Child Language spoken Acquisition

Question 1

there are two explanations for Child Language Acquisition - ______ and _______

Answer 1

Nature Nurture

Question 2

what is Skinner’s Language acquisition Theory called?

Answer 2

Behaviourist Theory

Question 3

Skinner claims that children acquire language by what?

Answer 3

imitating the speech of others and being rewarded for it

Question 4

what does Skinner call this?

Answer 4

‘Operant conditioning’

Question 5

Skinner says there are two types of Operant Conditioning - ________ __________ and ________ _____________

Answer 5

positive reinforcement negative reinforcement

Question 6

who criticises skinner?

Answer 6

Chomsky

Question 7

How does Chomsky criticise skinner?

Answer 7

he claims language used by adults speaking to children is impoverished. children would never be adult speakers if they only copied their parents language toward them.

Question 8

how can you find evidence for skinner in a transcript?

Answer 8

through the parent correcting the child, or rewarding them.

Question 9

Who proposes the idea of the ‘fis’ phenomenon

Answer 9

Berko and Brown

Question 10

how can skinner be criticised?

Answer 10

children can apply bound morphemes without hearing the word before e.g ‘wugs’

Question 11

what is the ‘Fis’ phenomenon

Answer 11

it is a regularity in negative reinforcement through correction from parents in which the child does not correspond with the correct term after being told it. e.g ‘Fis’ ‘Fish’.

Question 12

How to find support for skinner ,Berko and brown in the transcript:

Answer 12

adults modeling language and children responding.
children imitating/ repeating adults’ speech.
children learning or repairing mistakes after adult correction.

Question 14

what is Nativism?

Answer 14

theory based off of Chomsky’s work.
he believes children have a Language Acquisition Device.

Question 15

what is an LAD.

Answer 15

the ‘thing’ containing the innate ability to learn Language

Question 16

Chomsky believes that children have knowledge of ________ ______ as all languages share the same ‘____ _______’

Answer 16

universal grammar
deep structure

Question 17

virtuous errors support the existence of the…

Answer 17

LAD

Question 18

evidence for Chomsky:

Answer 18

children acquire Language rapidly and in same stages
Slobin: human anatomy is adapted for speech
Surinam pidgins become creole through generations

Question 19

evidence against Chomsky:

Answer 19

Genie - study by butler. she was locked up by her father until 13 and was never able to fully learn how to speak

Question 20

Eric Lenneberg proposes the idea of _______ ______ which means that children have to be exposed to…

Answer 20

‘critical periods’ in Language Development
social interaction before the age of 5

Question 21

what does Mcnamara say?

Answer 21

children have an innate capacity to read into social situations, conversely to Chomsky.

Question 22

how to apply chomsky,mcnamara,lenneberg to data:

Answer 22

things such as over-extension and under-extension
children constructing sentences
children doing more than imitating adult speech

Question 23

______ comes up with the idea of cognitivism

Answer 23

Piaget

Question 24

Piaget claims Language acquisition is part of what?

Answer 24

wider cognitive development

Question 25

what do ideas around wider cognitive development suggest?

Answer 25

that children can only acquire an aspect of language once they have the cognitive skills to understand the concept involved

Question 26

Piaget's three periods in children's cognitive development that develop children's Language:

Answer 26

classification object permanence seriation

Question 27

'Object permanence' is when children learn that objects continue to exist outside of their experience. this leads to...

Answer 27

increase in children's vocabularies, especially Nouns. refer to Nelson's study on children's most common fifty words.

Question 28

'classification' causes children to learn to classify objects and actions -this leads to children...

Answer 28

learning division between nouns, verbs, adjectives. see structure in children's language.

Question 29

'seriation' causes children to learn that things come in a series or an order.

Answer 29

this is applied to language as children learn comparative terms e.g. 'bigger' or 'smaller'

Question 30

case against piaget:

Answer 30

people with language difficulties do not have poor cognitive development and vice versa

Question 31

how to apply piaget in data:

Answer 31

non present or imaginary objects children failing to use or understand language, have not grasped the concept expressed

Question 32

who came up with input theory ?

Answer 32

Bruner

Question 33

what does input theory suggest

Answer 33

language used by parents is used to specifically aid children’s learning

Question 34

what is Bruner’s L.A.S.S?

Answer 34

the language acquisition support system.

Question 35

evidence for Bruner’s L.A.S.S

Answer 35

the fact that parents speak more slowly and simply to children for greater comprehension . parents expand children’s speech

Question 37

according to Bruner , how do parents introduce new words ?

Answer 37

repeated sentence frames e.g. “what’s this?”

Question 38

Bruner presents another three aspects of child directed language which are :

Answer 38

parents using more pauses. parents use of higher pitch and intonation to engage the child. parents use more imperatives and interrogative to encourage engagement.

Question 40

Bruner’s says parents use books to help children learn names of things in 4 ways:

Answer 40

gaining attention querying labelling feedback

Question 41

interactions with children use what in order to teach them about about spoken discourse structures ?

Answer 41

routines and rituals. e.g playing shop with a child - teaches turn taking and politeness.

Question 42

who adds to bruner’s input theory ?

Answer 42

vygotsky.

Question 43

what does vygotsky say about adults language ?

Answer 43

that it provides “ scaffolding “ in helping children forming an utterance

Question 44

vygotsky says that the adult (or other person) acts as a MKO (more knowledgeable other). what does the MKO do ?

Answer 44

they help the child move within the “zone of proximal development” . the area that is just beyond what they can do.

Question 45

how can you apply Bruner and Vygotskys ideas in the text?

Answer 45

“scaffolding” children benefitting from their interaction parents reinforcing children’s attempt to speak conversation skills and pragmatic awareness being moderated and modelled.

Question 46

what is the wug experiment ?

Answer 46

an idea proposed by berko. despite child never hearing word “wug” they can apply bound morpheme “s” to pluralise it to “wugs” supports chomsky.