Vocabulary and Terminology Chapter 8: Language Acquisition

Question 1

Active Construction of a Grammar Theory

Answer 1

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

Question 2

Articulatory Gesture

Answer 2

A movement of a speech organ in the production of speech

Question 3

Attention getter

Answer 3

Word or phrase used to initiate an address to children

Question 4

Attention Holder

Answer 4

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

Question 5

Babbling

Answer 5

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

Question 6

Bilingual

Answer 6

State of commanding two languages; having linguistic competence in two languages.

Question 7

Canonical babbling

Answer 7

The continuous repetition of sequences of vowel and consonants by infants.

Question 8

Child-Directed Speech

Answer 8

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

Question 9

Complexive Concept

Answer 9

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

Question 10

Conditioned Head-Turn Procedue

Answer 10

Experimental technique usually used with infants between five and eighteen months with two phases: conditioning and testing.

Question 11

Connectionist Theory

Answer 11

Theory of language acquisition that claims that children learn language through neural connections in the brain.

Question 12

Conversational Turn

Answer 12

The contribution to a conversation made by one speaker from the time that they take the floor from another speaker to the time that they pass the floor on to another speaker.

Question 13

Critical Perio

Answer 13

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 14

Feral Child

Answer 14

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

Question 15

First-Language Acquisition

Answer 15

The process by which children acquire the lexicon and grammatical rules of their native language.

Question 16

Foreign Accent

Answer 16

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

Question 17

High Amplitude Sucking

Answer 17

Experimental technique used to study sound discrimination in infants from birth to about six months.

Question 18

Innate

Answer 18

Determined by factors present from birth

Question 19

Innateness Hypothesis

Answer 19

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

Question 20

Multillingual

Answer 20

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

Question 21

Neglected Child

Answer 21

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

Question 22

One-Word Stage

Answer 22

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

Question 23

Overextension

Answer 23

in the study of child language acquisition, 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 24

Overgeneralization

Answer 24

A process in which children extend the application of linguistic rules to contexts beyond those in the adult language

Question 25

Reinforcement Theory

Answer 25

Theory that says that children learn to speak like adults because they are praised or otherwise reinforced when they use the right forms and are corrected when they use the wrong ones.

Question 26

Sequential Bilingualism

Answer 26

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

Question 27

Simultaneous Bilingualism

Answer 27

Bilingualism in which both languages are acquired in infancy.

Question 28

Social interaction Theory

Answer 28

Children acquire language through social interaction in particular with older children and adults.

Question 29

Telegraphic Stage

Answer 29

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

Question 30

Telegraphic Utterances

Answer 30

Utterances containing primarily content words.

Question 31

Universal Grammar

Answer 31

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

Question 32

Variegated Babbling

Answer 32

Production of meaningless consonant-vowel sequences by infants.

Question 33

Transfer

Answer 33

The influence of one’s native language on the learning of subsequent langauges.

Question 34

Code Switching

Answer 34

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

Question 35

Second Language Acquisition

Answer 35

Acquisition of a second language as a teenager or adult

Question 36

Fossilization

Answer 36

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

Question 37

Underextension

Answer 37

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 38

Deictic Expression

Answer 38

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

Question 39

Relational Term

Answer 39

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

Question 40

Homesign System

Answer 40

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