Closer look at vocabulary

Question 1

What is fastmapping?

Answer 1

Children map novel words onto novel objects in the presence of other familiar objects

Question 2

What is domain-specific?

Answer 2

Unique language mechanism at work underpinning children’s acquisition of vocabulary

Question 3

What is domain-general?

Answer 3

Children make use of general learning mechanisms to acquire vocabulary, rather than having specific ‘machinery’ for learning language, e.g. from memory, learning, executive function

Question 4

What is semantic feature analysis?

Answer 4

A word map tool used in clinical practice to help children and young people develop semantic connections

Question 5

What is boot-strapping?

Answer 5

This is a process whereby you can create something more complex and effective using your existing resources, or use existing strengths in one area to help you understand or learn something in other domains.
Compensates for deficits in other domains

Question 6

What is semantic boot-strapping?

Answer 6

Semantic knowledge helps the child pick out recurring phonological forms

• depends on shared focus of attention
• verbs are hard to learn as they are transient

Question 7

What is phonological boot-strapping?

Answer 7

If the child hears a phonological form with which they are unfamiliar, they will search for the meaning it is attached to
For example, children assign masculinity/femininity depending on the name rather than cues from the pictures

Question 8

What is syntactic boot-strapping?

Answer 8

The reverse of semantic bootstrapping
Some knowledge of verb-argument structure is required
Use own knowledge of sentence structure to decipher what action the word is referring to

Question 9

What are the mechanisms of word learning?

Answer 9

Input
Syntax
Lexical Constraints
Attention and Learning
Conceptual bias
Pragmatics

Question 10

What is input?

Answer 10

The rate and manner in which children acquire words is affected by the way their parents talk to them

Question 11

What is syntax?

Answer 11

Predicting word meaning from assumed word class due to position in sentence

Question 12

What are lexical constraints?

Answer 12

Three constraints:
Whole object bias: words refer to whole objects, not parts or features
Taxonomic bias: words refer to kings of things, not individual things
Mutual exclusivity bias: every object can only have one name
One constraint will win over another

Question 13

What is attention and learning?

Answer 13

Children’s word learning is influenced by what they pay attention to
A product of associative learning
Principally pay attention to an object’s shape, rather than it’s colour, material or size

Question 14

What is conceptual bias?

Answer 14

Word acquisition builds on the constructs the child has created about the world - children form a hypothesis about a word’s potential meaning
Inanimate object = children map the noun to a subordinate category
Animal = interpret label as a proper name

Question 15

What is pragmatics?

Answer 15

Children work out patterns in speakers’ interactions with them - intentionality
Tomasello - children learn linguistic structures through intention-reading and pattern finding

Question 16

What is code-switching?

Answer 16

Enhanced executive control, or the ability to effectively manage higher cognitive processes such as problem-solving, memory and thought

Question 17

What is the interactionist perspective based on?

Answer 17

Learning about language starts well before the first words appear
Emphasises the semantic aspect of language
Purpose behind a child’s learning to speak is to get meaning across
Agent-action constructs used when realisation of actors becomes apparent

Question 18

What is social context by Halliday and Bates?

Answer 18

Emphasised the pragmatic aspect of language - language in use/as a social behaviour

Question 19

What is the language acquisition support system?

Answer 19

Caregivers support their children’s linguistic development in social situations until the child learns to take a more active role in social situations - child-directed speech

Question 20

What is the social-pragmatic approach by Tomasello and Aktar?

Answer 20

The most important factor is social communicative dimension
Use own understanding of situation to focus attention on same entity
Cross-situational learning
Aware of others as intentional agents

Question 21

What is the model of intentionality by Lois Bloom?

Answer 21

Focuses on the child as being an active agent in word learning process
Dislikes idea of LAD
Shifts focus of language learning to child
Joint attention which child determines
Also acquire relational words in single-word stage

Question 22

What is the principle of relevance?

Answer 22

Language learning is enhanced when the words a child hears are pertinent to objects/people around them
Provides direction

Question 23

What is the principle of discrepancy?

Answer 23

Language is needed when a child realises the discrepancy between what they and others have in mind
Provides motivation

Question 24

What is the principle of elaboration?

Answer 24

Children need to learn increasingly more elaborate language to express increasingly more elaborate contents of mind as the child develops
Provides impetus for propelling language learning

Question 25

What are the errors in word learning?

Answer 25

Overextension
Underextension
Idiosyncracy
Overregularisation

Question 26

What is overextension?

Answer 26

Child uses one word to mean many objects

Question 27

What is underextension?

Answer 27

Child uses one word to specifically mean one object

Question 28

What is idiosyncracy?

Answer 28

Talking about something that isn’t there

Question 29

What is overregularisation?

Answer 29

Changing the word to fit regular patterns