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Learning Language Flashcards

1
Q

What three things about language do children learn?

A

Symbols, comprehension, and production

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2
Q

What are symbols? What do we learn about them?

A

Involve systems representing our thoughts, feelings, and knowledge. Children learn them and how to communicate them to other people.

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3
Q

What is comprehension?

A

Understanding what others say (or sign or write)

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4
Q

What is production?

A

Speaking language (or signing or writing)

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5
Q

What are the five components of language?

A

Generative, Pragmatics, Phonemes, Syntax, and Morphemes

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6
Q

What is the generative component of language?

A

A system in which a finite set of words can be combined to generate an infinite number of sentences

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7
Q

What are phonemes?

A

Smallest units of meaningful sound

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8
Q

What are morphemes?

A

The smallest units of meaning in a language, composed of one or more phonemes

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9
Q

What is syntax?

A

The rules specifying how words from different categories (nouns, verbs, etc.) can be combined

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10
Q

What is pragmatics?

A

The knowledge about how language is used.

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11
Q

What are the four competencies required for language acquisition?

A

phonological development, semantic development, syntactic development, pragmatic development

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12
Q

What is phonological development?

A

Acquisition of knowledge about phonemes, the elementary units of sound that distinguish meaning

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13
Q

What is semantic development?

A

Learning the system for expressing meaning in a language, beginning with morphemes, the smallest unit of meaning in a language

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14
Q

What is syntactic development?

A

Learning the syntax or rules for combining words

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15
Q

What is pragmatic development?

A

Acquiring knowledge of how language is used, which includes understanding a variety of conversational conventions

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16
Q

There is substantial change over the _____ of life

A

There is substantial change over the FIRST YEAR of life

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17
Q

When is the sensitive period of language development?

A

From birth to age 6

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18
Q

What is the difference between species-specific behavior and species-universal behavior?

A

Species-specific behavior is the communication system that only humans acquire (has the complexity, structure, and generatively or language); Nearly all humans develop species universal language

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19
Q

T/F Language and modality are dependent on each other

A

F; Language is independent of modality

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20
Q

Speech is perceived in __________ ways.

A

Speech is perceived in LANGUAGE-SPECIFIC ways.

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21
Q

The differences in speech that matter are different for _________.

A

The differences in speech that matter are different for DIFFERENT LANGUAGES.

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22
Q

T/F There aren’t silences between words in language

A

True; learners need to discover where words begin and end in fluent speech, but there aren’t silences between words

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23
Q

Learners need to uncover the structure, but they only ____ or ___ the sequence.

A

Learners need to uncover the structure, but they only SEE or HEAR the sequence.

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24
Q

T/F Parents “teach language” to their children.

