Chapter 9 Flashcards
Phonology
The sounds of language
Language
Any rule-based system for expressing ideas
Semantics
The study of words and their meaning
Syntax
Rules that specify how words are combined to form sentences
Pragmatics
How people use language to communicate effectively
Phonemes
Unique speech sounds that can be used to create words
Infant-Directed Speech
Speech that adults use with babies that is slow and loud and has exaggerated changes in pitch; thought to foster infants’ language learning
Cooing
Early vowel-like sounds that babies produce
Babbling
Speech like sounds that consist of vowel-consonant combinations
Intonation
A pattern of rising and falling pitch in speech or babbling that often indicates whether the utterance is a statement, question, or command
Naming Explosion
A period, beginning at about age 18 months, in which children learn new words very rapidly
Fast Mapping
The fact that children make connections between new words and referents so quickly that they cannot be considering all possible meanings
Underextension
When children define words more narrowly than adults do
Overextension
When children define words more broadly than adults do
Phonological Memory
The ability to remember speech sounds briefly; a key component for learning new words easily
Referential Style
A style of language learning that describes children whose vocabularies are dominated by names of objects, persons, or actions
Expressive Style
A style of language learning that describes children whose vocabularies include many social phrases that are used like one word
Telegraphic Speech
A style of speaking, common in 1-year-olds, that includes only words directly relevant to meaning
Grammatical Morphemes
Words or endings of words that make a sentence grammatical
Overregularization
Children’s application of rules to words that are exceptions to the rule; used as evidence that children master grammar by learning rules
Semantic Bootstrapping Theory
A view that children rely on their knowledgable of word meanings to discover grammatical rules
African American English
A dialect of Standard English spoken by some African Americans; has slightly different grammatical rules than Standard English
