CLA Theorists Flashcards
What was Clark’s theory and is she nature or nurture?
- Overextension/Underextension
- Naturw
What did Clark say about acquisition of meaning?
- A word must be refined once acquired
What is analogical overextension? Provide an example
- Making links between different objects with similar properties
- i.e All spherical objects a ball
What is categorical overextension? Provide an example
- Referring to all objects in the same category by the same name
- i.e Apple for all fruits, Daddy for all men, Car for all vehicles
Provide an example of underextension
- Applying “grape” to only green grapes, not purple grapes
How does Clark’s theory fit with nature?
- Shows an innate capacity to make sense of language through making connections between words
What are Berko and Brown’s theories and is nature of nurture?
- “Fis” phenomenon
- “Wug” test
- Nature
Explain the “fis” phenomenon
- Child refers to fish as “fis”
- Adult asks, “Is this your fis?” = child says no
- Adult asks, “Is this your fish?” = child says yes
- Child could not make “sh” sound but was aware of the different phonemes
What does the “fis” phenomenon show?
- A child’s comprehension is more advanced than their ability to produce words
Explain the “wug” test
- Child is presented with a “wug”
- Asked what two of these would be called
- Child (aged 3-4) said “wugs”
What does the “wug” test show?
- “Wug” is a made up word, yet children show acquisition of grammatical rules innately
What is Pinker’s theory and is it nature or nurture?
- Language instinct
- Nature
Why do children learn to speak, according to Pinker?
- Children learn to speak out of necessity of communication
- It is an evolutionary instinct which betters our chances of survival
What are Chomsky’s 3 theories and is he nature or nurture?
- Theory of Universal Grammar
- LAD (Language Acquisition Device)
- Poverty of Stimulus
- Nature
What is the Theory of Universal Grammar, and who came up with it?
- Chomsky
- Argues that we are all born with an innate understanding with the way language works
What was identified within the Theory of Universal Grammar, regarding other languages?
- All languages have similar grammar structures (i.e verbs, nouns, adjectives)
What did Chomsky say about grammar vs vocabulary?
- Grammar = innate
- Vocabulary = learnt
What 3 things does the Theory of Universal Grammar explain?
- Virtuous errors (i.e runned)
- Unique utterances (i.e wug)
- Over/Under extension
What is the LAD? Who created this theory?
- Children have a hypothetical tool in the brain which helps to learn and quickly understand language
- Chomsky
What does Poverty of Stimulus argue? Who came up with this?
- Humans must have innate capabilities, as we learn our native language without being exposed to every type of environmental conditions and correct quality input from adults
- Chomsky
What was Piaget’s theory? Is he nature or nurture?
- 4 cognitive stages
- Nature AND nurture
What did Piaget say about children being taught language?
- Children cannot be taught language before they are cognitively able to
What are the 4 cognitive stages? Provide the ages, too!
- Sensorimotor, 0-2 years
- Pre-Operational, 2-7 years
- Concrete Operational, 7-12 years
- Formal Operational, 12-16 years
What 5 things included within the Sensorimotor stage?
- Egocentric
- Concrete lexis
- Learns through movement/sensation (i.e looking and grasping)
- Object permanence
- Realises their actions have an effect
What are the 4 things in the Pre-Operational stage?
- Egocentric
- Animism
- Thinking symbolically with words and pictures
- Developed motor skills
What are the 2 things included in the Concrete Operational stage?
- Less egocentric
- Thinking logically about concrete events
What thing is in the Formal Operational stage?
- Abstract thinking/hypothetical thoughts (i.e social, moral, ethical and political issues)
What are Aitchison’s 3 stages in her theory? Is she nature or nurture?
- Labelling
- Packaging
- Network Building
- Nature AND nurture
What two things does Aitchison believe about the speed of learning?
- The speed of learning is due to nature and nurture
- There is no exact date to which a child develops language
What is Labelling? Whose idea is this?
