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
