Child Language Acquisition Terms

Question 1

Language Acquisition Device

Answer 1

The brain’s inbuilt capacity to acquire language (Noam Chomsky)

Question 2

Universal Grammar

Answer 2

All languages share the principles of grammar despite surface differences such as lexis or phonology (Noam Chomsky)

Question 3

Phonemic Expansion

Answer 3

The variety of sounds increase (for example, children move from cooing to babbling)

Question 4

Phonemic contraction

Answer 4

The variety of sounds is reduced to the sounds of the main language used

Question 5

Consonant

Answer 5

A speech sounds that is produced when the vocal tract is blocked or restricted so that there is audible friction

Question 6

Proto-word

Answer 6

an invented word that has a consistent meaning

Question 7

Holophrase

Answer 7

A single word expressing a whole idea (for example a child saying ‘sit’ to mean ‘come and sit with me’

Question 8

Vocative

Answer 8

A form (especially a noun)used to address a person (for example, mummy)

Question 9

Content word

Answer 9

A type of word that has an independent ‘dictionary’ meaning, also called a lexical word

Question 10

Function word

Answer 10

A word whose role is largely or wholly to express a grammatical relationship (For example, ‘and’ or ‘the’

Question 11

Social interactionists

Answer 11

Those who believe that child language develops through social interaction with carers

Question 12

Positive reinforcement

Answer 12

when an behaviour is rewarded, including verbal praise to encourage this behaviour being repeated (links to behaviourist theory)

Question 13

Negative reinforcement

Answer 13

When an undesirable behaviour is unrewarded or admonished to encourage the child not to repeat it (links to behaviourist theory)

Question 14

Behaviorists

Answer 14

Those who believe that language is acquired through imitation and reinforcement

Question 15

Inflectional morphology

Answer 15

The alteration of words to make new grammatical forms

Question 16

Derivational morphology

Answer 16

Creation of new words by adding prefixes and suffixes

Question 17

Diexis

Answer 17

Lexical items that ‘point’ towards something and place words in contexts (for example, ‘I want that spoon)

Question 18

Virtuous error

Answer 18

syntactic errors made by young children in which a non-standard utterance reveals some understanding, though incomplete, of standard syntax (for example, saying ‘runned’ instead of ‘ran’ shows the child understands that ‘ed’ is often used to put a word into past tense)

Question 19

Over-generalisation

Answer 19

An learner’s extension of a word meaning or grammatical rule beyond its normal use

Question 20

Egocentric speech

Answer 20

The running discourse style of speech used by children where no listener is directly addressed and he talk is focused on the child’s activities

Question 21

Child Directed Speech (CDS)

Answer 21

Any of the various speech patterns used by parents or carers when communication with young children, particuarly infants, usually involving simplified vocabulary, sing-song pitch, repetitive questioning and slow or deliberate tempo

Question 22

Expansion

Answer 22

The development of a child’s utterance into a longer, more meaningful form

Question 23

Recast

Answer 23

The commenting on, extending and rephrasing of a child’s utterance (for example (‘can I has biscuit?’ to ‘May I have a biscuit?’)

Question 24

LASS (Language Acquisition Support System)

Answer 24

This refers to the child’s interaction with adults around them and how this supports language development

Question 25

Object permanence

Answer 25

The awareness that objects continue to exist even when they are no longer visible

Question 26

Scaffolding

Answer 26

The process of transferring a skill from adult to child and then withdrawing the support once it has been mastered

Question 27

Nativists

Answer 27

Those who believe that humans have the inbuilt capacity to acquire language