CHAPTER 1. LANGUAGE LEARNING IN EARLY CHILDHOOD Flashcards
What does the following description refer to?
Commonly means the acquisition of a single language in childhood, regardless of the number of languages in a child’s natural environment.
First language acquisition
What does the following description refer to?
The process by which humans acquire the capacity to perceive, produce and use words to understand and communicate
Characteristics of First Language Acquisition
What does the following description refer to?
This capacity involves the picking up of diverse capacities including syntax, phonetics, and an extensive vocabulary.
Characteristic of First Language Acquisition
What does the following description refer to?
It is a key aspect that distinguishes humans from other organisms
Characteristic of First Language Acquisition
What does the following description refer to?
Language acquisition usually refers to first language acquisition, which studies infant ́s acquisition on their native language.
Characteristic of First Language Acquisition
Relate language and communication skills with age.
Cries when basic needs require attention, for example hunger, tiredness, distress,
Birth to 4 weeks
Relate language and communication skills with age.
Ø‘Freezes’ when a bell is rung gently close to the ear, moves head towards the sound
ØStops crying at the sound of the human voice (unless very upset)
ØCoos and gurgles in response to career’s talk
1 month
Relate language and communication skills with age.
ØBecomes quiet and turns head towards sound of rattle near head.
ØVocalizes when spoken to and when alone
3 months
Relate language and communication skills with age.
ØMakes singsong vowel sounds, for example ‘aah-aah’, ‘goo’
ØLaughs and chuckles and squeals aloud in play
ØResponds differently to different tones of voice
ØStarts to respond to noises out of sight with correct visual response
6 months
Relate language and communication skills with age.
ØVocalizes for communication, shouts for attention
ØBabbles loudly and tunefully using dual syllables in long strings, for example ‘daddad’, ‘baba’, ‘mam-mam’
ØImitates adult vocal sounds, for example coughs, smacking lips
ØUnderstands ‘no’ and ‘bye-bye’
ØHas instant response to a hearing test conducted 1 metre behind child, out of sight
9 months
Relate language and communication skills with age.
ØKnows own name
ØJargons loudly in ‘conversations’, includes most vowels sounds
Ø Understands about 20 words in context, for example cup, dog, and dinner.
Ø Understands simple messages, for example ‘clap hands’, ‘where are your shoes?
1 year (12 months)
Relate language and communication skills with age.
ØFirst words appear – uses 6–20 recognizable words, understands many more
ØEchoes prominent or last word in sentences
ØTries to join in with nursery rhymes
ØResponds to simple instructions , for example ‘fetch your shoes’, ‘shut the door’
12–18 months
Relate language and communication skills with age.
ØUses two words linked together
ØUses more than 200 words by two years
ØMakes simple two-word sentencesØRefers to own name, talks to self during play
ØHas telegraphic speech, that is, is using key essential words and missing out on connecting words
18–24 months
Relate language and communication skills with age.
ØRapidly expanding vocabulary, including plurals.
ØHolds simple conversations.
ØEnjoys repetition of favorite stories
ØCounts to tenØUses two or three words together, e.g. “go potty now”
Ø ‘Explosion’ of vocabulary and use of correct grammatical forms of language.
ØRefers to self by name and often says ‘mine’
ØAsks lots of questionsØUses pronouns and prepositions, simple sentences and phrases
2–3 years
What does the following description refer to?
are the smallest chapters of language that carry meaning.
Morphemes
What does the following description refer to?
are tiny markers that can be added to these words to add to or change their meaning. They are “bound” morphemes because they do not work on their own; they must be connected to a “free” morpheme.
Grammatical morphemes
What does the following description refer to?
The rate of vocabulary learning is for three to four years old children at several words a day.
Lexis
What does the following description refer to?
–At age of four, most children can ask questions, give commands, report real events and create imaginary stories.
–They apply grammatical rules correctly and master basic structures of the language.
–Acquisition of more complex linguistic structures, including passives and relative clauses
Grammatical awareness:
What does the following description refer to?
