ENG 211 M#9

Question 1

Innate

Answer 1

Determined by factors present from birth.

Question 2

Innateness Hypothesis

Answer 2

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

Question 3

Imitation Theory

Answer 3

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

Question 4

Reinforcement Theory

Answer 4

Theory of language acquisition that 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 5

Active Construction of a Grammar Theory

Answer 5

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

Question 6

Connectionist Theories

Answer 6

Theory of language acquisition that 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 7

Social Interaction Theory

Answer 7

Theory of language acquisition that claims that children acquire language through social interaction–in particular with older children and adults–and prompt their caregivers to supply them with the appropriate language experience they need.

Question 8

Linguistic Universals

Answer 8

Property believed to be held in common by all natural languages.

Question 9

Neglected Children

Answer 9

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

Question 10

Feral Children

Answer 10

Child who grew up in the wild without care by human adults, often with animals.

Question 11

Critical Period

Answer 11

Age span, usually describes 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 12

Homesign

Answer 12

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 13

Child-Directed Speech

Answer 13

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 14

High Amplitude Sucking (HAS)

Answer 14

Experimental technique used to study sound discrimination in infants from birth to about six months. Infants are given a special pacifier that is connected to a sound-generated system. Each suck on the pacifier generates a noise, and infants; sucking behavior is used to draw conclusions about discrimination abilities.

Question 15

Conditioned Head-Turn Procedure (HT)

Answer 15

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 in sound, between the two sounds involved.

Question 16

Voice Onset Time (VOT)

Answer 16

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

Question 17

Articulatory Gestures

Answer 17

A movement of a speech organ in the production of speech, for example, the movement of the velum for the production of a nasal consonant.

Question 18

Babble

Answer 18

A phase in child language acquisition during which the child produces meaningless sequences of consonants and vowels. Generally begins around the age of six months.

Question 19

Variegated Babbling

Answer 19

Production of meaningless consonant-vowel sequences by infants.

Question 20

Holophrastic Stage

Answer 20

One-word stage.

Question 21

Telegraphic

Answer 21

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

Question 22

Overgeneralization

Answer 22

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 23

Complexive Concept

Answer 23

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 24

Overextension

Answer 24

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 25

Underextension

Answer 25

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 26

Related Terms

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

Deictic Expressions

Answer 27

Word or expression that takes its meaning relative to the time,place, and speaker of the utterance.

Question 28

Infant Directed Speech

Answer 28

Speech used by parents or caregivers when communicating with young children or infants. (See child-directed speech)

Question 29

Child-Directed Speech

Answer 29

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 30

Attention Getters

Answer 30

Word or phrase used to initiate an address to children.

Question 31

Attention Holders

Answer 31

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

Question 32

Conversational Turns

Answer 32

The contribution to a conversation made by one speaker from the time that she takes the floor from another speaker to the time that she passes the floor on to another speaker.

Question 33

Bilingual

Answer 33

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 34

Multilingual

Answer 34

The state of commanding three or more languages; having linguistic competence in three or more languages. In machine translation, a system that can translate between more than two languages.

Question 35

Simultaneous Biligualism

Answer 35

Bilingualism in which both languages are acquired from infancy.

Question 36

Sequential Bilingualism

Answer 36

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

Question 37

Second-Language Acquisition

Answer 37

Acquisition of a second language as a teenager or adult.

Question 38

Fossilization

Answer 38

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 don not change, even after years of instruction.

Question 39

Foreign Accent

Answer 39

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

Question 40

Code-Switching

Answer 40

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