What is Language Acquisition? Flashcards
Innate
Determined by factors present from birth
Innateness hypothesis
A hypothesis that humans are generally predisposed to learn and use language
Linguistic Universal
Property believed to be held in common by all natural languages
Critical period
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
Neglected child
A child who is neglected by caretakers, often resulting in significantly lower exposure to language as a child
Feral child
Child who grew up in the wild without care by human adults, often with animals
Homesign (system)
A rudimentary visual-gestural communication system (not a language) that is developed and used by deaf children and their families when a signed language is not made available for their communication
Imitation Theory
Child language acquisition theory that claims that children acquire language by listening to the speech around them and reproducing what they hear
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
Active Construction of a Grammar Theory
Theory of child language which says that children acquire a language by inventing rules of grammar based on the speech around them
Connectionist theory
Theory of language acquisition which claims that children learn language through neural connections in the brain. A child develops such connections through exposure to language and by using language
Social Interaction Theory
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
Child-directed speech
Speech used by parents or caregivers when communicating with young children or infants
High Amplitude Sucking (HAS)
Experimental technique used to study sound discrimination in infants from birth to six months. Infants are given a pacifier that is connected to a sound-generating system. Each suck on the pacifier and generates a noise. Infants’ sucking behavior is used to draw conclusions about discrimination abilities
Conditioned Head-Turn Procedure (HT)
Experimental technique usually used with infants between five and eighteen months with two phases: conditioning and testing
Voice onset time (VOT)
The length of time between the release of a consonant and the onset of voicing, when vocal folds start vibrating
Articulatory gesture
A movement of speech “from scratch” based on computational models of the shape of the human vocal tract and natural articulation processes
Canonical babbling
The continuous repetition of sequences of vowels and consonants like [mamama] by infants; also called repeated babbling
Variegated babbling
Production of meaningless consonant-vowel sequences by infants
One-word stage
Stage in first-language acquisition during which children can produce only one word at a time
Holophrase
A one-word phrase
Telegraphic Stage
A phase during child language acquisition in which children use utterances composed primarily of content words
Interrogative
A kind of sentence that expresses a question. In English, interrogative sentences have an auxiliary verb that precedes the subject
Complexive concept
A term used in the study of child language acquisition. A group of items (abstract or concrete) that a child refers to with a single word for which it is not possible to single out any one unifying property
Overextensions
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
Underextension
Application of a word to a smaller set of objects than is appropriate for mature adult speech or the usual definition of the word
Deictic (Expression)
Word or expression that takes its meaning relative to the time, place, and speaker of the utterance
Conversational turn
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
Code-switching
Using words or structural elements from more than one language within the same conversation (or even within a single sentence or phrase)
Fossilization
Process through which forms from a speaker’s non-native language usage become fixed (generally in a way that would be considered ungrammatical bu a native speaker) and do not change, even after years of instruction
Simultaneous bilingualism
Bilingualism in which both languages are acquired from infancy
Sequential bilingualism
Bilingualism in which the second language is acquired as a young child
Telegraphic Utterances
Utterances containing primarily content words (in the style of a telegram with many function words and function morphemes left out)
Overgeneralization
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
Bilingual
State of commanding two languages
Multilingual
The state of commanding three or more languages
Second-language acquisition
Acquisition of a second language as a teenager or adult (after the critical period)
Foreign accent
An accent that is marked by the phonology of another language or other languages that are more familiar to the speaker
Attention getter
Word or phrase used to initiate an address to children
Attention holder
A tactic used to maintain children’s attention for extended amounts of time
