Chapter 6 Language & Symbol Use

Question 1

Symbols

Answer 1

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

Question 2

Comprehension

Answer 2

With regard to language, understanding what other says (or sign or write)

Question 3

Production

Answer 3

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

Question 4

Generativity

Answer 4

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 5

Phonemes

Answer 5

The elementary units of meaningful sound used to produce languages

Ex: (‘lake and rake’ differ by the phoneme L/R)

Question 6

Phonological Development

Answer 6

The acquisition of knowledge about the sound system of a language

Question 7

Morphemes

Answer 7

The smallest units of meaning in language, composed of one or more morphemes

(Ex: dog)

Question 8

Semantic Development

Answer 8

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

Question 9

Syntax

Answer 9

Rules in a language that specify how words from different categories (nouns, verbs, adjectives) can be combined

Question 10

Syntactic Development

Answer 10

The learning of the syntax of a language

Question 11

Pragmatic Development

Answer 11

The acquisition of knowledge about how language is used

Question 12

What part of the brain is language localized?

Answer 12

The left hemisphere, evident for both spoken and signed languages

Question 13

Critical Period for language

Answer 13

The time during which language develops readily and after which (sometime between age 5 and puberty)” language acquisition is much more difficult and ultimately less successful

Question 14

Bilingualism

Answer 14

The ability to use two languages

Improved aspects of cognitive functioning

Question 15

Categorical perception

Answer 15

The perception of speech sounds as belonging to discrete categories

Question 16

Voice onset time (VOT)

Answer 16

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

Question 17

When do babies ‘lose’ their ability to perceive the speech sounds that are not part of native language?

Answer 17

12 months of age approx

Question 18

Word Segmentation

Answer 18

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

Question 19

Distributional Properties

Answer 19

The phenomena that in any language, certain sounds are more likely to appear together than are others

Question 20

Babbling

Answer 20

Repetitive consonant-vowel sequences (“bababab…”) or hand movements (for learners of sign language) produced during the early phases of language development

Question 21

Reference

Answer 21

in language and speech, the associating of words and meanings

Question 22

Holophrastic period

Answer 22

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

Question 23

Overextension

Answer 23

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

Question 24

Fast mapping

Answer 24

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

Question 25

Pragmatic cues

Answer 25

aspects of the social context used for word learning

Question 26

Syntactic bootstrapping

Answer 26

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

Question 27

telegraphic speech

Answer 27

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

Question 28

Overregulation

Answer 28

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

(ex: ‘mans’ ‘goed’ as oppose to ‘men’ ‘went’)

Question 29

Collective monologue

Answer 29

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

Question 30

Narratives

Answer 30

descriptions of past events (occurs around 5yrs)

Question 31

The two prerequisites for language development

Answer 31

1) a human brain

2) experience with a human language

Question 32

Universal Grammar

Answer 32

a proposed set of highly abstract, unconscious rules that are common to all language (Chomsky)

Question 33

Modularity Hypothesis

Answer 33

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

Question 34

Connectionism

Answer 34

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

Question 35

Dual Representation

Answer 35

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