Child Language

Question 1

What is the quote by Broomfield about learning to speak?

Answer 1

“Learning to speak is the greatest intellectual feat any of us is ever required to perform”.

Question 2

What is Innateness (Nativism)?

Answer 2

The idea that at least some knowledge about language exists in humans at birth; a built-in capacity for language development.

Question 3

What does Behaviourism emphasize?

Answer 3

The role of environmental factors in influencing behaviour, to the near exclusion of innate or inherited factors.

Question 4

What is the Behaviourist view of the mind at birth?

Answer 4

The mind is ‘tabula rasa’, a blank slate (Skinner); we must mimic the speech we hear, reinforced by caregivers.

Question 5

What is the concept of Social interaction in language acquisition?

Answer 5

Caregivers design speech for children, giving them opportunities to participate in discourse; positive relationships form the basis for future communication.

Question 6

What does Cognitivism focus on?

Answer 6

Viewing speech acquisition in relation to a child’s mental and emotional development; linguistic structures are used when the concept is understood (Piaget).

Question 7

What are the stages of Pre-speech development?

Answer 7

Biological noises > cooing > vocal play > babbling > melodic utterance.

Question 8

What is the Language Acquisition Support System (LASS)?

Answer 8

A child’s social support network; the caregivers and help they provide towards speech acquisition.

Question 9

Who are More Knowledgeable Others (MKO)?

Answer 9

Caregivers, parents, older siblings - anyone who interacts with a child who has more experience of speech.

Question 10

What is Child Directed Speech (CDS)?

Answer 10

Linguistic features used to accommodate children.

Question 11

What is The Baby Talk Register?

Answer 11

A list of typical CDS features.

Question 12

What is The Motherese Hypothesis?

Answer 12

The idea that the special restrictive properties of caretaker speech play a causal role in language acquisition - not generally accepted today.

Question 13

What is the Language Acquisition Device (LAD)?

Answer 13

An instinctive mental capacity enabling acquisition and production of language.

Question 14

What is Universal Grammar?

Answer 14

A set of principles upon which all languages build.

Question 15

What is a Virtuous error?

Answer 15

A nonstandard utterance from a child based upon logical conclusions about grammar and morphology.

Question 16

What is receptive vocabulary?

Answer 16

Lexis a child can understand.

Question 17

What is productive vocabulary?

Answer 17

Lexis a child can produce.

Question 18

What is Holophrasis?

Answer 18

Where a single word represents the meaning of a potentially longer utterance.

Question 19

What is Over-extension?

Answer 19

Overly broad (mis)use of a lexeme based on perceived similarities/relationships; divided into categorical, analogical, and mismatch statements (Rescorla).

Question 20

What is Under-extension?

Answer 20

Overly narrow (mis)use of a lexeme.

Question 21

What did Nelson’s study on Children’s Fifty First Words suggest?

Answer 21

Four categories for early lexis: 1) naming things or people 2) actions and events 3) describing/modifying 4) personal and social words.

Question 22

What are the Stages of Child’s Acquisition of Vocabulary (Aitchison)?

Answer 22

1) Labelling: linking sounds and objects 2) Packaging: understanding a word’s range of meaning 3) Network building: grasping connections between words.

Question 23

What is Holophrasis in terms of expression?

Answer 23

The expression of a whole phrase in a single word.

Question 24

Taxonomy of Language Functions (Halliday)

Answer 24

Classification of the functions of (potentially non-standard) utterances of a child: instrumental, regulatory, interactional, personal, representational, heuristic, imaginative.

Question 25

Categories of Children's Speech Functions (Dore)

Answer 25

Categorisation of the speech functions of 12-18 month old children: labelling, repeating, answering, requesting (action), requesting (answer), calling, greeting, protesting, practising.

Question 26

Fis Phenomenon (Berko and Brown)

Answer 26

Concept of phoneme perception occurring earlier than the ability of the child to produce those phonemes.

Question 27

Telegraphic speech

Answer 27

Stage in children's language development where utterances are created without function words.

Question 28

Word spurt

Answer 28

Highly productive phase of acquiring lexis triggered by a child's newfound ability to construct interrogative clauses.

Question 29

Stages of interrogative acquisition (Klima and Bellugi)

Answer 29

Questioning function is initially expressed prosodically with rising intonation. Children structure closed interrogatives with an initial auxiliary element before they can employ initial interrogative pronouns.

Question 30

Stages of negation (Bellugi)

Answer 30

1) Children use 'no' to begin an utterance. 2) Negation (no/not) moves inside the clause. 3) Child achieves the standard form.

Question 31

The Critical Period Hypothesis (Lenneberg)

Answer 31

Claim that there is an ideal 'window' of time to acquire language in a linguistically rich environment, after which further language acquisition becomes much more difficult.

Question 32

Genie

Answer 32

Case name for a girl kept in social isolation. Discovered at age 13, linguists explored whether she could still acquire speech outside of the Critical Period. She never fully acquired the grammatical structures of English.

Question 33

Jim

Answer 33

Case name for the son of deaf parents (studied by Bard and Sachs) whose speech development was severely limited until attending speech therapy, indicating the importance of verbal interaction.

Question 34

Wug Test (Berko Gleason)

Answer 34

Research tool designed to test acquisition and application of the morphological system.

Question 35

Principles and Parameter Theory (Pinker)

Answer 35

By hearing the principles and parameters of a native language, children can define and retain the rules.

Question 36

Truth value vs. reinforcement (Brown, Cazden and Bellugi)

Answer 36

Parents often respond to the truth value of what their child is saying, rather than how standard the grammar is. ## Footnote For example, a parent is more likely to respond to 'there doggie' with 'Yes, it's a dog!' than 'No, it's there is a dog.'

Question 37

Reading meaning into social situation (Macnamara)

Answer 37

Children have an innate capacity to read meaning into social situations, making them capable of learning language.

Question 38

Pre-speech interaction (Clarke-Stewart)

Answer 38

Children whose parents talk to them a lot during pre-speech have larger vocabularies later on than other children.

Question 39

Sociodramatic play (Garvey)

Answer 39

Children often adopt roles and identities, acting out storylines, practising negotiation and social interaction. Dramatic play has explicit rules and reflects real world behaviour.