Chapter 8- Acquisition

Question 1

Innateness hypothesis

Answer 1

A hypothesis that humans are generally predisposed to learn and use language

Question 2

Innate

Answer 2

Determined by factors present from birth

Question 3

Imitation theory

Answer 3

Child language acquisition theory that claims that children acquire language by listening to the speech around them and reproducing what they hear

Question 4

Reinforcement theory

Answer 4

Theory of child language acquisition which says that children learn to speak like adults because they are praised, rewarded, or otherwise reinforced when they use the right forms and are corrected when they use the wrong ones

Question 5

Active construction of a grammar theory

Answer 5

Theory of child language which says that children acquire a language by inventing rules of grammar based on the speech around them

Question 6

Connectionist theories

Answer 6

Theory of language acquisition which claims that children learn language through neural connections in the brain.
A child develops such connections through exposure to language and by using language

Question 7

Social interaction theory

Answer 7

Theory of language acquisition that claims that children acquire language through social interaction- in particular with older children and adults- and prompt their caregivers to supply them with the appropriate language experience they need

Question 8

Linguistic universals

Answer 8

Property believed to be held in common by all natural languages

Question 9

Universal grammar

Answer 9

The theory that posits a set of grammatical characteristics shared by all natural languages. Also the name of this set of shared characteristics.

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 (not a language) that is developed and used by deaf children and their families when a signed language is not made available for their communication

Question 12

Imitation theory

Answer 12

Child language acquisition theory that claims that children acquire language by listening to the speech around them and reproducing what they hear

Question 13

Rule

Answer 13

A former statement of an observed generalization about patterns in language

Question 14

Child directed speech

Answer 14

Speech used by parents or caregivers when communicating with young children or infants. In many Western societies, child-directed speech is slow and high-pitched and has many repetitions, simplified syntax, exaggerated intonation, and a simple concrete vocabulary

Question 15

High amplitude sucking

Answer 15

Experimental technique used to study sound discrimination in from birth to about six months. Infants are given a special pacifier that is connected to a sound-generating system. Each suck on the pacifier generates a noise, and infants’ sucking behavior is used to draw conclusions about discrimination abilities

Question 16

Conditioned head-turn procedure

Answer 16

Experimental technique usually used with infants between five and eighteen months with two phases: conditioning and testing. During the conditioning phase, the infant learns to associate a change in sound with the activation of visual reinforcers, first presented at the time and then in succession, such that the infant begins to anticipate the appearance of the visual reinforcers and look at them before they are activated

Question 17

Articulatory gestures

Answer 17

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

Question 18

Babble

Answer 18

A phase in child language acquisition during which the child produces meaningless sequences of consonants and vowels. Generally begins around the age of six months

Question 19

Repeated/ Canonical babbling

Answer 19

The continuous repetition of sequences of vowels and consonants like (mamama) by infants; also called repeated babbling

Question 20

Voice onset time

Answer 20

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

Question 21

Variegated babbling

Answer 21

Production of meaningless consonant-vowel sequences by infants

Question 22

Holophrastic stage- One word stage

Answer 22

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

Question 23

Holophrase

Answer 23

A one-word sentence

Question 24

Telegraphic stage

Answer 24

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

Question 25

Overgeneralization

Answer 25

In the study of child language acquisition, a relationship between child and adult application of rules relative to certain contexts: a process in which children extend the application of linguistic rules to contexts beyond those in the adult language

Question 26

Complexive concept

Answer 26

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

Question 27

Overextension

Answer 27

In the study of child language acquisition, a relationship between child and adult perception of word meaning: the child’s application of a given word has a wider range than the application of the same word in adult language

Question 28

Underextention

Answer 28

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

Question 29

Relational term- Relative intersection

Answer 29

Type of relationship between adjective and noun reference where the reference of the adjective is determined relative to the noun reference

Question 30

Deictic expressions

Answer 30

Word or expression that takes its meaning relative to the time time, place, and speaker of the utterance

Question 31

Infant-directed speech

Answer 31

See child directed speech

Question 32

Child-directed speech

Answer 32

Speech used by parents or caregivers when communicating with young children or infants. In many Western societies, child-directed speech is slow and high-pitched and has many repetitions, simplified syntax, exaggerated intonation, and a simple concrete vocabulary

Question 33

Attention getters

Answer 33

Word or phrase used to initiate an address to children

Question 34

Attention holders

Answer 34

A tactic used to maintain children’s attention for extended amounts of time

Question 35

Second- language acquisition

Answer 35

Acquisition of a second language as a teenager or adult

Question 36

Simultaneous bilingualism

Answer 36

Bilingualism in which both languages are acquired from in-fancy

Question 37

Sequential bilingualism

Answer 37

Bilingualism in which the second language is acquired as a young child

Question 38

Foreign accent

Answer 38

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

Question 39

Fossilization

Answer 39

Process through which forms from a speaker’s non-native language usage become fixed (generally in a way that would be considered ungrammatical by a native speaker) and do not change, even after years of instruction

Question 40

Language mixing/ Code switching

Answer 40

Using words or structural elements from more than one language within the same conversation (or even within a single sentence or phrase)