–Usage of language in a wider social environment
–More interaction with unfamiliar adults
–Communication with relatives on the phone
–Awareness of several different “voices”
More various usage of language
What does the following description refer to?
Metalinguistic awareness describes the ability to treat language as an object separate from the meaning.
Metalinguistic awareness
What does the following description refer to?
A style or way of using language that is appropriate for a particular setting
Register
What does the following description refer to?
It is an innate linguistic knowledge that consists of a set of principles common to all languages.
Universal Grammar (UG)
What does the following description refer to?
If children are pre-equipped with UG, then what they have to learn is the ways in which the language they are acquiring makes use of these principles.
Characteristics of Universal Grammar (UG)
What does the following description refer to?
Innatists argue that complex grammar could never be learned purely on the basis of imitating and practicing sentences available in the input.
Characteristics of Universal Grammar (UG)
What does the following description refer to?
Is the subject of a long-standing debate in linguistics and language acquisition over the extent to which the ability to acquire language is biologically linked to age.
Characteristics of Critical Period Hypothesis
What does the following description refer to?
The hypothesis claims that there is an ideal ‘window’ of time in a person’s life to acquire language in a linguistically rich environment, after which further language acquisition becomes much more difficult and effortful
Characteristics of Critical Period Hypothesis
What does the following description refer to?
Dan Slobin (1973) has long emphasized the close relationship between children’s cognitive development and their acquisition of language
Charactersitcs of The interactionist / developmental perspective
What does the following description refer to?
Children are biologically programmed for language
Characteristics of Universal grammar and the critical period hypothesis
What does the following description refer to?
Language develops in the child in just the same way that other biological functions develop.
Characteristics of Universal grammar and the critical period hypothesis
What does the following description refer to?
The environment makes only a basic contribution (the availability of people who speak to the child).
Characteristics of Universal grammar and the critical period hypothesis
What does the following description refer to?
Children’s minds are not blank slates to be filled by imitating language they hear in the environment.
Characteristics of Universal grammar and the critical period hypothesis
What does the following description refer to?
Children are born with a specific innate ability to discover for themselves the underlying rules of a language system on the basis of the samples they are exposed to.
Characteristics of Universal grammar and the critical period hypothesis
What does the following description refer to?
This innate endowment is like a template containing the principles that are universal to all human languages.
Characteristics of Universal grammar and the critical period hypothesis
What does the following description refer to?
Language acquisition is an example of the human child’s remarkable ability to learn from experience.
Characteristics of Universal grammar and the critical period hypothesis
What does the following description refer to’
There is no need to assume that there are specific brain structures devoted to language acquisition.
Characteristics of Universal grammar and the critical period hypothesis
What does the following description refer to?
What children need to know is available in the language they are exposed to as they hear it use in thousands of hours of interactions with the people and objects around them.
Characteristics of Universal grammar and the critical period hypothesis
What does the following description refer to?
Jean Piaget is one of the earliest proponents of the view that children ́s language is built on their cognitive development.
Characteristics of Universal grammar and the critical period hypothesis
What does the following description refer to?
Vigosky observed the importance of conversations that children have with adults and with other children and saw in these conversations the origins of both language and thought.
Characteristics of Universal grammar and the critical period hypothesis
What does the following description refer to?
is an impairment that makes it hard for someone to find the right words and form clear sentences when speaking. It can also make it difficult to understand what another person says. A child may have difficulty understanding what others say, may struggle to put thoughts into words, or both.
language disorder
What does the following description refer to?
is when language abilities may be developing at a slower rate than normal. They may have trouble expressing themselves or understanding others. Their delay may involve a combination of hearing, speech, and cognitive impairments.
language delay
What does the following description refer to?
• Children who learn more than one language from earliest childhood are referred to as ‘simultaneous bilinguals‘
Childhood bilingualism
What does the following description refer to?
• Whereas those who learn another language later can be called ‘sequential bilinguals’.
