Task 6 language development Flashcards
Phonological development
first step in children’s language development, the mastery of the sound system of their language
Sematic development
learning the system for expressing meaning in a language, including word learning
Syntactic development
learning how words and morphemes are combined (learning the syntax of language)
o S-structure: surface structure, which roughly corresponds to the spoken sentence (young children often lack on s-structure e.g. one word period and two word period)
o D-structure: deep structure, which is more abstract representation of a sentence (important fro the meaning of a sentence)
Pragmatic development
the acquisition of knowledge about how a language is used (recognising moods and hidden messages in the style of language)
Metalinguistic knowledge
(adults) an understanding of the properties and functions of language, that is an understanding of language as language (recognising an unknown language as language
Critical period
the time during which language develops readily and after which (sometime between age 5 and puberty) language acquisition is much more difficult and ultimately less successful
o Second language is processed differently when learned in adulthood than in infancy
o Less is more: children store and extract smaller chunks of language because of their limited capacities (beneficial for learing of morphenes)
Holophrastic period
the period when children begin using words in their small productive vocabulary one word at a time
o Overextension: the use of a given word in a broader context than is appropriate (labelling any four legged animal as dog)
They know the word of the different animals but it is not included in their productive memory so they don’t use them but react appropriate
Later development
o From 5-6 years children continue developing language skills although with less dramatic accomplishments (double meaning of same words)
Prosody (perceiving)
the characteristic rhythm, tempo, melody, intonational patterns, and os forth which a language is spoken (very early in development already in the womb)
Categorical perception
the perception of speech sounds as belonging to distinct categories
Voice onset time: the length of time between when air passes through the lips and when the vocal cords start vibrating (measured with b and p)
Early word recognition
6 month react accordingly to mommy or daddy by looking at the parent, they understand far more in this age
24 months old already look at named stimuli when they just heard the beginning of the word
Syntactic bootstrapping
the strategy of using the grammatical structure of whole sentences to figure out meaning
Categorical perception
young infants engage in cartegorical perception of phonemes
Phonemes: a set of sounds that are not physically identical to one another, but with speakers of an language treat as equivalent sounds (ba and pa)
Word segmentation
the process of discovering where words begin and end in fluent speech (second half of the first year)
o 8 months of age children start to expect stresses syllables in as beginning of a new word
o Distributional properties: the phenomen that in any language, certain sounds are more likely to appear together than others
Reflexive vocalization (birth-2 months)
cries, coughs, burps and sneezes, they communicate by varying there type of crying
Cooing and laughing (2-4 months)
start to combine sounds with one another, expressing happiness through cooing, when parents coo back children learn turn taking in conversations
Babbling and vocal play (4-6 months)
comes with gained motor mouth control. Neither hearing human speech or having someone to respond is necessary for babbling (plays role in continuing not starting)
Modulated babbling (10 months on)
characterised by variety of sounf combinations, stress and intonation. May play a role in learning the intonation of the childs mother language
Early interactions
Interaction with care givers such as peek a boo or give and take, they learn to alternate between passive and active role in communication (bidirectional communication)
Intersubjectivity: in which to two interacting partners share a mutual understanding
• Joint attention: commenting everything the infant looks at
Reference (first words)
in language and speech, the associating of words and meaning
Productive vocabulary (first words)
Starting to say understood words between 10 and 15 months (contains 50 words at age of 18 months)
Simplification strategies (first words)
leaving out difficult parts of word (saying nana instead of banana)
Fast mapping (word learning)
the process of rapidly learning a new word simply from hearing the contrastive use of familiar and the unfamiliar word (when they hear a new word and see a new stimulus they are likely to pair them)
Whole object assumption (word learning)
children expect the word to describe the whole object rather a single part of it
