Ch. 8 Language Acquisition

Question 1

innate

Answer 1

determined by factors presented at birth

Question 2

innateness hypothesis

Answer 2

humans are genetically predisposed to acquire and use language

Question 3

imitation theory

Answer 3

claims that children learn language by listening to the speech around them and reproducing what they hear

Question 4

reinforcement theory

Answer 4

asserts that children learn to speak like adults because they are praised, rewarded, or reinforced when they use the right forms and are corrected when they are wrong

Question 5

active construction of a grammar theory

Answer 5

most influential theory of language acquisition holds that children actually invent the rules of grammar themselves

Question 6

connection theories

Answer 6

theory of language acquisition which claims that children learn language though neutral connections in the brain.A child develops such connections though exposure to language and by using language

Question 7

social interaction theory

Answer 7

theory of language acquisition that claims that children acquire language through social interaction– in particular with older children and adults–and prompt their caregivers supply them with the appropriate language experience they need

Question 8

linguistic universals

Answer 8

property believed to be held in common by all natural languages

Question 9

universal grammar

Answer 9

the theoretically inborn set of of structural characteristics shared by all languages

Question 10

neglected children

Answer 10

neglected by their caretakers

Question 11

feral children

Answer 11

children who grew up in the wild

Question 12

homesign

Answer 12

communicative gestures that are invented by deaf children and the people who they routinely interact with where signed language is not available

Question 13

rules

Answer 13

children exploit statistical information from linguistic input

Question 14

child-directed speech

Answer 14

speech directed at children

Question 15

High Amplitude Sucking (HAS)

Answer 15

infants are given a special pacifier that is connected to a sound-generating system

Question 16

Conditioned Head-Turn Procedure (HT)

Answer 16

infants between five and eighteen months. infants sits on parent’s lap watching display and hearing sounds. infants use to associate sounds with display

Question 17

Voice onset time (VOT)

Answer 17

the length of time between the release of a consonant and the onset of voicing, that is, when the vocal folds start virbrating

Question 18

articulatory gestures

Answer 18

producing particular sounds by bringing both lips together, opening mouth, lowering the velum to allow air passage

Question 19

babble

Answer 19

producing sequences of vowels and consonants if they are acquiring a spoken language, or producing hand movements if they are acquiring sign language

Question 20

canonical babbling

Answer 20

starts around age 7 to 10 months. The repetition of syllables helps the infant practice a sequence of consonant and vowel sounds.

Question 21

variegated babbling

Answer 21

instead of repeating the same syllables “mamamama”, infants put together new syllables like “bugabimo”

Question 22

holophrastic stage

Answer 22

child is limited to one word at a time in their production but understands the meaning of more than a single word

Question 23

telegraphic

Answer 23

says only the words you need and are relevant and not the ones that carry no information

Question 24

overgeneralization

Answer 24

adding sound to plural form of words. mans, houses, noses, manses

Question 25

complexive concept

Answer 25

creating a set of objects that do not have any unifying characteristic

Question 26

overextension

Answer 26

when a child extends the range of a word’s meaning beyond that typically used by adults

Question 27

underextension

Answer 27

the application of a word to a smaller set of objects than is appropriate for mature adult speech

Question 28

relational term

Answer 28

large or small constitute a relatively complex concept

Question 29

deictic expression

Answer 29

words referring to personal, temporal, or spatial aspects of an utterance and whose meaning depends on the context in which the word is used

Question 30

attention getters

Answer 30

used to tell children which utterances are addresses to them rather than to someone else and hence which utterances they ought to be listening to

Question 31

attention holders

Answer 31

used whenever they have more than one thing to say for example when telling a story

Question 32

way

Answer 32

altering the way adults say words when talking to children

Question 33

bilingual

Answer 33

speakers of two languages

Question 34

multilingual

Answer 34

speakers of more than two languages

Question 35

simultaneous bilingualism

Answer 35

learn more than one language from birth

Question 36

sequential bilingualism

Answer 36

begin learning their second language as young children

Question 37

second-language acquisition

Answer 37

learn a second language not as a young child but rather later in life

Question 38

language mixing or code switching

Answer 38

using more than one language in a conversation or even within a phrase

Question 39

foreign accent

Answer 39

mark from the phonology of another language that are more familiar to the speaker

Question 40

fossilization

Answer 40

non-native forms, as part of either the morpho-syntax or pronunciation, can become fixed and not change even after years of instruction