Chapter 9: Language Development Flashcards
babbling
Babies’ repetition of consonant–vowel combinations, often in long strings, beginning around 6 months of age.
Broca’s area
A structure located in the left frontal lobe of the cerebral cortex that supports grammatical processing and language production.
categorical speech perception
The tendency to perceive as identical a range of sounds that belong to the same phonemic class.
code switching
A strategy in which bilingual individuals produce an utterance in one language that contains one or more “guest” words from the other, without violating the grammar of either language.
comprehension
In language development, the words children understand.
Distinguished from production.
cooing
Pleasant vowel-like noises made by infants, beginning around 2 months of age.
emergentist coalition model
The view that word-learning strategies emerge out of children’s efforts to decipher language, during which they draw on a coalition of perceptual, social, and linguistic cues that shift in importance with age.
expansions
Adult responses that elaborate on children’s speech, increasing its complexity.
expressive style
A style of early language learning in which toddlers use language mainly to talk about their own and others’ feelings and needs, with an initial vocabulary emphasizing social formulas and pronouns. Distinguished from referential style.
fast-mapping
Children’s ability to connect a new word with an underlying concept after only a brief encounter.
grammar
The component of language concerned with syntax, the rules by which words are arranged into sentences, and morphology, the use of grammatical markers indicating number, tense, case, person, gender, active or passive voice, and other meanings.
grammatical morphemes
In language development, small markers that change the meaning of sentences, as in “John’s dog” and “he is eating.”
illocutionary intent
In conversation, what a speaker means to say, even if the form of the utterance is not perfectly consistent with it.
infant-directed speech
A form of communication used by adults in many countries when speaking to babies, consisting of short sentences with high-pitched, exaggerated expression, clear pronunciation, distinct pauses between speech segments, clear gestures to support verbal mean- ing, and repetition of new words in a variety of contexts.
joint attention
A state in which child and caregiver attend to the same object or event and the caregiver labels what the child sees, which contributes to language development.
language acquisition device
In Chomsky’s theory,an innate system containing a universal grammar, or set of rules common to all languages, that permits children, once they have acquired sufficient vocabulary, to understand and speak in a rule-oriented fashion.
metalinguistic awareness
The ability to think about language as a system.
morphology
The use of grammatical markers indicating number, tense, case, person, gender, active or passive voice, and other meanings
mutual exclusivity bias
Children’s assumption in early vocabulary growth
that words refer to entirely separate, non-overlapping categories.
overextension
An early vocabulary error in which a word is applied to a wider collection of objects and events than is appropriate. Distinguished from underextension.
overregularization
Extension of regular morphological rules to words that
are exceptions.
phoneme
The smallest sound units that signal a change in meaning.
phonological store
A special part of short-term memory that permits retention of speech-based information and, thus, supports early vocabulary
development.
phonology
The component of language consisting of the rules governing the structure and sequence of speech sounds.
pragmatics
The component of language consisting of the rules for engaging in appropriate and effective communication.
production
In language development, the words and word combinations that children use. Distinguished from comprehension.
protodeclarative
A preverbal communicative gesture in which the baby points to, touches, or holds up an object while looking at others to make sure they notice. Distinguished from protoimperative.
protoimperative
A preverbal communicative gesture in which the baby gets another person to do something by reaching, pointing, and often making sounds at the same time. Distinguished from protodeclarative.
recasts
Adult responses that restructure children’s grammatically inaccurate speech into correct form.
referential communication skills
The ability to produce clear verbal mes- sages and to recognize when the meaning of others’ messages is uncle
referential style
A style of early language learning in which toddlers use language mainly to label objects. Distinguished from expressive style.
semantic bootstrapping
In language development, children’s reliance on
semantics, or word meanings, to figure out sentence structure
semantics
The component of language that involves vocabulary—the way underlying concepts are expressed in words and word combinations.
shading
A conversational strategy in which a speaker initiates a change of topic gradually by modifying the focus of discussion.
shape bias
In early language development, children’s tendency to rely heavily on shape as a distinguishing property when learning names for objects.
speech registers
Language adaptations to social expectations.
syntactic bootstrapping
In language development, children’s discovery of
word meanings by observing how words are used in syntax, or the structure of sentences.
syntax
The rules by which words are arranged into sentences.
telegraphic speech
Young children’s two-word utterances that, like a tele- gram, focus on high-content words, omitting smaller, less important ones.
turnabout
A conversational strategy in which the speaker, after commenting on what has just been said, also adds a request to get the partner to respond again.
underextension
An early vocabulary error in which a word is applied too narrowly, to a smaller number of objects or events than is appropriate. Distinguished from overextension.
universal grammar
In Chomsky’s theory of language development, a built-in storehouse of grammatical rules common to all human languages.
Wernicke’s area
A language structure located in the left temporal lobe of the cerebral cortex that plays a role in comprehending word meaning.
