Vocab List - 11/22/2020 Flashcards
universal grammar
set of structural characteristics shared by all languages
language acquisition
the process by which humans acquire the capacity to perceive and comprehend language, as well as to produce and use words and sentences to communicate
phonetics
sounds of a language
phonology
sound patterns of a language
morphology
rules of word-formation
syntax
how words combine into phrases/sentences
semantics
how to derive meaning from a sentence
pragmatics
how to properly use language in context
lexical items
words, morphemes, idioms, etc.
innateness hypothesis
an expression coined by Hilary Putnam to refer to a linguistic theory of language acquisition which holds that at least some knowledge about language exists in humans at birth.
active construction of a grammar theory
the theory that children invent the rules of grammar themselves and that this ability is innate
connectivist theory
theory that claims that exposure to language develops and strengthens neural connections
critical period hypothesis
there is a critical period in development during which a language can be acquired like a native speaker and after this period it is impossible to acquire a language as a native speaker
stages of development
three broad stages of development are early childhood, middle childhood and adolescence organized by primary tasks of development in each stage
prelinguistic stage
stage when babies begin making noise but not yet babbling, sensitive to both native and non-native sound distinctions
babbling stage
starts at about 6 months of age, not linked to biological needs and pitch and intonation resembles language spoken around them
one-word stage of development
begins around age 1, one-word sentences, 1-syllable words with CV structure
two-word stage of development
starts at about 1.5/2 years of age, about 50 words acquired, sentences consist of two words, lack function words and inflectional morphology
explicit instruction
a term that summarises a type of teaching in which lessons are designed and delivered to novices to help them develop readily-available background knowledge on a particular topic
ASL (American Sign Language)
a natural language that serves as the predominant sign language of Deaf communities in the United States and most of Anglophone Canada.
NSL (Nicaraguan Sign Language)
sign language that was largely spontaneously developed by deaf children in a number of schools in Nicaragua in the 1980s
spoken language
a language produced by articulate sounds, as opposed to a written language
reinforcement theory
theory of child language acquisition which says 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 ones.
utterance
an utterance is the smallest unit of speech
working grammar
the idea of the grammar that children have which is grammar that is innately built
nativist theory
children are born with an innate propensity for language acquisition
language acquisition device
a purported instinctive mental capacity which enables an infant to acquire and produce language
linguistic competence
the child’s grammar, linguistic input and construction of the grammatical structures
performance
the nature of the child’s rule system- psychological processes the child uses in learning the language and how the child established meaning in the language input
economy of derivation
a principle stating that movements only occur in order to match interpretable features with uninterpretable features
economy of representation
the principle that grammatical structures must exist for a purpose
transformation
a rule that takes an input called the deep structure and changes it in some restricted way to result in a surface structure
motherese theory
a theory that mothers have a special way of talking to their young children that fosters language development