- Associating a name to something (i.e “Mummy” for mother)
- Aitchison
What is Packaging? Whose idea is this?
- Understanding a word’s semantics, like over and under extension
- Aitchison
What is Network Building? Whose idea is this?
- Connection between words and how they can be opposite in building
- Aitchison
What 2 groups are in Network Building? Provide an example
- Hypernym = a word that can group other words (e.g colours)
- Hyponym = a word that can fit into a hypernym (e.g red, blue, green)
What is a morpheme?
- The smallest unit of a word
What is a free morpheme? Provide an example
- Make sense on their own
- i.e “Eat”, “weak”, “date”
What is a bound morpheme? Provide the two types
- Does not make sense on its own
- Derivational affixes
- Inflectional affixes
What is a base word? Provide an example
- The root of a word
- i.e “woman” in “womanly”
What is an affix?
- Suffixes/prefixes
What does a derivational affix do? Provide an example
- Alter meaning of a word
- i.e “healthy” vs “UNhealthy”, “garden” VS “gardener”
What does an inflectional affix do? Provide an example
- Changes tense/grammar
- “-er”, “-est”, “-s”
What is the morpheme in the word “dissent”?
- Bound morpheme -sent
What is the morpheme in the word “walls”?
- Inflectional affix -s
- Free morpheme/base = “wall”
What was Snow’s theory? Nature or nurture?
- CDS (Child-Directed Speech)
- Nurture
Name at least 7 out of 14 features of CDS
- Prosody
- Simplified vocabulary
- Repeated grammatical frames
- Simplified grammar
- Paralinguistics
- Recasting
- Expansion
- Labelling
- Echoing
- Over-articulating
- Higher pitch
- Frequent use of child’s name
- Mitigated imperatives
- Expatiation (speaking in detail)
What are 3 positives of using CDS?
- Creates a positive relationship between adult and child
- Makes language more understandable
- Evokes a response
Why may CDS not be essential?
- Some cultures do not use CDS and are still fluent in their language
What was Weber et al’s study? Nature or nurture
- CDS in Senegal
- Nurture
Explain Weber et al’s study
- Encouraged CDS in Wolof-speaking villages
- Caregivers with CDS doubled usage, others made no change
What did Weber et al find after 1 year?
- Program villages’ children produced more utterances and had a greater improvement in language
- Shows CDS is helpful
What is Lenneburg’s theory? Nature or nurture?
- The “Critical Period” Hypothesis
- Nurture
What is the “Critical Period” Hypothesis? Whose theory is it?
- The Critical Period is the ideal time span to acquire language (0-5)
- Lenneburg
What did Szendroi say about children’s early noun usage?
- Their early nouns are concrete nouns due to growing up in a domestic setting
Is Szendroi nature or nurture?
Nature
What did Szendroi say surrounding virtuous errors?
- Virtuous errors are due to lack of comprehension rather than mispronunciation
What may a child think if an adult repeats an incorrect form, according to Szendroi?
- The child may believe they are being mocked
What did Szendroi say about correcting language?
- Correcting language is superfluous as they will learn it eventually
What was B.F Skinner’s theory? Nature or nurture?
- Operant Conditioning
- Nurture
What is Operant conditioning and what are the 3 reinforcement types? Whose idea is this?
- Behaviour changing due to reinforcement
- Positive reinforcement, Negative reinforcement, Punishment
- B.F Skinner
What is Positive reinforcement? What does it encourage?
- Child is rewarded through praise/a treat for using language correctly
- Encourages repetition
What is Negative reinforcement? What does it encourage?
- Child is interrupted for the correct use of language
- Encourages repetition of correct form
What is Punishment? What does it discourage?
- Child is told of for using language wrong
- Discourages repetition of incorrect form
What 3 things can Punishment cause?
- Aggression/fear
- Behaviour can come back
- Does not cause wanted behaviour
What are the 3 main criticisms of Operant Conditioning theory?
