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Developmental psychology > Chapter 10: Language development > Flashcards

Chapter 10: Language development Flashcards

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1
Q

What is the difference between nativism and empiricism?

A

Nativism: many skills are hard-wired in the brain at birth
Empiricism: no built-in core knowledge, all knowledge from learning and experience

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2
Q

What are 4 important aspects of language?

A
  1. Symbolic system: meaningful
  2. Rule-governed system: regularities/grammar
  3. Productivity: finite number of units can yield infinite possible combinations
  4. Communication system
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3
Q

What is meant when said that language is a pragmatic system?

A

The abilities to communicate effectively and appropriately in a social context

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4
Q

What are 5 points Steven Pinker makes?

A
  1. Language is universal
  2. Languages conform a universal design
  3. Children pass through universal series of stages in acquiring language
  4. If children don’t have a common language, they’ll develop one of their own
  5. Language and intelligence are doubly separable in disorders
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5
Q

What are 4 abilities that develop in the pragmatic system?

A
  1. Turn taking (mother-infant interaction, imitation)
  2. Initiating interactions
  3. Maintaining conversations
  4. Repairing faulty conversations
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6
Q

What are proto-conversations?
What is the difference between proto-imperatives and proto-declaratives?

A

Proto-conversations = interactions between adults and infants in which the adults vocalize when the infants are not vocalizing

Imperative: infant points to object and alternate gaze between object and adult until they obtain the object

Declarative: infant uses pointing or looking to direct an adult’s attention toward an object –> desire shared experience

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7
Q

What is a mirror neuron?

A

Neurons that fire when an individual executes a motor act and when they see another individual performing the same motor act

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8
Q

What are 3 important aspects of maintaining conversations?

A
  • Adding relevant info
  • gain listener’s attention
  • knowing when it’s your turn to speak
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9
Q

What is meant with repairing faulty conversations?

A

Repairing miscommunications by revising the original message in a clear and effective way

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10
Q

What is phonology?

A

Part of language concerned with perception and production of sounds in language

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11
Q

What is speech stream?

A

Undifferentiated series of words that are produced when we communicate

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12
Q

What is the function of motherese/infant-directed speech?

A

Motherese has higher pitch and more exaggerated pitch contours and is more rhythmic.

Children learn how to divide or segment speech stream into meaningful units

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13
Q

What is a phoneme?

A

Smallest unit of speech that can affect meaning

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14
Q

What is categorical perception and is this already there in young infants?

A

Perceptually discriminable stimuli are treated as belonging to the same category.
–> Innate mechanism for interpretation of sounds (from 1 month infants measurable)

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15
Q

What is the development direction of the ability to discriminate possible phonemes?

A

It diminishes with age. After 6 months, an infant can’t discriminate non-native phonemes

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16
Q

On what two things does children’s acquisition of phonemes of native language depend?

A
  1. Innate predisposition for categorical perception of sounds
  2. Experience with native language
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17
Q

What are the 5 phases of maturation of speech production?

A
  1. Reflexive vocalizations (birth-2m)
  2. Cooing/laughing (2-4m)
  3. Babbling/vocal play (4-6m)
  4. Canonical babbling (6-10m)
  5. Modulated babbling (>10m)
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18
Q

What are reflexive vocalizations?

A

First sounds produced by infants, such as cries, coughs, burps and sneezes

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19
Q

What happens in the phase of cooing and laughing?

A

Start of laughing and combining sounds with one another

Reciprocal cooing between infant and parent helps infant to learn that communication involves taking turns

20
Q

What happens in the phase of babbling and vocal play?

A

Controlled vocalizations, control of vocal cords, lips, tongue and mouth

21
Q

What happens in the canonical babbling phase? What is the alternative name of this babbling in deaf children?

A

Vowels and consonants are combined in a way they resemble words

In deaf children: manual babbling: learning to sign

22
Q

What happens in the modulated babbling phase?

A

Intonation patterns and variety of sound combinations.

Learning in acquisition of intonation patterns of native language

23
Q

On which 3 things does the capacity to produce language depend?

A
  1. Hereditary/environmental factors
  2. Maturation
  3. Experience
24
Q

What is syntax? Explain the difference between the s- and d-structure (Chomsky)?

A

Syntax = knowing how words and morphemes combine to form larger units (phrases, sentences)

s = surface structure: actual spoken sentence (different in all languages)

d = deep structure: abstract representation of a sentence (universal in all languages)

25
Q

What is the difference between a phoneme and a morpheme?

