Chapter 10 Child language acquisition

Question 1

Children acquire grammar when they acquire language

Answer 1

an abstract system of linguistic rules.
Evidence for this is that mature speakers (and some immature ones) can produce and comprehend an indefinite number of novel utterances

Question 2

Systematic errors

Answer 2

“errors” that children utter, but they have clearly never heard before from adults.
*doed *runned *goed
shows language is not memorized

Question 3

methods for studying language acquisition

Answer 3

naturalistic observation and experimental studies

Question 4

diary study (naturalistic observation)

Answer 4

(usually by parents) or regular sessions recorded by a researcher—often an hour every week or two. early stages parents write down every new word a child says

Question 5

longitudinal (naturalistic observation)

Answer 5

following a single child over an extended period of time

Question 6

cross-sectional (experimental studies)

Answer 6

taking one-time “snapshots” of individual children’s performance across different age groups

Question 7

ecologically sound (naturalistic observation)

Answer 7

they present the child with normal everyday situations

Question 8

cons of naturalistic observation

Answer 8

provide little information about infrequent structures and phenomena.
do not reflect children’s full competence, which often outstrips their performance.
competence=knowledge
performance=production
children’s knowledge of language often surpasses what they can produce
naturalistic studies only measure performance

Question 9

comprehension tasks (experimental studies)

Answer 9

sucking rate, picture selection, act-out task, truth value judgement task, production tasks, picture description task, imitation task

Question 10

sucking rate

Answer 10

usually increases with a new type of stimulus. measured in experimental studies

Question 11

picture selection task

Answer 11

children choose a picture corresponding to a spoken sentence. used in experimental studies

Question 12

act-out task

Answer 12

children use toys to enact an event described by a given sentence. used in experimental studies

Question 13

truth value judgement task

Answer 13

children judge the truth (or falsity) of a statement about a story they’ve just been told

Question 14

production tasks (experimental studies)

Answer 14

picture description task

imitation task

Question 15

picture description task

Answer 15

children use their own words to describe a complex scene in a picture (production task)

Question 16

imitation task

Answer 16

children try to repeat a sentence they have just heard, but often alter it to fit their own speech patterns.
‘Mickey is laughing’ > ‘Mickey laughing’
(production task)

Question 17

babbling

Answer 17

helps them to gain control over their vocal apparatus. begins at six months.
Early babbling shows considerable similarity across different language communities. Even deaf children babble, though with less variety

Question 18

Evidence that the human auditory system appears to be specially attuned to language

Answer 18

Newborns respond differently to speech than to other sounds.

They also show a preference for the language of their parents, even before they can recognize their mother’s voice.

Question 19

One month (child development)

Answer 19

children can distinguish between voiced and voiceless consonants (e.g. [b] and [p]).

Question 20

six to eight months (child development)

Answer 20

children can hear non- native contrasts in speech sounds, an ability that begins to diminish as early as ten to twelve months of age.

Question 21

Phonetic processes in child language production

Answer 21

syllable deletion, syllable simplification, assimilation, and substitution.

Question 22

syllable deletion

Answer 22

hip-po-pót-a-mus [pɑs] kan-ga-róo [wu]

Question 23

syllable simplification

Answer 23

stop [tɑp]
bring [bɪŋ]
sleep [sip]
bump [bʌp]

Question 24

assimilation

Answer 24

tell [dɛl]

soup [zup]

Question 25

Substitution processes

Answer 25

• Stopping: sing [tɪŋ], shoes [tud]
• Fronting: ship [sɪp], go [dow]
• Gliding: lion [jajn], rock [wɑk]
• Denasalization: spoon [bud], room [wub]

Question 26

18 months (child development)

Answer 26

children have about fifty words in their vocabulary; for English children, nouns form the largest class of words.

Question 27

age six (child development)

Answer 27

most children know about 13,000– 14,000 words.

Question 28

The Whole Object assumption

Answer 28

A new word refers to a whole object (not parts or properties of the object).

Question 29

The Type assumption

Answer 29

A new word refers to a type of thing, not just to a particular thing.

