child language acquisition key terms/concepts Flashcards
what is innateness?
the concept of language being natural and instinctive and something we are all born with
what is child directed speech?
the special way adults adapt their language when talking to children
when is the average first word said with babies?
13 months
what is babbling?
repeating a single syllable over and over eg. bababa dadada mamama
what are bilabial sounds?
sounds produced using your lips eg.
b,p,m,w
what is a phoneme?
a sound
what are feral children?
children brought up without social interaction due to neglect
eg.
Genie Whitley was neglected for 13 years
Oxana Malaya was raised by dogs in Ukraine
what is the critical period hypothesis?
the idea that there is a set period of time where language learning is possible, if this period has passed it means that the child won’t be able to learn language fluently
usually 10-13 years old
what is cognitive ability?
a child’s ability to understand concepts, words, ideas etc.
what is phonological development?
how children learn the sounds of language
what is lexical development?
the process of learning words
what is semantic development?
learning the meanings of words
what is grammatical development?
how to organise and structure sentences
what is phonemic expansion?
when the sounds produced by a baby increase
what is phonemic contraction?
within a few months the sounds of a baby contracts to those present in their native language
describe the concept of understanding coming before production
children can understand words before they can produce them / speak
what is a semantic error?
an error to do with meanings
what is syntax?
sentence structure / word order
what are content words?
words that carry meaning
e.g. nouns and adjectives
usually babies say these first
what are function words?
words that carry grammatical function e.g. determiners, conjunctions
babies learn to say these after content words
what is pragmatical development?
a children’s ability to learn the unspoken rules of conversation
e.g. turn-taking, politeness
what are inflections?
suffixes added to the end of words
e.g.
plural inflection: +s
possessive inflection:+’s
past tense verb inflection: +ed
what is over-generalisation?
over using a grammatical rule
e.g.
runnED
sheepS
would be over-generalising the past-tense inflection
what’s a virtuous error?
mistakes made by children while learning grammar
what are irregular words?
words that don’t take the regular rule
what is metalinguistic awareness?
understanding of the structures of language
