Module 9 Vocabulary & Terms Flashcards
(40 cards)
innate
Determined by factors present from birth.
innateness hypothesis
A hypothesis that humans are genetically predisposed to learn and use language.
imitation theory
Theory of language acquisition that claims that children acquire language by listening to the speech around them and reproducing what they hear.
reinforcement theory
Theory of language acquisition that says children learn to speak like adults because they are praised, rewarded, or otherwise reinforced when they use the right forms and are corrected when the use the wrong ones .
active construction of a grammar theory
Theory of language acquisition that chilled acquire a language by inventing rules of grammar based on the speech around them.
connectionist theory
Theory of language acquisition that claims that children learn language through neutral 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 appropriate language experience they need.
linguistic universals
Property believed to be held in common by all natural languages.
high amplitude sucking
Experimental technique used to study sound discrimination in infants from birth to about six months. Infants are given a special pacifier that is connected to a sound-generating system. Each suck on the pacifier generates a noise, and the infants’ sucking behavior is used to draw conclusions about discrimination abilities.
conditioned head turn procedure
Experimental technique usually used with infants between five and eighteen months within two phases: conditioning and testing. During the conditioning phase, the infant learns to associate a change in sound with the activation go visual reinforcers, first presented at the same time and then in succession, such that the infant begins to anticipate the appearance of the visual reinforcers and look at them before they are activated. During the testing phase, when the infant looks to the visual reinforcers immediately after a change in sound, it suggests that the infant has perceived the change in sound, thereby demonstrating the ability to discriminate between the two sounds involved.
voice onset time
The length go time between the release of a consonant and the onset of voicing, that is, when the vocal folds start vibrating.
articulacy gestures
A movement of a speech organ in the production of speech, for example, the movement of the velum for the production of a nasal consonant.
babble
A phase in child language acquisition during which the child produces meaningless sequences of consonants and vowels. Generally begins around the age of six months.
canonical babbling
The continuous repetition pf sequences of vowels and consonants like [mamama] by infants; also called repeated babbling.
variegated babbling
Production of meaningless consonant-vowel sequences by infants.
holophrasis stage
Stage in first language acquisition during which children can produce one word at a time.
telegraphic
A phase during children language acquisition in which children use utterances composed primarily of content words.
overgeneralization
In the study of child language acquisition, a relationship between child and adult application of rules and relative to certain contexts: a process in which children extend the application of linguistic rules to contexts beyond those in the adult language.
complexive concept
A term used in the study of child language acquisition. A group of items that a child refers to with a single word for which it is not possible to single out any one unifying property.
overextension
In the study of child language acquisition, a relationship between child and adult perception of a word meaning; the child’s application of a given word has a wider range than the application of the same word in adult language.
homesign
A rudimentary visual-gestural communication system that is developed and used by deaf children and their families when a signed language is not made available for their communication
holophrase
one-word sentence
interrogatives
A kind of language that expresses a question. In English, interrogative sentences have an auxiliary verb that precedes the subject.
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.