A

Phoneme = smallest meaningful part of a sound
Morpheme = smallest meaningful part of a word

26
Q

What are the 5 points of Chomsky’s arguments for innate language knowledge?

A

Poverty of stimulus argument =

  1. Requirement ability to connect d- to s-structures
  2. Children hear s-structure, d-structure is innate
  3. Language input is complex
  4. Children receive little feedback about grammar
  5. Children acquire language quickly
27
Q

What is universal grammar?

A

Human languages share fundamental similarities and these are attributable to innate principles
–> Deep down there’s only 1 language
–> D-structure is innate! Experience provides info about s-structure

28
Q

What is overregularization? Up to what age does this occur? For what claim is this evidence?

A

When a previously learned rule is applied to the wrong situation (e.g. thinked)
–> Up to age 7

–> Evidence that language learning isn’t based on conditioning

29
Q

What is the balance between comprehension and production of speech in children’s development?

A

Comprehension begins in early infancy
Production begins later

30
Q

What’s the difference between overextension and underextension?

A

Overextension = extending word meaning too broadly (e.g. bird for everything that flies)

Underextension = extending word meaning too little (e.g. forgetting duck in bath is the same word for the birds in the park)

31
Q

What is overgeneralization? What is the difference with overregularization?

A

Overgeneralization = creating new verb by treating a noun as a verb (ballereening)

Overregularization: learned rule is applied in the wrong way

32
Q

Which scientist provided a lot of evidence for Steven Pinker’s claim: languages conform to a universal design?

A

Chomsky with his poverty of the stimulus argument, d-/s-structures and universal grammar

33
Q

What are 3 criticisms on the universal design of language point of view?

A
  1. Languages are too diverse and don’t show universal design
  2. Parents are language role models –> sophisticated words have influence on children’s later vocabulary
  3. Constructivists don’t agree on the innate knowledge/predisposition for learning a language
34
Q

What is the whole object constraint? Name an example

A

Assumption that children believe that words refere to whole objects rather than parts

E.g. pointing at an elephant ‘that’s an elephant’ –> child understands you point to the entire animal

35
Q

What are the 4 systems of language development?

A
  1. Pragmatic system (social)
  2. Phonological system (sound)
  3. Syntactic system (grammar)
  4. Semantic system (meaning)
36
Q

What are transitional probabilities? What is it used for in infants and what type of learning is this?

A

The probability that a syllable is followed by another specific syllable

Co - ver (high probability)
Co - lo (low probability)

Infants use it to distinguish between different strings of syllables

This is statistical learning, which is a general learning mechanism non-specific to language

37
Q

What is the role of the semantic system?

A

It categorizes words in relation to their meaning. Semantic relations help to organize the semantic system and grow vocabulary

38
Q

What is the mutual exclusivity constraint? Give an example

A

Assumption that children believe that there is a one-to-one correspondence between words and meanings

The animals that are dogs have no other name, and dogs can’t be other animals

39
Q

When do the one-word and two-word phases start and what are they? What happens after this?

A

One-word: 10-18m
–> Single word utterances often starting with people based words

Two-word: 18-24m
–> Use of 2 words that convey the most meaning
–> The kid knows which 2 words, because they are most stressed in adult speech

After 24m the syntactic knowledge develops quickly

40
Q

What is MLU and how does it develop after 24m?

A

Mean length of utterances –> increases from 24m onward

41
Q

Do parents correct bad grammar of a child?

A

No, they often ignore it or reinforce it

42
Q

On which 4 aspects does a child’s interpretation of a new word depend on?

A
  1. Existing semantic system
  2. Existing world knowledge
  3. Level of cognitive skills
  4. Selective attention
43
Q

What are, according to Kuczaj, the two strategies children use when faced with gaps in semantic or conceptual system?

A

Reflecting interrelationship of language and cognitive development:

  1. Acquiring a new word: construct new scheme
  2. Acquiring a new concept: attempt to attach a known word to a new concept, if nothing matches, find a new word
44
Q

What are two aspects concerning language of Williams syndrome? What is the biological basis of Williams syndrome?

A
  1. Low IQ (mean=56)
  2. Good at language, impaired spatial/number cognition

Microdeletion on chromosome 7

45
Q

What is SLI?

A

Specific language impairment
- Normal/high IQ
- Impaired language

46
Q

What do SLI and Williams syndrome tell you about the relationship between language and intelligence?

A

There is double dissociation. You can have high intelligence and poor language, and also other way around

47
Q

Why will dogs and cats never speak?

A
  • Lack of cognitive ability to recombine and decompose sounds
  • Different FOXP2 gene

Developmental psychology (19 decks)

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