Language Acquisition

Question 1

Innateness Hypothesis

Answer 1

our ability to acquire (human) language is innate (genetically encoded)

Question 2

Language Acquisition Device (LAD)

Answer 2

a purported instinctive mental capacity which enables an infant to acquire and produce language

Question 3

Universal Grammar (UG)

Answer 3

set of structural characteristics shared by all languages

Question 4

sign languages

Answer 4

languages that use the visual-manual modality to convey meaning.

Question 5

Theories of Acquisition

Answer 5

Imitation, Reinforcement, Active Construction of a Grammar, Connectionist Theories

Question 6

Imitation

Answer 6

children imitate what they hear

Question 7

Reinforcement

Answer 7

children learn through positive and negative reinforcement

Question 8

Active Construction of a Grammar

Answer 8

Children invent grammar rules themselves, Ability to develop rules is innate.

Question 9

Connectionist Theories

Answer 9

Claims that exposure to language develops and strengthens

neural connections

Question 10

Critical Period Hypothesis

Answer 10

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

Question 11

Stages of Development

Answer 11

Prelinguistic, Babbling, One-word, two-word, beyond 2-word stage

Question 12

Babbling

Answer 12

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

Question 13

One-word

Answer 13

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 14

two-word

Answer 14

• 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 15

beyond two-word

Answer 15

• 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 16

Language Acquisition

Answer 16

• All (normal) human children…
• learn a language.
• can learn any language they are exposed to.
• learn all languages at basically the same rate.
• follow the same stages of language acquisition.

Question 17

Prelinguistic

Answer 17

• babies make noises, but not yet babbling
• crying, cooing
• response to some stimuli (hunger, discomfort…)
• sensitive to native and non-native sound distinctions

Question 18

Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills (BICS)

Answer 18

the “surface” skills of listening and speaking which are typically acquired quickly by many students; particularly by those from language backgrounds similar to English who spend a lot of their school time interacting with native speaker

Question 19

Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP)

Answer 19

the basis for a child’s ability to cope with the academic demands placed upon her in the various subjects

Question 20

additive bilingualism

Answer 20

the first language continues to be developed and the first culture to be valued while the second language is added

Question 21

subtractive bilingualism

Answer 21

the second language is added at the expense of the first language and culture, which diminish as a consequence

Question 22

context-embedded task

Answer 22

one in which the student has access to a range of additional visual and oral cues; for example he can look at illustrations of what is being talked about or ask questions to confirm understanding

Question 23

context-reduced task

Answer 23

one such as listening to a lecture or reading dense text, where there are no other sources of help than the language itself

Question 24

Structure Dependency

Answer 24

language is organized in such a way that it crucially depends on the structural relationships between elements in a sentence

Question 25

Parameters

Answer 25

determine the ways in which language can vary

Question 26

Head Parameter

Answer 26

specifies the position of the head in relation to its compliments within phrases for different languages

Question 27

surface structure

Answer 27

represents the physical properties of language

Question 28

deep structure

Answer 28

represents the core semantic relations of a sentence, and is mapped on to the surface structure via transformations

Question 29

minimalism

Answer 29

aims at the further development of ideas involving economy of derivation and economy of representation in transformational theory

Question 30

economy of derivation

Answer 30

a principle stating that movements (i.e. transformations) only occur in order to match interpretable features with uninterpretable features

Question 31

economy of representation

Answer 31

the principle that grammatical structures must exist for a purpose, i.e. the structure of a sentence should be no larger or more complex that required to satisfy constraints on grammaticality

Question 32

interpretable features

Answer 32

features that have a semantic content

Question 33

uninterpretable features

Answer 33

features that are devoid of a semantic content

Question 34

uniform

Answer 34

rules should not be stipulated as applying at arbitrary points in a derivation, but instead apply throughout derivations

Question 35

transformation

Answer 35

a rule that takes an input typically called the deep structure and changes it in some restricted way to result in a surface structure

Question 36

generalized transformations

Answer 36

takes small structures which are either atomic or generated by other rules, and combines them like embedding

Question 37

Cognitive Theory

Answer 37

language acquisition must be viewed within the context of a child’s intellectual development

Question 38

input Theory

Answer 38

parents do not talk to their children in the same way as they talk to other adults and seem to be capable of adapting their language to give the child maximum opportunity to interact and learn

Question 39

steps for children to learn language

Answer 39

imitation, repetition, memorization, controlled drilling, reinforcement

Question 40

nativist or innateness theory

Answer 40

children must be born with an innate capacity for language development