Module 9

Question 1

imitation theory

Answer 1

Theory of language acquisition that claims that children acquire language by listening to the speech around them and reproducing what they hear.

Question 2

Active construction of a grammar theory

Answer 2

Theory of language acquisition theory that says that children acquire a language by inventing rules of grammar based on the speech around them.

Question 3

connectionist theories

Answer 3

Theory of language acquisition that claims that children learn language through neural connections in the brain .
a child develops such connections through exposure to language and by using language.

Question 4

social interaction theory

Answer 4

Theory of language acquisition that claims children acquire language through social interaction. In particular with older children and adults-and prompt their caregivers to supply them with the appropriate language experience they need.

Question 5

linguistic universals

Answer 5

Property believed to be held in common with all natural languages.

Question 6

universal grammar

Answer 6

the theory that posits a set of grammatical characteristics shared by all natural languages. also, the name of this set of shared characteristics.

Question 7

critical period

Answer 7

age span, usually described as lasting from birth to the onset of puberty during which children must have exposure to language and must build the critical brain structures necessary in order to gain native speaker competence in a language.

Question 8

Neglected children

Answer 8

a child who is neglected by caretakers, often resulting in significantly lower exposure to language as a child.

Question 9

Feral children

Answer 9

Child who grew up in the wild without the care of human adults, often with animals.

Question 10

innate

Answer 10

humans are genetically predisposed to acquire and use language.

Question 11

innateness hypothesis

Answer 11

the hypothesis that language ability is innate in humans.

Question 12

Homesign

Answer 12

communicative gestures that are invented by deaf children and the people with whom they usually interact incases where a signed language is not made available.

Question 13

Reinforcement theory

Answer 13

asserts 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 forms.

Question 14

child-directed speech

Answer 14

slow, high-pitched, and contains many repetitions, simplified syntax, exaggerated intonation, and a simple and concrete vocabulary.

Question 15

High Amplitude Sucking

Answer 15

technique used to study the abilities of infants that connects a pacifier to a sound. As the infant hears new sounds he/she will suck faster or slower according to recognition of that new sound.

Question 16

Conditioned Head-turn procedure

Answer 16

A technique used to test infants between 5-18 months that watches if the infant turns their head to the new sound or if they do not hear the changes.

Question 17

Articulatory gestures

Answer 17

produces particular sound, and timing relationships between the gestures.

Question 18

babble

Answer 18

producing sequences of vowels and consonants if they are acquiring spoken language, or producing hand movements if they are acquiring signed language.

Question 19

voice onset time

Answer 19

the length of time between the release of a consonant and the onset of voicing, that is, when the vocal folds start vibrating.

Question 20

canonical babbling

Answer 20

continual repetition of syllables helps the infant practice a sequence of consonant and vowel sounds.

Question 21

variegated babbling

Answer 21

when babbling becomes stringing together different syllables.

Question 22

holophrase

Answer 22

a one word sentence

Question 23

holophrastic stage

Answer 23

the production of single words in isolation, this phase allows children to name, comment, and request.

Question 24

telegraphic

Answer 24

a type of language that young children use. includes only relevant words that help them convey their meaning.

Question 25

overgeneralization

Answer 25

leaving nouns ending in sibilants in their singular forms.

Question 26

complexive concept

Answer 26

when a child associates different characteristics with a meaning of a word on successive uses, thereby creating a set of objects that do not have any particular unifying characteristic.

Question 27

overextension

Answer 27

When a child extends their range of a words meaning beyond that typically used by adults.

Question 28

underextension

Answer 28

application of a word to a smaller set of objects then is appropriate for mature adult speech.

Question 29

relational term

Answer 29

the correct use of words like these requires that two things be kept in mind; the absolute size of an object in question and its position on a scale of similar objects.

Question 30

deictic expressions

Answer 30

words referring to personal, temporal, or spatial aspects of an utterance and whose meaning depends on the context in which the word is used.

Question 31

attention getters

Answer 31

tells children which utterances are addressed t them rather than someone else, and hence which utterances they are supposed to be listening to.

Question 32

attention holders

Answer 32

used when they have more than one thing to say, like a story.

Question 33

conversational turns

Answer 33

the contribution of a conversation made by one speaker from the time that she takes the floor from another speaker to the time that she passes the floor to another speaker.

Question 34

bilingual

Answer 34

speaker of two languages

Question 35

multilingual

Answer 35

speaker of more than two languages.

Question 36

simultaneous bilingualism

Answer 36

learning the two different languages from the time of birth

Question 37

sequential bilingualism

Answer 37

learning a second language when they are young children

Question 38

second-language acquisition

Answer 38

learning a second language later in life.

Question 39

language mixing

Answer 39

using more than one language in a conversation.

Question 40

fossilization

Answer 40

non-native forms can become fixed and not change, even after years of instruction.

Question 41

Transfer

Answer 41

a speakers native language pays a role in second-language acquisition because having learned one language can be positive or negative, whether it inhibits or facilitates the learning of a second language.