- Children don’t “imitate” correct forms
- Fails to explain unique utterances
- Theory relies on lack of free will that children have
What is Bruner’s 4 theories? Nature or nurture?
- Scaffolding theory
- Spiral Curriculum
- 3 modes of representation
- LASS
What is Scaffolding theory? Whose theory is it?
- When children learn new concept, they need help from adults
- They are dependant to become independent
- Bruner
What is Spiral Curriculum? Whose theory is this?
- The more you learn, the more complex it becomes
- Bruner
What are the 3 modes of representation Describe what they are
- Enactive = physical learning (muscle memory)
- Iconic = visual learning (videos)
- Symbolic = written learning
What is the Language Acquisition Support System (LASS)? Whose theory is this?
- Caregivers support children through CDS/interaction
- Good quality interactions = more active role from child
- Bruner
What case does the LASS support?
Genie’s case study
What are Vygotsky’s 2 theories? Nature or nurture?
- The Zone of Proximal Development (ZoPD)
- MKO (More Knowledgeable Others)
What is the Zone of Proximal Development?
- The distance between what a child can understand and what they are yet to learn
What are the 3 stages in the ZoPD?
- Tasks that cannot be completed with assistance
- Tasks that can be completed with assistance
- Tasks that can be completed without assistance
What is an MKO? Whose theory is this?
- Anyone with a higher ability/better understanding than the learner
- Vygotsky
What did Vygotsky say about learning from an MKO?
- Learning becomes more productive and contributory to cognitive development when acquired from an MKO
What 3 things did Bellugi explore?
- Pronouns
- Negatives
- Questions
What are the 3 stages in Pronoun usage?
- Name instead of pronoun
- I/me pronouns used wrong
- I/me pronouns used right
What are the 3 stages in Negative usage? Provide an example for each
- No/not at the start/end of sentences (No wear shoes!)
- No/not inside sentence (I no want it!)
- Uses negative auxiliary securely (No, I don’t want to go!)
What is used in the Holophrastic/Two-word stage for Questions?
- Upward intonation (have book?)
What 4 main things are used in the Post-telegraphic stage for Questions?
- Yes/no interrogatives
- Inversion
- Tag questions
- Rising intonation
What did Brown explore in his theory?
- Morphemes and syntax
What are the ages for the 4 stages in Brown’s theory?
Stage 1 = 1 - 2.5 years Stage 2 = 2.5 - 3 years Stage 3 = 3 - 3.5 years Stage 4 = 3.5 - 4 years Stage 5 = 4 - 4.5 years
Include 2 details of Stage 1 of Brown’s theory
- No bound morphemes
- Word order generally correct
Include 3 details of Stage 2 of Brown’s theory
- Bound morphemes
- Present progressive tense (-ing)
- Regular -s plurals
Include 4 details of Stage 3 of Brown’s theory
- Adverbs
- Adjectives
- Possessives
- Determiners
Include 1 detail of Stage 4 of Brown’s theory
- Regular past tense “-ed”
Include 1 detail of Stage 5 of Brown’s theory
- Compound sentences
What did Nelson do?
- Categorised the first 50 words a child learns
What 2 results did Nelson find?
- 60% = Concrete nouns
- 8% = Personal/social lexis
What did Nelson say about early words learned by a child?
- Early words were things that moved, made a noise or change in some way
What did Dore explore?
- 8 Functions
What are the benefits of Dore’s theory?
- Can be easily applied and less complex
What are Dore’s 8 functions? Explain them
- Labelling = Naming/identifying a person/object
- Repeating = Repeating an adult word/utterance
- Requesting action = Demanding/asking something to be done for them
- Answering = Giving a direct response/answer to another spoker
- Calling = Attracting attention via shouting
- Greeting = Greeting someone/something
- Protesting = Objecting to requests
- Practising = Practising language when no adult is present
What did Halliday explore?
