Module 9 Vocabulary & Terms

Question 1

Innate

Answer 1

Determined by factors present from birth.

Question 2

Innateness Hypothesis

Answer 2

A hypothesis that humans are genetically predisposed to learn and use language.

Question 3

Imitation Theory

Answer 3

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

Question 4

Sequential Bilingualism

Answer 4

Bilingualism is which the second language is acquired as a young child.

Question 5

Active Construction of a Grammar Theory

Answer 5

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

Question 6

Connectionist Theories

Answer 6

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 7

Multilingual

Answer 7

The state of commanding three or more languages: having linguistic competence in three or more languages.

Question 8

Linguistic Universals

Answer 8

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

Question 9

Universal Grammar

Answer 9

The theory that posits a set of grammatical characteristics shared by all natural languages.

Question 10

Critical Period

Answer 10

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 11

Neglected Children

Answer 11

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

Question 12

Feral Children

Answer 12

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

Question 13

Homesign

Answer 13

A rudimentary visual-gestural communication system that is developed and used by deaf children and their families when a signed language is not made available for their communication.

Question 14

Imitation Theory

Answer 14

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

Question 15

Reinforcement Theory

Answer 15

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

Question 16

Social Interaction Theory

Answer 16

Theory of language acquisition that claims that 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 17

Foreign Accent

Answer 17

An accent that is marked by the phonology of another language or other languages that are more familiar to the speaker.

Question 18

High Amplitude Sucking

Answer 18

Experimental technique used to study sound discrimination in infants from birth to about six months. Infants are given a special pacifier that is connected to a sound-generating system. Each suck on the pacifier generates a noise, and infant’s sucking behavior is used to draw conclusions about discrimination abilities.

Question 19

Conditioned Head -Turn Procedure

Answer 19

Experimental technique usually used with infants between five and eighteen months with two phases : conditioning and testing. During the conditioning phase, the infant learns to associate a change in sound with the activation of visual reinforcers, first presented at the same time and then in succession, such that the infant begins to anticipate the appearance of the visual reinforcers and look at them before they are activated. During the testing phase, when the infant looks to the visual reinforcers immediately after a change in sound, it suggest that the infant has perceived the change in sound, thereby demonstrating the ability to discriminate between the two sounds involved.

Question 20

Voice Onset Time (VOT)

Answer 20

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

Question 21

Articulatory Gestures

Answer 21

A movement of a speech organ in the production of speech.

Question 22

Babble

Answer 22

A phase in child language acquisition during which the child produces meaningless sequences of consonants and vowels.

Question 23

Canonical Babbling

Answer 23

The continuous repetition of sequences of vowels and consonants like [mamama] by infants.

Question 24

Variegated Babbling

Answer 24

Production of meaningless consonant-vowel sequences by infants

Question 25

Holophrastic Stage

Answer 25

Stage in first language acquisition during which children can produce only one word at a time.

Question 26

Telegraphic Stage

Answer 26

A phase during child language acquisition in which children use utterances composed primarily of content words.

Question 27

Overgeneralization

Answer 27

In the study of child language acquisition, a relationship between child and adult application of rules relative to certain contexts: a process in which children extend the application of linguistic rules to contexts beyond those in the adult language.

Question 28

Complexive Concept

Answer 28

A term used in the study of child language acquisition A group of items that a child refers to with a single word for it is not possible to single out any one unifying property.

Question 29

Overextension

Answer 29

A relationship between child and adult perception of word meaning: the child’s application of a given word has a wider range than the application of the same word in adult language.

Question 30

Underextension

Answer 30

Application of a word to a smaller set of objects than is appropriate for mature adult speech or the usual definition of the word.

Question 31

Relational Term

Answer 31

Type of relationship between adjective and noun reference where the reference where the reference of the adjective is determined relative to the noun reference.

Question 32

Deictic Expressions

Answer 32

Word or expression that takes its meaning relative to the time, place, and speaker of the utterance.

Question 33

Infant-directed Speech

Answer 33

Speech used by parents or caregivers when communicating with young children or infants.

Question 34

Child-directed Speech

Answer 34

Speech used by parents or caregivers when communicating with young children or infants.

Question 35

Attention Getters

Answer 35

Word or phrase used to initiate an address to children.

Question 36

Attention Holders

Answer 36

A tactic used to maintain children’s attention for extended amounts of times.

Question 37

Conversational Turns

Answer 37

The contribution to 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 on to another speaker.

Question 38

Second-Language Acquisition

Answer 38

Acquisition of a second language as a teenager or adult (after the critical period).

Question 39

Code-switching

Answer 39

Using words or structural elements from more than one language within the same conversation.

Question 40

Fossilization

Answer 40

Process through which forms from a speaker’s non-native language usage become fixed and do not change, even after years of instruction.