Lesson 6 Key Terms Flashcards
analogy
A pattern-finding technique that accounts for how children create abstract syntactic constructions from concrete pieces of language by understanding the relationship across schemes
Ex) if X is y-ing the z, then a is b-ing the c
X and A play analogous roles, as do C and Z
bootstrapping
Process of learning language in which a child uses what they know to decode more mature language; using semantic knowledge to aid in decoding and learning syntax
Ex) teacher saying the word dog while gesturing to a dog in front of a child
contingent query
Requests for clarification
Ex) What? Huh? Hmm?
entrenchment
A pattern-finding technique that accounts for how children confine abstractions about language by doing something in the same way successfully several times, thus making it habitual
expansion
Adult’s more mature version of a child’s utterance that preserves the word order of the original child utterance
Ex) child says “doggie eat” and adult replies “the doggie is eating”
extension
Adults semantically related comment on a topic established by a child
Ex) child says “doggie eat” and adult replies “yes, doggie hungry”
formula
Memorized verbal routine or unanalyzed chunk of language often used in everyday conversations
functionally based distributional analysis
A pattern-finding technique that accounts for how children form linguistic categories, such as nouns and verbs, based on communicative function
Linguistic items that serve the same communicative function are grouped together into a category based on what these units do
intention-reading
A uniquely human social cognitive skill useful in understanding language behavior of others
pattern-finding
A cognitive skill humans share with other primates that enable us to find common threads in disparate information, such as seeking underlying rules for language
preemption
A pattern-finding technique that accounts for how children confine abstractions about language based on the notion that if someone communicates to me using one form, rather than another, there was a reason for that choice relayed to the speakers specific communicative intentions
reformulation
Adults recasting of a child’s utterance that makes it more grammatically correct, adds new information, or changes its form
Ex) child says “doggie eats” adult replies “the dog is eating”
request for clarification
Request from the listener for restatement of phrase or additional information on some unclear utterance of the speaker
schematization
A pattern-finding technique that accounts for how children create abstract syntactic constructions from concrete pieces of language they have heard by forming schemes or concepts for specific functions and individual words to fill the slots in each
selective imitation
Toddler language learning strategy in which the child imitates those language features that he or she is in the process of learning
Note: todlers do not imitate randomly
