Chapter 9: language development

Question 1

What is language?

Answer 1

An arbitrary system of symbols that is rule governed and allows communication about things that are distant in time and/or space.

Language comprehension (receptive)
Language production (expressive)

Question 1

3 Characteristics of Human Language

Answer 1

Language has semanticity, is productive, and has displacement

Question 2

Phonology

Answer 2

Phoneme: unit of speech sound

The important speech sounds of a language and rules for combining basic sounds into larger units

Question 3

Morphology

Answer 3

Morpheme: smallest unit of meaning of language

Combining smallest units of meaning in a language into words

Ex: undo = un + do

Question 4

Syntax

Answer 4

The way a language combines words to form phrases and sentences

Grammar rules

Question 5

Semantics

Answer 5

The meaning associated with the words, symbols, and sentence structure in a language

Face value or literal meaning

Question 6

Pragmatics

Answer 6

Use of language to express thoughts and feelings, accomplish things, and communicate effectively with others

Question 7

Learning Theory (Skinner and Bandura)

Answer 7

Language is learned through operant conditioning (shaping) and modeling
(imitation)

Question 8

Nativist Theory

Answer 8

Noam Chomsky: linguist

Language is an innate human ability

Brain structures dedicated to language

Question 9

Social Interactionist Theory

Answer 9

Social interaction is required to develop language

Question 10

The Iceberg Analogy (Cummings)

Answer 10

Language and thought are controlled by one central processing system

Question 11

Code switching

Answer 11

Bilinguals mixing words and grammar from both languages