First Language Acquisition Flashcards
Cognition
the study of how language interacts with cognition, and how the two are connected
Imitation
a key part of language development, and is used in a variety of ways to help children learn to speak and communicate
Language acquisition device
a hypothetical tool in the brain that helps children learn language
Competence and Performance
two aspects of language ability that are often studied separately
Structure Dependency
the principle that grammatical operations and rules in a language are applied based on the hierarchical structure of a sentence
Output
the language that a learner produces through speaking or writing in a target language
Input
the language data that people are exposed to while learning a language, especially as children
Innateness or Mentalism
Innateness refers to something that is present at birth and not learned, while mentalism is a skill that is acquired through study, practice, and learning
The mentalist learning theory emphasizes the role of the mind in language acquisition by arguing that humans are born with an innate and biological capacity to learn languages.
Deep Structure
represents the underlying meaning of a sentence
Surface Structure
the visible, spoken form of a sentence, essentially how a sentence is actually constructed and expressed
Semantic Relations
the meaningful connections between words based on their meaning
Phonological
the study of how speech sounds are organized and used in a language, including the patterns of sounds and the rules for combining them
Syntactic Structures
the arrangements of words and phrases within a sentence, following the rules of syntax in a specific language
Semantic Theory
a theoretical framework that attempts to explain how meaning is constructed and represented in language, focusing on the relationships between words, phrases, and sentences, and how they combine to create meaning within a given context
Context-free grammars
a system of rules used to describe the structure of sentences in a language by defining how phrases can be combined, without considering the surrounding context of a word
Phrase Structure Rules
a set of formal guidelines that describe the syntactic structure of sentences by outlining how phrases and their constituents are organized within a sentence
Cognitive Theory
an approach that views language as intrinsically linked to cognitive processes
Input Theory
refers to the idea that language acquisition happens primarily through exposure to comprehensible input, meaning language that is slightly above a learner’s current level of understanding
Post-Deep Structure
the stage of a sentence derivation in transformational grammar that occurs after the initial “deep structure” has been established
Government and Binding Theory
focuses on the underlying principles that govern sentence structure by defining abstract syntactic relationships like “government” (a relationship between a head and its dependents) and “binding” (the rules governing the interpretation of pronouns with respect to their antecedents) within a sentence, aiming to explain how humans can understand and produce an infinite number of sentences based on a set of universal principles and language-specific parameters