systems? This comprehensive 31-chapter handbook is an authoritative survey of second language acquisition (SLA). Its multi-perspective synopsis on recent developments in SLA research provides significant contributions by established experts and widely recognized younger talent. It covers cutting edge and emerging areas of enquiry not treated elsewhere in a single handbook, including third language acquisition, electronic communication, incomplete first language acquisition, alphabetic literacy and SLA, affect and the brain, discourse and identity. Written to be accessible to newcomers as well as experienced scholars of SLA, the Handbook is organised into six thematic sections, each with an editor-written introduction

Response through the Intentional Arc: Merleau-Ponty, Dreyfus and Second Language Acquisition

Language, when considered as part of the lived experience of human beings, fails to be reduced to mere representation. In line with non-representationalist understandings of the mind and knowledge-how centered understandings of knowledge, purposiveness in skill acquisition and second language acquisition may be understood through Dreyfus’s skillful coping, based in Merleau-Ponty’s intentional arc and maximal grip. Such an approach to second language acquisition decentralizes rule-based representationalist understandings of the process, such as universal grammar, and instead sees language and communication as responsive, dynamic and dyadic

The company that words keep: comparing the statistical structure of child- versus adult-directed language

Does child-directed language differ from adult-directed language in ways that might facilitate word learning? Associative structure (the probability that a word appears with its free associates), contextual diversity, word repetitions and frequency were compared longitudinally across six language corpora, with four corpora of language directed at children aged 1 ; 0 to 5 ; 0, and two adult-directed corpora representing spoken and written language. Statistics were adjusted relative to shuffled corpora. Child-directed language was found to be more associative, repetitive and consistent than adult-directed language. Moreover, these statistical properties of child-directed language better predicted word acquisition than the same statistics in adult-directed language. Word frequency and repetitions were the best predictors within word classes (nouns, verbs, adjectives and function words). For all word classes combined, associative structure, contextual diversity and word repetitions best predicted language acquisition. These results support the hypothesis that child-directed language is structured in ways that facilitate language acquisition