Chat 8

Question 1

Active Construction of a Grammar Theory

Answer 1

Theory of a child language which says that children acquire a language by inventing rules of grammar based on the speech around them.

Question 2

Attention Getter

Answer 2

Word or phrase used to initiate an address to children

Question 3

Attention Holder

Answer 3

A tactic used to maintain children’s attention for extended amounts of time.

Question 4

Bilingual

Answer 4

State of commanding two languages; having linguistic competence in two languages. In machine translation, a system that can translate between only one language pair.

Question 5

Child-Directed Speech

Answer 5

Speech used by parents or caregivers when communicating with young children or infants. In many Western societies, child-directed speech is slow and high-pitched and has many repetitions, simplified syntax, exaggerated intonation, and a simple and concrete vocabulary.

Question 6

Code-switching

Answer 6

Using words or structural elements from more than one language within the same conversation (or even within a single sentence or phrase).

Question 7

Completive Concept

Answer 7

A term used in the study of child language acquisition. A group of items (abstract or concrete) that a child refers to with a single word for which it is not possible to single out any one unifying property.

Question 8

Conditioned Head-Turn Procedure (HT)

Answer 8

Experimental technique usually used with infants between five and eighteen months with two phases: conditioning and testing. During the conditioning phase, the infant learns to associate a change in sound with the activation of visual reinforcers, first presented at the same time and then in succession, such that the infant begins to anticipate the appearance of the visual reinforcers and look at them before they are activated. During the testing phase, when the infant looks to the visual reinforcers immediately after a change in sound, it suggests that the infant has perceived the change n sound, thereby demonstrating the ability to discriminate between the two sounds involved.

Question 9

Connectionist Theory

Answer 9

Theory of language acquisition which claims that children learn language through neural connections in the brain. A child develops such connections through exposure to language and by using language.

Question 10

Critical Period

Answer 10

Age span, usually described as lasting from birth to the onset of puberty, during which children must have exposure to language and must build the critical brain structures necessary in order to gain native speaker competence in a language.

Question 11

Foreign Accent

Answer 11

An accent that is marked by the phonology of another language or other languages that are more familiar to the speaker.

Question 12

Fossilization

Answer 12

Process through which forms from a speaker’s non-native language usage become fixed (generally in a way that would be considered ungrammatical by a native speaker) and do not change, even after years of instruction.

Question 13

Holophrase

Answer 13

A one-word sentence

Question 14

Holophrastic Stage

Answer 14

One-word stage

Question 15

Home sign (system)

Answer 15

A rudimentary visual gestural communication system (not a language) that is developed and used by deaf children and their families when a signed language is not made available for their communication.

Question 16

Imitation Theory

Answer 16

Child language acquisition theory that claims that children acquire language by listening to the speech around them and reproducing what they hear.

Question 17

Infant Directed Speech

Answer 17

Speech used by parents or caregivers when communicating with young children or infants. In many Western societies, child-directed speech is slow and high-pitched and has many repetitions, simplified syntax, exaggerated intonation, and a simple and concrete vocabulary.

Question 18

Innate

Answer 18

Determined by factors present from birth.

Question 19

Innateness Hypothese

Answer 19

A hypothesis that humans are generally predisposed to learn and use language.

Question 20

Linguistic Universal

Answer 20

Property believed to be held in common by all natural languages

Question 21

Neglected Child

Answer 21

A child who is neglected by caretakers, often resulting in significantly lower exposure to language as a child.

Question 22

One-word stage

Answer 22

Stage in first language acquisition during which children can produce only one word at a time.

Question 23

Overextension

Answer 23

In the study of child language acquisition, a relationship between child and adult perception of word meaning; the child’s application of a given word has a wider range than the application of the same word in adult language.

Question 24

Overgeneralization

Answer 24

In the study of child language acquisition, a relationship between child and adult application of rules relative to certain contexts: a process in which children extend the application of linguistic rules to contexts beyond those in the adult language.

Question 25

Reinforcement Theory

Answer 25

Theory of child language acquisition which says that children learn to speak like adults because they are praised, rewarded, or otherwise reinforced when they use the right forms and are corrected when they use the wrong ones.

Question 26

Relational Term

Answer 26

Type of relationship between adjective and noun reference where the reference of the adjective is determined relative to the noun reference.

Question 27

Repeated Babbling

Answer 27

The continuous repetition of sequences of vowels and consonants like (mama mama) by infants; also called canonical babbling

Question 28

Sequential Bilingualism

Answer 28

Bilingualism in which the second language is acquired as a young child.

Question 29

Simultaneous Bilingualism

Answer 29

Bilingualism in which both languages are acquired from infancy.

Question 30

Social Interaction Theory

Answer 30

Theory of language acquisition that claims that children acquire language through social interaction- in particular relationships between participants in the discourse, what their status is relative to each other, and so on.

Question 31

Telegraphic Stage

Answer 31

A phase during child language acquisition in which children use utterances composed primarily of content words.

Question 32

Telegraphic utterances

Answer 32

Utterances containing primarily content words (in the style of a telegram with many function words and function morphemes left out).

Question 33

Two-word stage

Answer 33

Stage in first-language acquisition at which children produce two-word utterances in addition to one-word utterances.

Question 34

Underextension

Answer 34

Application of a word to a smaller set of objects than is appropriate for mature adult speech or the usual definition of the word.

Question 35

Universal Grammar

Answer 35

The theory hat posits a set of grammatical characteristics shared by all natural languages. Also, the name of this set of shared characteristics.

Question 36

Variegated Babbling

Answer 36

Production of meaningless consonant-vowel sequences by infants

Question 37

Voice Onset Time

Answer 37

The length of time between the release of a consonant and the onset of voicing, that is, when the vocal folds start vibrating.

Question 38

causative sentences

Answer 38

(who did what to whom; e.g. the bunny pushed the frog

Question 39

LAD

Answer 39

language acquisition device that Chomsky originally theorized that all children are born with to acquire language

Question 40

UG

Answer 40

stands for universal grammar, later theory by Chomsky