Childhood bilingualism
What does the following description refer to?
Children learn to comment on the disappearance of objects, to
refuse a suggestion, or reject an assertion, even at the single word stage
Negation
What does the following description refer to?
Negation is usually expressed by the word ‘no’, either all alone or as the first word in the utterance.
No. No cookie. No comb hair
Stage 1 of Negation
What does the following description refer to?
Utterances grow longer and the sentence subject may be included. The negative word appears just before the verb.
Sentences expressing rejection or prohibition often use ‘don’t’.
Daddy no comb hair. Don’t touch that!
Stage 2 of Negation
What does the following description refer to?
The negative element is inserted into a more complex sentence. Children may add forms of the negative other than ‘no’,
including words like ‘can’t’ and ‘don’t’. Children do not yet vary these forms for different persons or tenses.
I can’t do it. He don’t want it.
Stage 3 of Negation
What does the following definition refer to?
Children begin to attach the negative element to the correct form of auxiliary verbs such as ‘do’ and ‘be’.
You didn’t have supper. She doesn’t want it.
They may still have difficulty with some other features
related to negatives.
I don’t have no more candies.
Stage 4 of Negation
What does the following description refer to?
Children’s earliest questions are single words or simple two- or three-word sentences with rising intonation:
Cookie? Mommy book?
At the same time, they may produce some correct questions—correct because they have been learned as chunks:
Where’s Daddy? What’s that?
Stage 1 of Questions
What does the following description refer to?
As they begin to ask more new questions, children use the word order of the declarative sentence, with rising intonation.
You like this? I have some?
Stage 2 of questions
What does the following description refer to?
Gradually, children notice that the structure of questions is different and begin to produce questions such as:
Can I go?
Are you happy?
Stage 3 of questions
What does the following description refer to?
Some questions are formed by subject–auxiliary inversion. The questions resemble those of Stage 3, but there is more variety in the auxiliaries that appear before the subject.
Are you going to play with me?
At this stage, children can even add ‘do’ to questions
children seem able to use either inversion or a wh-word, but not both (for example, ‘Is he
crying?’ but not ‘Why is he crying?’
Stage 4 of questions
What does the following description refer to?
both wh- and yes/no questions are formed correctly.
Are these your boots?
Why did you do that?
Does Daddy have a box?
Negative questions may still be a bit too difficult.
Why the teddy bear can’t go outside?
Stage 5 of questions
What does the following description refer to?
children are able to correctly form all question types, including negative and complex embedded questions
Stage 6 of Questions
What does the following description refer to?
By the age of four, most children can ask questions, give commands, report real events, and create stories about imaginary ones, using correct word order and grammatical markers most of the time.
Children have acquired the basic structures of the language or languages spoken to them in these early years
The pre-school years
What does the following description refer to?
children also begin to develop metalinguistic awareness, the ability to treat language as an object separate from the meaning it conveys.
The pre-school years
What does the following description refer to?
Children develop the ability to use language to understand others and to express their own meanings in the pre-school years, and in the school years, this ability expands and grows. Learning to read gives a major boost to metalinguistic
awareness.
The School Years
What does the following description refer to?
The acquisition of different language registers. Children learn how written language differs from spoken language, how the language used to speak to the principal is different from the language of the playground, how the language of a science report is different from the language of a narrative.
The School Years
What does the following description refer to?
Traditional behaviourists hypothesized that when children imitated the language produced by those around them, their attempts to reproduce what they heard received ‘positive reinforcement’.
Thus encouraged by their environment, children would continue to imitate and practice these sounds and patterns until they formed ‘habits’ of correct language use.
The behaviorist perspective
What does the following description refer to?
This theory gives great importance to the environment as the source of everything
the child needs to learn.
The behaviorist perspective
What does the following description refer to?
word-for-word repetition of all or part of someone else’s utterance.
MOTHER Shall we play with the dolls?
LUCY Play with dolls
Imitation
What does the following description refer to?
repetitive manipulation of form.
