First Language Acquisition

Question 1

What is acquisition?

Answer 1

gaining linguistic competence without conscious attention to language form.
example: first or native languages (L1)

Question 2

what is language learning?

Answer 2

conscious studying of grammar and vocabulary to learn a language.
- typically applied to learning in a structured setting (classroom)
- referred to as second language acquisition (L2)

Question 3

innateness hypothesis

Answer 3

we are born with the innate ability to learn a language (or grammar).

Question 4

universal listeners

Answer 4

how young babies are able to distinguish all sounds of human language.

Question 5

what is the pacifier sucking experiment

Answer 5

it is an experiment done in newborns to determine what happens when they hear sounds that they have never heard before. babies are exposed to new sounds and we see how they react to them by their pace of sucking.

Question 6

why is pacifier sucking experiment used

Answer 6

at the newborn age, the babies ability to do other forms of reacting (head turning, or eye gazing) are not fully developed enough.

Question 7

what is the head turning experiment?

Answer 7

babies associate the change in sound to an appearance in toy and turn their heads in anticipation when a new sound is hear.

Question 8

what age/stage do babies
- prefer to listen to speech/language over natural sounds
- react to new sounds
- not respond to sound signals that never signal phonemes contrasts in any human language
- ignore the non-linguistic aspects of speech signal

Answer 8

first sounds/ 0-6 months

Question 9

content words are

Answer 9

nouns, adjectives, such as hope, jump, happy

Question 10

function words

Answer 10

determiners (the, a, this) and conjunctions (and, or)

Question 11

which consonants are frequently used in babbling

Answer 11

[p] as in paw
[d] as in dada
[m] as in mama
[g] as in good

Question 12

how do babies born deaf babble?

Answer 12

vocalizations are qualitatively different from hearing babies. unsystematic, non-repetitive, and random

if exposed to sign language they will babble with their hands.

Question 13

what and when do/is canonical babbling?

Answer 13

around 8 months babies will start to produce babbling with receptive consonant vowel alterations. ex. bababa or gigigi

Question 14

what can happen if i child does not babble on schedule?

Answer 14

babies that do not babble on schedule can develop a speech delay or indicate hearing loss

Question 15

what is stage 2 of language acquisition, and what age does it occur

Answer 15

Babbling, 6-8 months

Question 16

what sounds do infants produce during early babbling

Answer 16

infants produce many sounds that do not occur in the language of their parents. ex. english infants produce clicks.
sounds that are easy to see and make are the first that babies babble.

Question 17

what is stage 3, and what age does it occur

Answer 17

one word (holophrastic), one year

Question 18

how do children use one word?

Answer 18

one word can have many meanings and often babies will use 1 word as a full sentence.
ex. dada can mean
- here comes dad!
- this is for dad.
- this is where dad sits.
- this shoe is dad’s.

Question 19

why are some phrases part of one word? ex. stop it

Answer 19

because babies will memorize phrases like stop it as one word - stopit. they do not know of the structure of the word/sentence just the meaning.

Question 20

what is monosyllabic?

Answer 20

when children’s first words are in (CV) form. ex. [sa] for sock, or [ma] for mommy.

Question 21

what is ‘Fis-phenomenon’?

Answer 21

an experiment showing how children at this stage can comprehend and perceive many more sounds than they can produce.
ex. child referred to their plastic fish as ‘fis’
- when asked “is this your fis” the child says no
- when asked “is this your fish” the child says “yes my fis”

Question 22

what is stage 4, what age does it occur?

Answer 22

two-word phase, 2 years old.

Question 23

how does stage 4 start?

Answer 23

syntax begins by stringing 2 words together
ex. i sit, i shut, i see.

Question 24

what is stage 5, and what age does it occur?

Answer 24

telegraphic stage, from 2-3 years old.