Chapter 8

Question 1

Innate

Answer 1

Determined by the factors present form birth.

Question 2

Innateness Hypothesis

Answer 2

A hypothesis that humans are genetically predisposed to learn and use language.

Question 3

Imitation Theory

Answer 3

Theory of language acquisition that claims that children acquire language by listening to the speech around them and reproducing what thy hear.

Question 4

Reinforcement Theory

Answer 4

Theory that says that children learn to speak like adults because they are praised.

Question 5

Articulatory Gestures

Answer 5

A movement of a speech organ in the production of speech, for example, the movement of the velum for the production of a nasal consonant.

Question 6

Connectionist Theories

Answer 6

Theory of language acquisition that claims that children learn language through neural connections in the brain.

Question 7

Social Interaction Theory

Answer 7

Theory that claims that children acquire language through social interaction. specifically with older children and adults.

Question 8

Linguistic Universals

Answer 8

Property believed to be held in common by all natural languages.

Question 9

Code-Switching

Answer 9

Using words or structural elements from more than one language within the same conversation.

Question 10

Critical Period

Answer 10

Age span, usually described as lasting from birth to the onset of puberty, during which children must have exposure to language and must build the critical brain structures necessary in order to gain native speaker competence in a language.

Question 11

Homesign

Answer 11

A rudimentary visual-gestural communication system that is developed and used by deaf children and their families when a signed language is not made available for their communication.

Question 12

Complexive Concept

Answer 12

A term used in the study of child language acquisition. A group of items that a child refers to with a single word for which it is not possible to single out any one unifying property.

Question 13

High Amplitude Sucking

Answer 13

Experimental technique used to study sound discrimination in infants from birth to about 6 months.

Question 14

Fossilization

Answer 14

Process through which forms from a speakers non-native language usage become fixed and do not change, even after years of instruction.

Question 15

Voice Onset Time

Answer 15

The length of time between the release of a consonant and the onset of voicing, that is, when the focal folds start vibrating,

Question 16

Foreign Accent

Answer 16

An accent that is marked by the phonology of another language or other languages that are more familiar to the speaker.

Question 17

One-Word Stage

Answer 17

Stage in first-language acquisition during which children can produce only one word at a time.

Question 18

Holophrastic Stage

Answer 18

See above.

Question 19

Transfer

Answer 19

The influence of one’s native language of the learning of subsequent languages.

Question 20

Overextension

Answer 20

A relationship between child and adult perception of word meaning.

Question 21

Relational Term

Answer 21

Type of relationship between adj. and noun reference where the reference of the adj. is determined related to the noun reference.

Question 22

Two-Word Stage

Answer 22

Stage in first-language acquisition at which children produce two-word utterances in addition to one-word utterances.

Question 23

Telegraphic

Answer 23

A phase during child language acquisition in which children use utterances composed primarily of content words.

Question 24

Second Language Acquisition

Answer 24

Acquisition of a second language as a teenager or adult.

Question 25

Language Mixing

Answer 25

Same definition as Code Switching

Question 26

Underextension

Answer 26

Application of a word to a smaller set of objects than is appropriate for mature adult speech or the usual definition of the word.