Chapter 2

Question 1

innate brain mechanism

Answer 1

Berwick & Chomsky argues that language acquisition is based on an innate
(inborn) structure in the human brain,with the brain prewired to provide
children with the capacity to learn language

Question 2

language acquisition device

LAD

Answer 2

The LAD is the part
of the human mind that provides children with the ability to grasp the basic
structure of a language’s syntax (sentence
forms)

Question 3

Principles and Parameters theory

Answer 3

The
LAD consists of innate language principles that are common to all
languages (e.g., a noun occurs in all sentences across all languages)
and parameters that can be set for the grammatical rules for a
particular language.

Question 4

Social Interaction theory

Answer 4

Language develops through
experience with language as it is used in the environment. Language
information is gained from interaction with peers and adults with
more advanced language skills

Question 5

Cognitive theory

Answer 5

Language acquisition emerges through cognitive skills, such as
object permanence (the ability to produce words for entities or things
that are absent). Play is viewed an essential vehicle for language
development. Children form schemas, consisting of psychological
structures that allow children to attach meaning to entities (e.g., living
things), objects, and actions or events in their environment.

Question 6

Emergentism theory

Answer 6

Language learning is based on the “emergent” effect of cognitive,
social, pragmatic, and attentional factors. Language develops through
pattern-finding for language used across different situations. Patterns
involve regularities, such as the use of the word “more” to obtain
additional items

Question 7

Principles

Answer 7

are innate language
general rules that include the general
principles that apply to all languages,
such as the principle that a sentence
must contain a subject (e.g., The dog
ate my cookie)

Question 8

Parameters

Answer 8

are language-specific rules
that apply to the specific syntactic
structure for different languages,
such as the word-order rules that
differ across languages. For example,
subject-verb-object (SVO)

Question 9

zone of proximal development

Answer 9

Vygotsky (1935) used the
term zone of proximal development to
describe the distance between a child’s
actual developmental level (determined
by independent problem solving) and
his or her level of potential development.
The zone of proximal development is the
distance between what children can do by
themselves

Question 10

retrospective mental development

Answer 10

The zone of proximal development is the
distance between what children can do by
themselves

Question 11

prospective mental development

Answer 11

the concepts or skills that
they can learn with assistance from adults
or children with more advanced language
skills

Question 12

Scaffolding

Answer 12

is the approach frequently used by adults to support learning language
provide an effective approach to developing children’s language
skills

Question 13

Recasts

Answer 13

are models of the correct target

forms of a child’s incorrect production.

Question 14

pattern finding

Answer 14

emerges
from children’s pattern finding. Pattern
finding describes children’s sensitivity
to regularities in the patterns of adults’
utterances