Week 6: Language Development

Question 1

What is phonology?

Answer 1

The rules governing the structure and sequence of speech sounds eg. discriminating the sound of “ba” and “pa”

Question 1

What are the 4 components of language?

Answer 1

1. Phonology
2. Semantics
3. Grammar
4. Pragmatics

Question 2

What is semantics?

Answer 2

Vocabulary, the way underlying concepts are expressed in words and word expressions eg. understanding the meaning of “car” in a sentence

Question 3

What is grammar?

Answer 3

Syntax: The rules by which words are arranged into sentences.
Morphology: The use of grammatical markers indicating number, tense, person, gender etc

Question 4

What is pragmatics?

Answer 4

Rules for engaging in appropriate and effective communication with others.

Question 5

What are the 2 theories of language development?

Answer 5

1. The Nativist Perspective
2. The Interactionist Perspective

Question 6

What does the nativist perspective suggest?

Answer 6

Suggests that language is a uniquely human accomplishment. That the rules for sentence organisation are too complex to be taught to or discovered by a cognitively advanced young child. That all children have a language acquisition device (LAD)

Question 7

What is LAD?

Answer 7

An innate system that permits children, once they have acquired sufficiently vocabulary, to combine words into grammatically consistent, novel utterances and to understand the meaning of sentences they hear. Within the LAD, we have a universal grammar, a built-in storage of common rules across all human languages.

Question 8

What are the 3 main evidences supporting the Nativist Perspective?

Answer 8

1. Animals can’t acquire language
2. Language areas in the brain
3. A sensitive period for language development

Question 9

Evidence that animals can’t acquire language

Answer 9

Even after years of training of artificial languages and American Sign Language (ASL), common chimpanzees are unable to produce three or more symbol strings that conform to a rule-based structure.

Question 10

What are the 2 language areas in the brain?

Answer 10

1. Broca’s Area
2. Wernicke’s Area

Question 11

What does the Broca’s Area do?

Answer 11

Supports grammatical processing and language production

Question 12

What does the Wernicke’s Area do?

Answer 12

Involved in the comprehension of written and spoken language

Question 13

Does the Broca’s Area and Wernicke’s Area work together?

Answer 13

Yes, they actively communicate through nerve fibers

Question 14

Is language laterised in the human brain?

Answer 14

Yes, language is highly laterised in the human brain. However, the brain is not fully laterised at birth, and it is highly plastic and it develops as children acquire language.

Question 15

Is language development higher when you are younger?

Answer 15

Yes

Question 16

What are the 3 challenges to the Nativist Perspective?

Answer 16

1. The universal grammar has not been clearly specified.
2. Chomsky’s innatism in grammatical learning does not fit with certain empirical observations
3. Chomsky’s theory doesn’t account for the pragmatic aspect of language learning

Question 17

What is the Interactionist Perspective?

Answer 17

Emphasises interactions between inner cognitive capacities and environmental influences

Question 18

What is categorical speech perception?

Answer 18

Refers to the ability to distinguish between different speech sounds (phonemes) in a way that reflects the categories used in human language.

Question 19

What are the characteristics of Infant-Directed Speech?

Answer 19

1. Short sentences
2. High pitch
3. Exaggerated expression
4. Clear pronunciation
5. Distinct pauses

Question 20

What is joint attention?

Answer 20

The moments when a child and an adult are focused on the same thing; it involves the child and adult coordinating mutual engagement with their mutual focus on a third entity.

Question 21

What happens during prelinguistic development?

Answer 21

Infants initiate and respond to joint attention. Gains in joint attention predict vocabulary learning. Deficits in children with autism spectrum disorder.

Question 22

What is phonological development?

Answer 22

A complex process that depends on the child’s ability to attend to sound sequences, produce sounds, and combine them into understandable words and phrases.

Question 23

When does word comprehension start?

Answer 23

Middle of the first year

Question 24

On average, when do children say their first word?

Answer 24

At around 12 months

Question 25

By age 6, how many words do children know the meaning to?

Answer 25

About 10,000 words, grows exponentially

Question 26

Does comprehension or production ability develop first?

Answer 26

Comprehension

Question 27

How does comprehension and production grow between 8 to 16 months?

Answer 27

Rates of learning accelerate for both, but the increase in vocabulary size is much more rapid in comprehension than in production.

Question 28

What are some cultural and individual difference factors in vocabulary learning?

Answer 28

1. Child’s temperament
2. Quantity of caregiver-child conversation
3. Richness of adults’ vocabulary
4. Family SES
5. Unique styles of language learning ie. referential vs expressive

Question 29

What is telegraphic speech?

Answer 29

When young toddlers begin to product 2-word or few words utterances because they are not capable of constructing a full sentence yet