Chapter 9: Language and Communication

Question 1

Language differs from simple communication in four main ways:

Answer 1

• It has arbitrary units and is therefore symbolic.
• It is structured and meaningful.
• It shows displacement—one can communicate about events distant in time and space, not just here and now.
• It is characterized by generatively—you can produce an infinite number of utterances from a language’s vocabulary, provided that you follow the structure.

Question 2

phonology

Answer 2

The sounds of a language.

Question 3

Morphology

Answer 3

rules of meaning within the language

Question 4

Semantics

Answer 4

denotes the study of words and their meaning

Question 5

Syntax

Answer 5

refers to rules that specify how words are combined to form sentences.

Question 6

Pragmatics

Answer 6

refers to the communicative functions of language and the rules that lead to effective communication. For example, rules for effective communication specify that speakers should be clear and their comments relevant to the topic of conversation

Question 7

Identifying words

Answer 7

7-and 8-month-olds can listen to sentences and recognize the sound patterns that they hear repeatedly
- Stress is one important clue. English contains many one-syllable words that are stressed and many two-syllable words that have a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable (e.g., “doughnut,” “toothpaste,” “basket”). Infants pay more attention to stressed syllables than unstressed syllables, which is a good strategy for identifying the beginnings of words

Question 8

cooing

Answer 8

At 2 months, infants begin to produce vowel-like sounds, such as “ooooooo” or “ahh-hhhh,”

Question 9

Babbling

Answer 9

After cooing comes babbling, speech-like sound that has no meaning

Babbling is not just mindless playing with sounds—it is a precursor to real speech.

Intonation: A pattern of rising and falling pitch in speech or babbling that often indicates whether the utterance is a statement, question, or command.

Question 10

Intonation in Babbling

Answer 10

The appearance of intonation in babbling indicates a strong link between perception and production of speech: Infants’ babbling is influenced by the characteristics of the speech that they hear

Question 11

cochlear implant

Answer 11

A device that picks up speech sounds and converts them to electrical impulses that stimulate nerve cells in the ear.

Question 12

Naming explosion

Answer 12

A period, beginning at about age 18 months, in which children learn new words very rapidly.

Question 13

fast mapping

Answer 13

The fact that children make connections between new words and referents so quickly that they can’t be considering all possible meanings
- ex when a parents says dog and the baby points at it

Question 14

Rules for learning new words

Answer 14

If an unfamiliar word is heard in the presence of objects that already have names and objects that do not, the word refers to one of the objects that does not have a name.

A name refers to a whole object, not its parts or its relation to other objects, and refers not just to this particular object but to all objects of the same type

If an object already has a name and another name is presented, the new name denotes a subcategory of the original name

Given many similar category members, a word applied consistently to only one of them is a proper noun. If a child who knows “dinosaur” sees that one of a group of dinosaurs is always called “Dino,” the child will conclude that Dino is the name of that dinosaur.

Question 15

A Shape-Bias Theory of Word Learning

Answer 15

Linda Smith argues that shape plays a central role in learning words.

In Smith’s theory, children first associate names with a single object: “Ball” is associated with a specific tennis ball, and “cup” is associated with a favourite sippy cup. As children encounter new balls and new cups, however, they hear the same words applied to similarly shaped objects and reach the conclusion that balls are round and cups are cylinders with handles.

Question 16

under-extension

Answer 16

When children define words more narrowly than adults do.

Question 17

overextention

Answer 17

When children define words more broadly than adults do.

Question 18

phonological memory

Answer 18

The ability to briefly remember speech sounds.

Question 19

referential style

Answer 19

A style of language learning that describes children whose vocabularies are dominated by names of objects, persons, or actions

Question 20

expressive style

Answer 20

A style of language learning that describes children whose vocabularies include many social phrases that are used like one word.

Question 21

telegraphic speech

Answer 21

speech A style of speaking common in 1-year-olds that includes only words directly relevant to meaning.

like telegrams of days gone by, it consists only of words directly relevant to meaning.

Question 22

grammatical morphemes

Answer 22

words ending in “ing” or “ed”

Question 23

over-regularization

Answer 23

Children’s application of rules to words that are exceptions to the rule; used as evidence that children master grammar by learning rules.

Question 24

Behaviourist: how do children acquire grammar

Answer 24

The simplest explanation for learning grammar is that children imitate the grammatical forms they hear. In fact, B. F. Skinner (1957) and other learning theorists once claimed that all aspects of language—sounds, words, grammar, and communication—are learned through imitation and reinforcement

Question 25

Nativist: how do children acquire grammar

Answer 25

Beginning with Chomsky (1957), linguists proposed that children are born with mechanisms that simplify the task of learning grammar (Slobin, 1985). According to this view, children are born with neural circuits in the brain that allow them to infer the grammar of the language that they hear. That is, grammar itself is not built into the child’s nervous system, but processes that guide the learning of grammar are.

For example, according to semantic bootstrapping theory, children are born knowing that nouns usually refer to people or objects and that verbs are actions; they use this knowledge to infer grammatical rules.

Question 26

Pidgin

Answer 26

A rudimentary language developed when groups of people from different linguistic backgrounds living in the same place need to communicate.

Question 27

Creole

Answer 27

A full language seemingly spontaneously developed by children of pidgin speakers.

Question 28

Cognititve; How do children acquire grammar

Answer 28

Some theorists (e.g., Braine, 1992) believe that children learn grammar through powerful cognitive skills that help them rap-idly detect regularities in their environments, including patterns in the speech they hear. According to this approach, it is as if children establish a huge Excel spreadsheet that has all the speech they have heard in one column and the context in which they heard it in a second column; periodically, infants scan the columns looking for recurring patterns

Question 29

Social-interaction: how do children acquire grammar

Answer 29

all views combined

From the behaviourist approach, it takes an emphasis on the environment; from the nativist approach, that language learning is distinct; and from the cognitive view, that children have powerful cognitive skills they can use to master language. The unique contribution of this perspective is in emphasizing that children master language generally and grammar specifically in the context of social interactions

Question 30

Symbolic Interaction theory

Answer 30

A theory of social-interaction effects in language learning that considers human interaction as directed by symbols, the meaning of which is created in human interactions.

Question 31

Relational frame theory (RTF)

Answer 31

A theory of social-interaction effects in language learning that considers links between stimuli (i.e., the relations between perceived stimuli).

Question 32

ASL fulfills the criteria for language because

Answer 32

1. It has arbitrary units and is therefore symbolic.
2. ASL is structured and meaningful
3. ASL shows displacement. ASL can be used to communicate about events distant in time and space. It is as easy to sign “Yesterday I went to the gym”
4. there is generativity. A signer can combine signs in any number of ways, provided that the basic linguistic structure of the sign language is followed.