Language Acquisition

Question 1

Innateness Hypothesis

Answer 1

Ability to acquire language is innate, not from human cognitive abilities or language acquisition devices

Question 2

Universal Grammar

Answer 2

Set of structural characteristics shared by all languages

Question 3

Imitation Theory

Answer 3

Children imitate what they hear in order to acquire language

Question 4

Reinforcement Theory

Answer 4

Children learn language through positive and negative reinforcement

Question 5

Active Construction of a Grammar

Answer 5

The ability to create grammar rules is innate

Question 6

Connectionist Theory

Answer 6

Claims that exposure to language develops and strengthens neural connections

Question 7

Critical Period

Answer 7

period in development during which a language can be acquired like a native speaker

Question 8

Prelinguistic Stage

Answer 8

Babies make noise but not yet babble, sensitive to native and non-native sound distinctions

Question 9

Babbling Stage

Answer 9

starts at about 6 months of age
* not linked to biological needs
* pitch and intonation resemble language spoken around them

Question 10

One-word Stage

Answer 10

begins around age 1
speaks one-word sentences (called ‘holophrastic’)
usually 1-syllable words, with CV structure
consonant clusters reduced
words learned as a whole, rather than a sequence of sounds
‘easier’ sounds produced earlier

Question 11

Two-word Stage

Answer 11

*
* *
* *
starts at about 1.5-2 years of age
vocabulary of +/- 50 words
sentences consist of two words (telegraphic) e.g. allgone sock
those two words could have a number of relations e.g. Daddy car
usually lacks function words
usually lacks inflectional morphology

Question 12

Beyond Two-word Stage

Answer 12

*
* * *
sentences with 3+ words (no 3-word stage)
begins using function words
have already learned some aspects of grammar: word order (e.g. SVO in English, SOV in Japanese) position of determiners
etc.
grammar resembles adult grammar by about age 5

Question 13

Children’s acquisition of language occurs:

Answer 13

• quickly
• adult-like grammar after about 5-6 years
• without explicit instruction
• uniformly
• uniform stages of acquisition
• uniform results

Question 14

What must a child learn while acquiring language?

Answer 14

• The sounds of a language (phonetics)
• The sound patterns of a language (phonology)
• Rules of word-formation (morphology)
• How words combine into phrases/sentences (syntax)
• How to derive meaning from a sentence (semantics)
• How to properly use language in context (pragmatics)
• Lexical items (words, morphemes, idioms, etc)

Question 15

In what ways is sign language like spoken language?

Answer 15

• have gesture system (cf. phonology) * havemorphologyrules
• have syntactic rules
• have semantic rules
• have dictionary of arbitrary signs

Question 16

Problems with imitation theory

Answer 16

Childrenproducethingsnotsaidbyadults.
* Children’s ‘mistakes’ are predictable and consistent.
* Children often fail to accurately mimic adult utterances.
* Children produce and understand novel sentences.
* Children may invent a new language in the right circumstances.

Question 17

Problems with Reinforcement Theory

Answer 17

• ignoreshowchildreninitiallylearntoproduceutterances * rarely occurs
• fails when it does occur
• fails to explain
• children’s own grammar rules
• why children seem impervious to correction

Question 18

What is the grammar acquisition process?

Answer 18

• Listen
• Try to find patterns
• Hypothesize a rule for the pattern
• e.g. past tense /-ed/
• Test hypothesis
• Modify rule as necessary

Question 19

What is the problem with Connectionist Theory?

Answer 19

predicts that any pattern is learnable by humans, but this is demonstrably false