Chapter 9 - Language and Communication

Question 1

Language is _________

Answer 1

symbolic

Question 2

What is language?

Answer 2

Language is a system that relates sound and gestures to meaning

Question 3

What is phonology?

Answer 3

The sounds of a language

Question 4

What is morphology?

Answer 4

The rules of meaning within a language; how we assign meaning, and how we construct ideas within a language

Question 5

What are semantics?

Answer 5

The study of words themselves and their meanings; how words relate to one another

Question 6

What are pragmatics?

Answer 6

How people use language to communicate effectively and practically

Question 7

What are phonemes?

Answer 7

Phonemes are the unique sounds that are the building blocks of any language, such as an accent

Question 8

True or False: Young babies can only hear the phonemes spoken by their parents

Answer 8

False: Young babies can hear phonemes that are not in the language their parents are speaking

Question 9

What is infant-directed speech?

Answer 9

Infant-directed speech is speech that may help children learn a language with its slow and exaggerated changes it pitch and volume

Question 10

What occurs at 2 months for a child’s language development?

Answer 10

Cooing: the exploring of different phonemes of languages (vowels). Babies start with vowels because they are much more easier to produce than consonants

Question 11

What occurs at 6 months for a child’s language development?

Answer 11

Babbling: speech like sounds that have no meaning. Babies start to develop much more muscle control in their throats and mouths, and begin to understand how breathing dynamics work

Question 12

What occurs at 8-11 months for a child’s language development?

Answer 12

Babbling includes intonation, which is how we pitch a word (rising and falling). It requires listening - children are able to tell that certain words are inflected in certain ways.

Question 13

What occurs at around 16 months for a child’s language development?

Answer 13

The first vocabulary spurt occurs and babies start to learn meanings for a bunch of words. Their vocabulary increases from 1-2 words to 50 words and they are usually names for things and people

Question 14

What occurs at around 24 months for a child’s language development?

Answer 14

Their vocabulary has expanded to be around 320 words, and they can generalize new words to many situations. Verbs develop slowly because children do not associate a word with an action until around 18 months

Question 15

What is fast mapping?

Answer 15

Fast mapping is learning word meanings so rapidly that the child can’t be considering all possible meanings

Question 16

What is underextension?

Answer 16

under extension is the use of a word for only one specific object or a single context. It suggests that children initially think of words as belonging to only one thing rather than categories.

Question 17

What is overextension?

Answer 17

Overextension is the use of a single word for a category of objects or multiple contexts. It is more common during the naming explosion and may reflect a lack of vocabulary more than the inability to discriminate

Question 18

What is phonological memory?

Answer 18

Phonological memory is the capacity that a child has to remember words; is a biological component

Question 19

What is referential style?

Answer 19

The referential style consists of words that name objects, persons, and actions (nouns and verbs). In this style, language is used as an intellectual tool to make sense of the world; accommodate and assimilate

Question 20

What is expressive style?

Answer 20

Expressive style includes social phrases that are often used as single words and express states of mind. Children use this as a social tool

Question 21

What are holophrases?

Answer 21

Holophrases are combining a single word with gestures to make a complete thought

Question 22

What are complex sentences?

Answer 22

Complex sentences follow inflections and negation and allow children to use conjunctions to connect two or more ideas.

Question 23

Explain the Behaviourist answer

Answer 23

Language input is important, but learning must be more than just imitation because children produce novel sentences, and children’s speech has its own grammar. Parents rarely reinforce grammatical correctness, and grammatical rules seem too complex to be simply inferred.

Question 24

Explain the nativist answer

Answer 24

This answer has support inborn mechanisms for language: there are specific regions in the brain for different language functions, only humans develop grammar readily, and children develop linguistic communication with little or no formal input.

There is a critical period for learning a language (feral children) There are grammatical rules that seem too complex to be simply inferred.

Question 25

What is Broca’s area?

Answer 25

Broca’s area is the region of the left frontal cortex active in the combination of words into meaningful sentences. This area is necessary for combining words into meaningful sentences.

Question 26

Explain the cognitive answer?

Answer 26

Some researchers believe that powerful cognitive skills can account for language learning: grammar may be learned by detecting regularities in the environment and patterns in grammatical structures

Question 27

Explain the social-interaction answer

Answer 27

Much language learning takes place in the context of interactions between children and adults, with both parties eager for better communication

Question 28

True or False: Gesture use varies between cultures

Answer 28

True, examples: Canadians shake hands when meeting, and the Japanese bow when meeting