A

False; Explicit teaching and correction is rare and often unsuccessful

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25
What is the three ways children learn language?
1. Playing and talking with family and friends 2. Processing language and predicting what comes next 3. Learning words and sentences
26
What three things are learned at the same time during language development?
sound/sign patterns, words, and learning combine the words
27
Which comes first, comprehension or production?
comprehension
28
What competencies are required to perceive speech?
Prosody, Categorical perception, Word segmentation, Distributional properties
29
Prosody
The characteristic rhythm, tempo, cadence, melody, intonational patterns, etc., with which a language is spoken
30
Categorical perception
The perception of speech sounds as belonging to discrete categories
31
Word segmentation
The process of discovering where words begin and end in fluent speech
32
Distributional properties
The phenomenon that, in any language, certain sounds are more likely to appear together than are others
33
________ are thought to be perceived in categories.
PHONEMES are thought to be perceived in categories.
34
When is the ability to hear sounds in language-appropriate ways fine-tuned?
The ability is fine-tuned by the end of the first year
35
What are the four components of word segmentation?
Stress patterns, high-frequency items, words spoken in isolation, parentese
36
How do high-frequency items contribute to word segementation?
Very frequent words wioo start to be recognized like "bottle" and "baby"
37
What is parentese?
The altering of the intonation of language to engage infants
38
____________ facilitate identification of words and phonemes.
DISTRIBUTIONAL PATTERNS facilitate identification of words and phonemes.
39
By ______ (age), infants show evidence of understanding the meaning of some nouns.
By SIX MONTHS, infants show evidence of understanding the meaning of some nouns.
40
Early language production unfolds in a predictable pattern. What is it?
cooing then reduplicated babble then variegated babble
41
At what age do infants start making cooing sounds? How?
Around 6-8 weeks; Cooing sounds are made with an open vocal tract
42
At what age does reduplicated babbling? How?
Around 6 months by making repeated sounds with an open and then closed vocal tract
43
How does babbling occur for infants learning sign language?
Babbling occurs on the hands
44
What happens after reduplicated babbling?
Infants produce variegated babble
45
When do infants produce their first recognizable word?
Around the end of the first year
46
How many words do human speak per day
16,000
47
What is the Gavagai Thought Experiment?
A linguist tries to find out what the expression "gavagai" means when spoken by a speaker of an unknown language upon seeing a rabbit.
48
The Gavagai problem shows that words are always _______; There are a variety of ____ to a word's meaning.
The Gavagai problem shows that words are always AMBIGUOUS; There are a variety of CUES to a word's meaning.
49
How are words associated with their referents?
By repeated exposure
50
What is cross-sectional word learning?
Cross-sectional learning allows learners to acquire word meanings across multiple exposures, despite each individual exposure is referentially uncertain
51
Young children can learn words from ______.
Young children can learn words from YOUNG CHILDREN.
52
What is the principle of mutual exclusivity
The assumption that objects only have one label; Novel words are mapped to novel objects
53
Naigles
Children watched a video of a bunny and duck interacting while the experimenter said a sentence saying they were "gorping" or that one is "gorping" the other. They then observed what the action the child connected to the word "groping"
54
_______ are also a source of information for language learning. Parents and other communicative partners _____ and _____ relevant signals like _______ and _____.
SOCIAL CUES are also a source of information for language learning. Parents and other communicative partners PROVIDE and RESPOND relevant signals like EYE GAZE and POINTING.
55
What do overgeneralizations reveal about children?
Children do not always generalize appropriately (ex. an egg is a ball because its circular)
56
T/F Children undergeneralize and overgeneralize
T
57
What do overregularization (mistakes) reveal about children?
Children are learning rules and not just copying the input given (say grow-ed instead of grown)
58
What are syntax and morphology?
Learning the rules for combination of words (syntax) and morphemes (morphology). The develop over an extended period.
59
What does the Wug test reveal?
Children are learning a generative system
60
What is the behaviorist argument about language learning?
Language is learned by standard processes of operant and classical conditioning
61
What was Skinner's contribution to the behaviorist argument?
Correct usage of language is reinforced and incorrect usage is not
62
T/F Parents are more likely to correct grammatically incorrect statements than factually incorrect statements
F; parents are more likely to correct FACTUALLY incorrect statements than GRAMMATICALLY incorrect ones
63
What do nativists argue about language?
Language is too complex to be learned so easily and quickly by cognitively unsophisticated children; children don't need to learn it
64
What did Noam Chomsky suggest?
There is a LAD (Language Acquisition Device) with innate biases that shape language learning
65
What is the LAD?
A theorized language acquisition device that assumes that all languages are variants of underlying shared universal grammer. Learners just need to figure out the parameters for their language.
66
What is the connectionist argument of language learning?
Language learning can emerge from general-purpose learning mechanisms (ex. statistical learning) operating over large amounts of data
67
What is the interactionist perspective of language learning?
Focuses on the communicative function of language (which is to interact with others)
68
What subtle social cues and interactions do children pick up?
joint attention, turn-taking, pointing, intersubjectivity

Developmental Science (22 decks)

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