File 8.1 en 8.3: Language acquisition (F)

Question 1

Lenneberg’s characteristics of biologically controlled behaviors

Answer 1

1. The behavior emerges before it is necessary.
2. Its appearance is not the result of a conscious decision.
3. Its emergence is not triggered by external events (though the surrounding environment must be sufficiently “rich” for it to develop adequately).
4. Direct teaching and intensive practice have relatively little effect.
5. There is a regular sequence of “milestones” as the behavior develops, and these can usually be correlated with age and other aspects of development.
6. There is likely to be a “critical period” for the acquisition of the behavior.

Question 2

language

Answer 2

Language is a communication system consisting of sounds, morphemes, words, and rules for combining all of these. The knowledge of these elements enables people to understand and produce sentences they may never have heard or uttered before.

Question 3

Language theories

Answer 3

• Innateness Hypothesis
• Imitation Theory
• Reinforcement Theory
• Active Construction of a Grammar Theory
• Connectionist Theories
• Social Interaction Theory

Question 4

The Innateness Hypothesis

Answer 4

They believe that language ability is innate in humans. This theory claims that babies are born with the knowledge that languages have patterns and with the ability to seek out and identify those patterns.

Question 5

linguistic universal

Answer 5

These are basic features shared by all languages, such as ‘noun’ and ‘verb’.

Question 6

universal grammar

Answer 6

The theoretically inborn set of structural characteristics shared by all languages.

Question 7

What is the difference between innate behaviors and learned behaviors?

Answer 7

Innate behaviors are present in all normal individuals of a species, whereas learned behaviors are not.

Question 8

Imitation theory

Answer 8

Children learn language by listening to the speech around them and memorizing and reproducing what they hear.

Question 9

Reinforcement theory

Answer 9

Children learn to speak like adults because they are praised/rewarded when they use the correct forms.

Question 10

Active construction of grammar

Answer 10

Children acquire a language by inventing rules of grammar based on the speech around them.

Question 11

Connectionist theory

Answer 11

Children acquire a language by inventing rules of grammar based on the speech around them.

Question 12

Social interaction theory

Answer 12

children acquire language through social interactions.

Question 13

critical period

Answer 13

age span, usually described 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 14

overgeneralization

Answer 14

A child applies a certain grammar rule to other words where it’s not applicable (pen -> pens, man -> mans)

Question 15

complexive concepts

Answer 15

a group of items that a child refers to with a single word, for which it is not possible to single out any one unifying property.
The child will often switch from using a word such as fluffy from a dog to a pillow to a blanket (and keep switching until they get it right).

Question 16

overextension

Answer 16

when a child extends the range of a word’s meaning beyond that typically used by adults. For example: naming all four-legged animals ‘doggie’. (common properties such as color, shape, size).

Question 17

underextension

Answer 17

application of a word to a smaller set of objects than is appropriate for mature adult speech.

Question 18

relational term

Answer 18

children are not good in understanding relativity (relatively big/small).

Question 19

deictic expressions

Answer 19

word or expression that is relative to time, place and speaker. (such as “here” and “now”)