Question 30

The Basic Level assumption

Answer 30

A new word refers to objects that are alike in basic ways (appearance, behaviour, etc.)

Question 31

syntactic context

Answer 31

Situation: A child is shown a new doll.
A: “This is a [dæks].” dax = a kind of doll
B: “This is [dæks].” Dax = the doll’s name

Question 32

overextension errors

Answer 32

where they use a word too broadly
quack: ducks, all birds and insects, flies, coins (with an eagle on the face)
fly: small insects, specks of dirt, dust, child’s toes, crumbs of bread
overextend more in production than in comprehension experiments.

Question 33

underextension errors

Answer 33

where they use a word too narrowly.

kitty: only for family pet
dog: not for chihuahuas

Question 34

irregular inflections

Answer 34

(past tense ran, plural men, etc.) are first acquired case-by-case; then dropped when a general rule is acquired; finally, exceptions to the rule are mastered.

Question 35

plural formation

Answer 35

Four- and five-year-old children can also correctly add the regular plural to a nonsense word like wug, showing that they have mastered the rule

Question 36

age three (child development)

Answer 36

will generate new words via derivation and compounding

Question 37

compounding

Answer 37

Compounds are not always right-headed, as they are in adult English (e.g. cutter grass for ‘grass cutter’), but by five years this rule is mastered .
even three-year-olds correctly omit
inflectional suffixes from inside compounds.
eater of cookies = cookie eater
catcher of dogs = dog catcher

Question 38

12-18 months (child development)

Answer 38

children begin producing one-word holophrases

Question 39

holophrases

Answer 39

used to express the meanings of whole sentences.
more = “Give me more juice”
up = “Pick me up”

Question 40

1.5 years-2 years (child development)

Answer 40

produce two-word utterances
inflection is often missing
word order is almost always correct.

Question 41

2 years- 2.5 years (child development)

Answer 41

children’s syntax proceeds to the telegraphic stage

Question 42

telegraphic stage

Answer 42

longer and more complex utterances, but still missing most inflections and functional categories, like determiners and auxiliaries.

Question 43

question inversion

Answer 43

an error where children either by not using the auxiliary, or (infrequently) by copying the auxiliary.
Can he can look?

Question 44

passives

Answer 44

Children have difficulty interpreting some passives with a by-phrase, such as The boy is seen by the horse.
In such cases they may reverse the intended meaning of the clause (here, to The boy sees the horse)

Question 45

Syntax development

Answer 45

Children rarely confuse pronouns (5%) and
reflexives (less than 1%) with each other.
I see me.
You hurt myself!

Question 46

Caregiver speech

Answer 46

simplified speech style, with exaggerated intonation.

common phenomenon that may speed up language acquisition, but it is not necessary for acquisition to take place.

Question 47

Positive evidence

Answer 47

for a particular grammar comes in the form of grammatical utterances in the target language.
Child also learns what is ungrammatical in a language

Question 48

recasts

Answer 48

the adult correctly restates the child’s utterance.

unreliable because they are not consistently used

Question 49

negative evidence

Answer 49

evidence about what is ungrammatical in the target language.

Question 50

object permanence

Answer 50

the knowledge that objects continue to exist when out of sight.

Question 51

vocabulary spurt

Answer 51

18 months

Question 52

5 years (child development)

Answer 52

at this age can do seriation tasks. Then can use comparative terms like longer, shorter.

Question 53

Noam Chomsky

Answer 53

argues that many aspects of language are too complex and abstract to be acquired.

Question 54

Universal Grammar

Answer 54

including both fixed linguistic principles, and variable parameters whose values are determined by experience.

Question 55

critical period

Answer 55

a point for language development, after which, the language proficiency can be degraded or even severely impaired.

Question 56

Which is acquired first, full range of vowels or consonants?

Answer 56

The full range of vowels is usually acquired before that of consonants.

Question 57

What is acquired first in terms of place of articulation?

Answer 57

labials are usually acquired first, and interdentals last.

Question 58

which consonants are acquired first?

Answer 58

stops