language acquisition

Question 1

what are the 5 stages of language acquisition

Answer 1

preverbal - 0-5months
babbling - 5-12months
holophrastic/one word stage - 12-18 months
2 word stage - 18-24months
telegraphic/multiword stage - 24-30months

Question 2

describe the babbling stage

Answer 2

• it is innate
• stage where kids experiment with singular sounds -> figuring out what sounds are in their language (at the start of this stage all babies across teh world make the same sounds)
• same intonation patterns as adults

Question 3

describe the pre-verbal stage

Answer 3

same melody contour as mother as they imitate them

Question 4

describe the holophrastic stage

Answer 4

• at start they make 1 word utterances that are usually constant and then a vowel (da) -> vowel can be a diphthong (dai)
• 1st words tend to be concrete nouns eg. car, bikkie, dog
• only know around 50 words so they overgeneralise them to communicate better
• understanding outstrips ability to pronounce sounds

Question 5

describe the 2 word stage

Answer 5

• only use content words
• only use words in two different ways
  1) location phrases -> object +location eg. mumma bed
  2) action phrases -> agent +action or action + agent depending on whether the action effects the agent or vise versa
• tend to start sentences with voiced stops (stops = completely stop airflow - only 3 voiced stops -> g,b,d)
• production still behind perception
• use the and of, learn -s and -‘s affixes

Question 6

describe the telegraphic stage

Answer 6

• function words/morphemes still mostly missing at start
• understand simple grammar -> wh- words at the start of questions etc
• acquire function words/morphemes in particular sequence during this time

Question 7

what is a stop

Answer 7

1. stop - complete closure in oral cavity -> can be voiceless (p, t, k) or voiced (b, d, g)

Question 8

what is semantic bootstrapping theory

Answer 8

it is the theory that children acquire language by categorising words in to groups such as all nouns are objects and verbs are actions. from this they will then look for rules taht apply to these categories and apply this rule to all categories leading to morphological mistakes

Question 9

what are plural marking phases

Answer 9

1. around 18 months kids start using quantifiers or numerical values to pluralise words (two cat, many cat etc)
2. around 24 months kids start to use -s plural sometimes
3. later they use -s plural on all words even when irregular (mices)
4. by 3 years old most children have completely mastered plurals - regular and irregular

Question 10

what is under-segmenting

Answer 10

when children fail to segment words in to proper morphemes

eg. throw uped instead of threw up

Question 11

what is over-segmenting

Answer 11

creates additional morphemes

eg. a-dult, two-dult

Question 12

what is mis-categorising

Answer 12

identifies word as a different category

eg. identifies a noun as a vern

Question 13

what are mean length utterances

Answer 13

MLU can be measured in morphemes or in words

• way to compare different speakers
• words better when comparing kids from different countries
• kids with similar MLUs tend to have similar grammatical understanding

Question 14

what are the english word order rules

Answer 14

subject, verb and then object -> kids very rarely violate this rule

Question 15

list each manner of articulation

Answer 15

stop, nasal, affricate, fricative, lateral, approximant

Question 16

in what order do children acquire different sounds

Answer 16

nasals, glides, stops, approximants, fricatives, affricates

• > learn voiced ones first then voiceless
• place of articulation can also effect the order of learning but not significantly
• tend to struggle the most with voiceless th, ng and r

Question 17

what are some ways that children simplify words and how they are pronounces

Answer 17

1. deletion - get rid of sounds such as constantant clustors, final constants or unstressed syllables
2. substitution - replace soft sounds with hard sounds
3. reduplication - different sounds in words are pronounced the same (dog to gog)

Question 18

when do children acquire certain word groups

1) simple prepositions
2) simple conjunctions
3) simple pronouns
4) simple auxillary verbs

Answer 18

1) simple prepositions (in/on) typically start being used in the holophrastic stage
- by telegraphic stage most use them correctly
2) simple conjunctions (and) - telegraphic stage
3) simple pronouns (I and it first) - at around 2 word stage, then learn this and that during telegraphic stage
4) simple auxillar verbs (to be/to do) - usually in mid telegraphic stage
- > learn have earlier but not all tenses

Question 19

\

Answer 19

m

Question 20

u

Answer 20

hj

Question 21

n

Answer 21

i

Question 22

what is a nasal

Answer 22

2. nasal - closure in oral cavity but air flows through nose - all nasal sounds are voiced (m, n, ng)

Question 23

what is a fricative

Answer 23

3. fricative - partially block air flow by bring two speech organ close together to create friction -> can be voiceless (f, theta, s, sh) or voiced (v, th, z, s in television) -> h is a fricative but neither voiced or voiceless

Question 24

what is an affricate

Answer 24

4. affricate - complete stop of air but then it is released slowly -> voiceless (ch) voiced (j in june)

Question 25

what is a lateral approximate

Answer 25

5. lateral - partial closure made by touching tip of tongue against teeth -> only one voiced later (l)

Question 26

what is an approximant

Answer 26

6. approximant - speech organs get close but don’t impede the air at all -> 3 voiced approximants (w, r, j in yes)