CINDY: He eat carrots. The other one eat carrots. They both eat carrots.
Practice
Relate the author with the respective theory.
B. F. Skinner
The behaviourist perspective
Relate the author with the respective theory.
Noam Chomsky
The innatist perspective
What does the following description refer to?
children are biologically programmed for language and that language develops in the child in just the same way that other biological functions develop.
Most children learn to walk at about the same age, and walking is essentially the same in all normal human beings. For Chomsky, language acquisition is very similar. The environment makes only a basic contribution—in this case, the
availability of people who speak to the child. The child, or rather, the child’s biological endowment, will do the rest
The innatist perspective
What does the following description refer to?
emphasizes the fact that almost all children successfully acquire their native language—or more than one language if they live in a multilingual community
The innatist perspective
What does the following description refer to?
children acquire the basic syntax and morphology of the language spoken to them in a variety of conditions, some of which would be expected to enhance language development (for example, caring, attentive parents who focus on the child’s language), and some which might be expected to inhibit it (for example, abusive or rejecting parents).
The Innatist Perspective
What does the following description refer to?
the hypothesis that animals, including humans, are genetically programmed to acquire certain kinds of knowledge and skill at specific times in life.
The Critical Period Hypothesis
What does the following description refer to?
Developmental and cognitive psychologists have focused on the interplay between the innate learning ability of children and the environment in which they develop. They argue that the innatists place too much emphasis on the ‘final state’
(the competence of adult native speakers) and not enough on the developmental aspects of language acquisition.
Interactionist/developmental perspectives
What does the following description refer to?
Psychologists attribute considerably more importance to the environment than the innatists do even though they also recognize a powerful learning mechanism in the human brain. They see language acquisition as similar to and influenced by the acquisition of other kinds of skill and knowledge, rather than as something that is different from and largely
independent of the child’s experience and cognitive development.
Interactionist/developmental perspectives
Complete the information
One of the earliest proponents of the view that children’s language is built on their cognitive development was the Swiss psychologist/epistemologist _________
Jean Piaget
Complete de information
_____________ concluded that language develops primarily from social interaction. He argued that in a supportive interactive
environment, children are able to advance to higher levels of knowledge and performance.
Lev Vygotsky
Complete de information
___________ observed the importance of conversations that children have with adults and with other children and saw in
these conversations the origins of both language and thought.
Vygotsky
Complete the information.
_______________ saw language as a symbol system that could be used to express knowledge acquired through interaction with the physical world.
For _____________, thought was essentially internalized speech, and
speech emerged in social interaction.
Piaget
Vygotsky
Complete the information
__________________on language acquisition differs from the behaviorist view in that the emphasis is more on
the child’s ability to create networks of associations rather than on processes of imitation and habit formation.
usage-based perspective
What does the following description refer to?
Referred to by various names, including cognitive linguistics, this view also differs sharply from the innatists’ because language acquisition is not seen as requiring a separate ‘module of the mind’ but rather depends on the child’s general learning abilities and the contributions of the environment.
Usage-based learning
What does the following description refer to?
Referred to by various names, including cognitive linguistics, this view also differs sharply from the innatists’ because language acquisition is not seen as requiring a separate ‘module of the mind’ but rather depends on the child’s general learning abilities and the contributions of the environment.
Usage-based learning
What does the following description refer to?
Language acquisition involves not only associating words with elements of external reality. It is also a process of associating words and phrases with the other words and phrases that occur with them, or words with
grammatical morphemes that occur with them.
Usage-based model
What does the following description refer to?
Of particular importance to this hypothesis is the fact that children are exposed to many thousands of opportunities to learn words and phrases. Learning takes place gradually, as the number of links between language and meaning and among language forms are built up
Usage-based learning
Complete de following information
Children who learn more than one language from earliest childhood are referred to as__________.
simultaneous bilinguals
What does the following information refer to?
the use of words or phrases from more than one language within a conversation
Code Switching
