Chapter 6: Development of Language and Symbol Use

Question 1

babbling

Answer 1

repetitive consonant-vowel sequences (“bababa . . .”) or hand-shapes (for learners of signed languages) produced during the early phases of language development

Question 2

bilingualism

Answer 2

the ability to use two languages

Question 3

categorical perception

Answer 3

the perception of speech sounds as belonging to discrete categories

Question 4

collective monologues

Answer 4

conversations between children that involves a series of non sequiturs, the content of each child’s turn having little or nothing to do with the other child has just said

Question 5

comprehension

Answer 5

with regard to language, understanding what others say (or sign or write)

Question 6

connectionism

Answer 6

a type of information-processing approach that emphasizes the simultaneous activity of numerous interconnected processing units

Question 7

critical period

Answer 7

the dime during which language develops readily and after which (sometimes between age 5 and puberty) language acquisition is much more difficult and ultimately less successful

Question 8

distributional properties

Answer 8

the phenomenon that in any language, certain sounds are more likely to appear together than are others

Question 9

dual representation

Answer 9

the idea that a symbolic artifact must be represented mentally in two ways at the same time–both as real object and as a symbol for something other than itself

Question 10

fast mapping

Answer 10

the process of rapidly learning a new word simply from hearing the contrastive use of a familiar and the unfamiliar word

Question 11

generativity

Answer 11

refers to the idea that through the use of the finite set of words and morphemes in humans’ vocabulary, we can put together an infinite number of sentences and express an infinite number of ideas

Question 12

holophrastic period

Answer 12

the period when children begin using the words in their small productive vocabulary one word at at time

Question 13

infant-directed speech (IDS)

Answer 13

the distinctive mode of speech that adults adopt when talking to babies and very young children

Question 14

metalinguistic knowledge

Answer 14

an understanding of the properties and functions of language–that is, an understanding of language as language

Question 15

modularity hypothesis

Answer 15

the idea that the human brain contains an innate, self-contained language module that is separate from other aspects of cognitive functioning

Question 16

morphemes

Answer 16

the smallest units of meaning in a language, composed of one or more phonemes

Question 17

narratives

Answer 17

descriptions of past events that have the basic structure of a story

Question 18

overextension

Answer 18

the use of a given word in a broader context than is appropriate

Question 19

overregularization

Answer 19

speech errors in which children treat irregular forms of words as if they were regular

Question 20

phonemes

Answer 20

the elementary units of meaningful sound used to produce languages

Question 21

phonological development

Answer 21

the acquisition of knowledge about the sound system of a language

Question 22

pragmatic cues

Answer 22

aspects of the social context used for word learning

Question 23

pragmatic development

Answer 23

the acquisition of knowledge about how language is used

Question 24

production

Answer 24

with regard to language, speaking (or writing or signing) to others

Question 25

prosody

Answer 25

the characteristic rhythm, tempo, cadence, melody, intonational patterns, and so forth with which a language is spoken

Question 26

reference

Answer 26

in language and speech, the associating of words and meaning

Question 27

semantic development

Answer 27

the learning of the system for expressing meaning in a language, including word learning

Question 28

symbols

Answer 28

systems for representing our thoughts, feelings, and knowledge and for communicating them to other people

Question 29

syntactic bootstrapping

Answer 29

the strategy of using the grammatical structure of whole sentences to figure out meaning

Question 30

syntactic development

Answer 30

the learning of the syntax of a language

Question 31

syntax

Answer 31

rules in a language that specify how words from different categories (nouns, verbs, adjectives, and so on) can be combined

Question 32

telegraphic speech

Answer 32

the term describing children’s first sentences that are generally two-word utterances

Question 33

Universal Grammar

Answer 33

a proposed set of highly abstract, unconscious rules that are common to all languages

Question 34

voice onset time (VOT)

Answer 34

the length of time between when air passes through the lips and when the vocal cords start vibrating

Question 35

word segmentation

Answer 35

the process of discovering where words begin and end in fluent speech