Language Development

Question 1

The ______________ attributes language acquisition to biological mechanisms and stresses universal patterns of language development.

Answer 1

Nativist approach.

Question 2

_______________ (1968) proposes that an innate language acquisition device (LAD) makes it possible for people to acquire language just by being exposed to it.

Answer 2

Chomsky.

Question 3

Support from the LAD comes from two observations:

• Children master the basics of language between the ages of ___ and ___ regardless of the complexity of their native language
• Children from all cultures pass through the same stages of language development

Answer 3

4 and 6.

Question 4

The _________________ proposes that language is acquired like any other behavior - through imitation and reinforcement.

Answer 4

Behaviorist approach.

Question 5

________________ regard language development to be attributable to a combination of biological and environmental factors.

Answer 5

Interactionists.

Question 6

In some cultures, adults seem to naturally use _____________ speech (a.k.a “motherese”), characterized by slower pace, use of shorter/simpler sentences, exaggeration/repetition of the most important words, and frequent questions.

Answer 6

Child-directed speech.

Question 7

An adult is responding with an _________________ when he or she adds to the child’s statement but retains the child’s word order.

Answer 7

Expansion.

Question 8

An adult is responding with an __________________ when he or she adds information to the child’s statement (e.g., when a child says “Mommy bye-bye,” the father replies, “Yes, Mommy is going to work now.”

Answer 8

Extension.

Question 9

_______________________ refers to a child’s use of his or her knowledge of the meaning of words to infer their syntactical (grammatical) category.

Answer 9

Semantic bootstrapping.

Question 10

____________________ refers to a child’s use of syntactical knowledge ot learn the meaning of new words.

Answer 10

Syntactical bootstrapping.

Question 11

_________________ refers to using the prosody (pitch, rhythm, etc.) of an utterance to make inferences about syntax.

Answer 11

Prosodic bootstrapping.

Question 12

___________________ refers to using knowledge about morphemes to deduce the syntax or meaning of a word - e.g., deducing that a word is an action word (verb) because it ends in “ing.”

Answer 12

Morphological bootstrapping.

Question 13

__________________ refers to the organization of words, phrases, and sentences.

Answer 13

Surface structure.

Question 14

_________________ refers to the underlying meaning of sentences.

Answer 14

Deep structure.

Question 15

According to Chomsky’s notion of transformational grammar, speaking involves transforming ______ structure into ________ structure, while listening entails transforming ____________ structure into its ________ structure.

Answer 15

• Deep
• Surface
• Surface
• Deep

Question 16

_______________ are the smallest units of sound that are understood in a language. The English language has ___ of these.

Answer 16

• Phonemes
• 45

Question 17

_______________ are the smalles units of sound that convey meaning.

Answer 17

Morphemes.

Question 18

Children of all cultures progress through these 8 stages of language acquisition:

• Crying
• _________________
• Echolalia and Expressive Jargon
• _____________
• Telegraphic Speech
• ____________ Growth
• ____________ Correct Sentences
• Metalinguistic Awareness

Answer 18

• Cooing and Babbling
• First Words
• Vocabulary
• Grammatically

Question 19

Infants initially produce 3 patterns of crying; by 1-2 months they exhibit a 4th (fussy) cry. What are the initial 3 patterns of crying?

Answer 19

• Basic (hunger) cry
• Anger cry
• Pain cry

Question 20

The most common (and successful) response of a mother to her infant’s cries is to:

Answer 20

Raise and hold the child upright on her shoulder to provide close physical contact.

Question 21

Beginning at ___ to ___ weeks, infants produce simple cooing sounds (consisting mainly of vowels) when happy/contented.

Answer 21

6 to 8 weeks.

Question 22

By about ___ months of age, infants begin babbling, which involves the repetition of simple consonant and vowel sounds.

Answer 22

4 months.

Question 23

Between ___ and ___ months of age, babies narrow their babbling repertoire of sounds to those of their native language.

Answer 23

9 to 14 months.

Question 24

Beginning at about ___ months of age, children imitate adult speech sounds and words without an understanding of their meaning (echolalia). This is followed by expressive jargon, which involves vocalizations that sound like sentences but have no meaning.

Answer 24

9 months.

Question 25

Infants tend to _____________ words ealier than they can _______________ words.

Answer 25

• Understand
• Produce

Question 26

By about ___ months of age, infants understand about 50 words.

Answer 26

13 months.

Question 27

Most infants speak their first word between the ages of ___ and ___ months, and by ___ months speak about 50 words.

Answer 27

• 10
• 15
• 18

Question 28

First words are most often ______________, or labels for objects, people, or events.

Answer 28

Nominals.

Question 29

From one to two years of age, children use a single word to express whole phrases and sentences (by varying gestures and intonation) - this is referred to as __________________.

Answer 29

Holophrastic speech.

Question 30

By ___ to ___ months of age, children exhibit telegraphic speech (i.e., they string two or more words together to make a sentence). By ___ months, prepositions and pronouns are added, and a child’s vocabulary contains about 300-400 words.

Answer 30

• 18
• 24
• 27

Question 31

The fastest rate of vocabulary growth occurs between ___ and ___ months; at this time, a child’s vocabulary includes about 1000 words and sentences contain 3-4 words.

Answer 31

30 and 36 months.

Question 32

The period from ____ to ____ years of age is marked by increasing sentence complexity, grammatical accuracy, and continued vocabulary growth, with about 50 new words being acquired each month.

Answer 32

2.5-5 years.

Question 33

During the early school years, children gain ____________________, or the ability to reflect on language as a communication tool and on themselves as language users. Recognition of words as different from the concepts they represent is seen by age ___ or ___.

Answer 33

• Metalinguistic awareness
• 6 or 7

Question 34

________________ occurs when a child applies a word too narrowly to objects or situation.

Answer 34

Underextension.

Question 35

_________________ occurs when a child applies a word to a wider collection of objects or events than is appropriate.

Answer 35

Overextension.

Question 36

_________________ occurs when the child applies usual rules to exceptional cases (e.g., saying tooths instead of teeth).

Answer 36

Overregulation.

Question 37

Whorf’s (1956) ___________________ proposes that language actually determines the nature of thought and predicts that cultures have different ways of thinking about the world because they have different languages.

Answer 37

Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis.

Question 38

Piaget proposes that language is dependent on ___________; nativists view language and thought as being _____________.

Answer 38

• Thought
• Independent

Question 39

While evidence suggests that adolescents and adults initially make faster progress in acquiring a second language (esp. with regard to __________ and ___________), the long-term outcomes are generally better when second-language learning begins in childhood.

Answer 39

• Syntax
• Vocabulary

Question 40

Bilingual children tend to score higher than monolinguals on measures of _____________ flexibility, cognitive _____________, analytical reasoning, and metalinguistic ___________.

Answer 40

• Cognitive
• Complexity
• Awareness

Question 41

_____________ involves alternating between languages during a conversation.

Answer 41

Code-switching.