Language Acquisition Vocabulary

Question 1

behaviorist theory

Answer 1

theory stating that “infants learn oral language from other human role models through a process involving imitation, rewards, and practice

Question 2

innateness

Answer 2

linguistic theory of language acquisition which holds that at least some knowledge about language exists in humans at birth

Question 3

cognitive linguistics

Answer 3

an interdisciplinary branch of linguistics, combining knowledge and research from cognitive science, cognitive psychology, neuropsychology, social psychology, cognitive anthropology and linguistics

Question 4

motherese

Answer 4

the proper linguistic term that describes the type of speech used by adults when speaking to infants

Question 5

universal grammar

Answer 5

set of structural characteristics shared by all languages

Question 6

competence

Answer 6

linguistic knowledge possessed by native speakers of a language

Question 7

performance

Answer 7

the actual use of language in concrete situations

Question 8

minimalism

Answer 8

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

Question 9

economy of derivation

Answer 9

principle stating that movements only occur in order to match interpretable features with uninterpretable features

Question 10

economy of representation

Answer 10

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

Question 11

transformations

Answer 11

the rule that takes an input called the “Deep Structure” and changes it in some restricted way to result in a Surface Structure

Question 12

cognitive theory

Answer 12

an approach to psychology that attempts to explain human behavior by understanding your thought processes

Question 13

input theory

Answer 13

learners progress in their knowledge of the language when they comprehend language input that is slightly more advanced than their current level “i+1”

Question 14

imitation

Answer 14

the act of copying, mimicking, or replicating behavior observed or modeled by other individuals

Question 15

reinforcement

Answer 15

theory of child language acquisition which says that children learn to speak like adults because they are praised, rewarded, or otherwise reinforced when they use the right forms and are corrected when they use the wrong ones

Question 16

active construction of grammar

Answer 16

children have innate ability to invent grammar rules themselves

Question 17

connectionist theory

Answer 17

theory claiming that a learner perceives that a particular stimulus goes with a particular response, establishing a connection.

Question 18

critical period

Answer 18

hypothesis stating that the first few years of life constitute the time during which language develops readily

Question 19

language acquisition

Answer 19

the process by which humans acquire the capacity to perceive and comprehend language, as well as to produce and use words and sentences to communicate

Question 20

language acquisition device

Answer 20

Chomsky’s initial theory that children are born with a hard-wired device in their brains that allows the learning of language