- 7 Functions
- Systemic Functional Language (SFL)
What did Halliday say?
- Contextual factors are key to language learning
What are Halliday’s 7 functions?
- Instrumental
- Interactional
- Imaginative
- Personal
- Regulatory
- Representational
- Heuristic
What is Instrumental function? Provide an example
- Used to fulfil a need
- i.e “want juice”
What is Interactional function? Provide an example
- Develops social relationships
- i.e “night night, love you!”
What is Imaginative function? Provide an example
- Explores imagination (playing)
- i.e “I’m Superman!”
What is Personal function? Provide an example
- Identity/opinions
- i.e “me like Tigger!”
What is Regulatory function? Provide an example
- Influences others’ behaviour
- i.e “put down”
What is Representational function? Provide an example
- Conveys facts/information
- i.e “it cold”
What is Heuristic function? Provide an example
- Learning/exploring environment
- i.e “wassat? why?”
What are the 7 phonological errors in language developement?
- Deletion
- Substitution
- Addition
- Assimilation
- Reduplication
- Consonant cluster reductions
- Deletion of unstressed syllables
What is deletion? Provide an example
- Omitting final consonant in words
- do(g), cu(p)
What is substitution? Provide an example
- Substituting one sound for another
- “pip” for “ship”
What is addition? Provide an example
- Adding an extra vowel at the end of words = CVCV pattern
- “doggie”
What is assimilation? Provide an example
- Changing one consonant/vowel for another, often d and b
- “gog” for “dog”
What is reduplication? Provide an example
- Repeating a whole syllable
- “dada”, “mama”
What is a consonant cluster reduction? Provide an example
- Consonant clusters are hard to articulate, so children reduce them to easier sounds
- “‘pider” = “spider”
What is deletion of unstressed syllables? Provide an example
- Omitting the opening syllable in polysyllabic words
- “nana” = “banana”
What is an unstressed syllable? Provide an example
- Part of the word that isn’t emphasised
- “to-DAY”, “DOC-tor”
What are the 4 lexical stages in development? Provide the ages
- Holophrastic (1 to 1.5 years)
- Two-word (1.5 to 2 years)
- Telegraphic (2 to 3 years)
- Post-telegraphic (3+ years)
What are the 3 details in the Holophrastic stage?
- One word utterances
- Context-dependant = “food” can mean many things
- Concrete nouns
What are the 2 details in the Two-word stage?
- 2 words to make simple syntactic structures
- Subject + verb/verb + object (i.e “Mummy play”)
What 4 things are omitted in the Telegraphic stage?
- Verb inflections
- Auxiliary verbs
- Prepositions
- Determiners
What are the 3 details in the Telegraphic stage?
- 3+ words joined accurately
- Starts questions, negative, pronouns (Bellugi)
- Omissions of verb inflections, auxiliary verbs, prepositions and determiners
What are the 5 details in the Post-telegraphic stage?
- 3+ words joined in a complex way
- Compound/complex sentences
- Passive voice
- Adverbial clauses
- Longer noun phrases
What are the 4 preverbal stages? Provide the ages
- Vegetative = 0-4 months
- Cooing = 4-6 months
- Babbling = 6-12 months
- Protowords = 9-12 months
What is in the Vegetative stage? Provide an example
- Sounds of discomfort/reflexive actions
- Crying, burping, coughing, sucking
What 5 things are in the Cooing stage?
- Comfort sounds/vocal play (coos)
- Laughter starts
- Hard consonants and vowels
- Pitch = squeals and growls
- Loudness = yelling
What 4 things are in the Babbling stage?
- Repeated patterns
- Sounds linking to own language
- Reduplicated sounds = “ba-ba”
- Non-reduplicated sounds = “agu”
What 2 things are in the Proto word stage?
- Word-like vocalisations (“mama”, “dada”, “baba”)
- Sounds has correspondence to something concrete
