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Flashcards in Problem 6 Deck (47)
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1
Q

Symbols

A

Systems for

a) representing our thoughts/feelings/knowledge
b) communicating them to other people

–> this ability expands our cognitive + communicative power

2
Q

What is required for language acquisition ?

A

a) comprehension
- -> understanding what other say

b) production
- ->speaking

c) human brain
- -> only the human brain acquires a communicative system of this complexity

d) experience with human language

3
Q

Hierarchy of speech/language development

A
  1. Sounds –> words
  2. Words –> sentences
  3. Sentences –> stories / conversations
4
Q

Generativity

A

Through the use of the finite set of words and morphemes in the vocabulary, one can put together an infinite number of sentences

5
Q

Phonological development

A

Acquisition of knowledge about the sound system of a language

6
Q

Phonemes

A

Units of sound in speech

  • -> have no meaning
  • -> a change in phoneme changes the meaning of the word

ex.: hip –> lip ( h+ l change the meaning )

7
Q

Semantic development

A

Learning the system for expressing meaning in a language, including word learning

8
Q

Morphemes

A

Smallest units of meaning in a language

–> composed of one ore more phonemes

ex.: dogs –> 2 morphemes (implies 2 or more dogs)

9
Q

Syntactic development

A

Learning how words + morphemes are combined

10
Q

Syntax

A

Rules in a language that specify how words from different categories can be combined

ex.: lila ate the lobster vs the lobster ate lila

11
Q

Pragmatic development

A

Acquiring an understanding of how language is typically used to communicate

–> crucial aspect of becoming a good conversational partner

12
Q

Metalinguistic Knowledge

A

Knowledge about language and its properties

13
Q

Critical period

A

Time ( 5 y/o - puberty ) during which language develops readily + after which language acquisition is much more difficult

ex.: “Genie” was able to make progress, but never exceeded toddler level

14
Q

Infant directed speech

IDS

A

Distinctive mode of speech that adults adopt when talking to babies

  • -> draws the infants attention to the speech itself
  • -> recognition and learning of words is better
15
Q

Characteristics of IDS

A
  1. Emotional tone
    - -> a lot of affection
  2. Exaggeration

a) slower speech
b) higher voice
c) clearer vowels
d) facial expressions

16
Q

Prosody

A

The characteristic rhythmic + intonation patterns with which language is spoken

–> explains why languages sound so different

17
Q

Categorical perception

A

Process that allows us to distinguish sounds between categories ( phonemes )

6-8months: infants can discriminate between different languages

10-12months: can’t perceive the difference anymore

  • -> retain their sensitivity to sounds in the native language
  • -> become less sensitive to nonnative speech sounds
18
Q

Word segmentation

A

The process of discovering where words begin + end in fluent speech

–> emerges after 7-8months

19
Q

Distributional properties

A

Certain sounds are more likely to appear together than others

–> infants use recurrent sound patterns to fish words out of the passing stream of speech

ex.: own name

20
Q

Babbling

A

Repetitive consonant - vowel sequences

(after 7 months)

–> key component of this development is the exposure to their native language

21
Q

Reference

A

Associating words with a meaning

–> First step in acquiring the meaning of words

22
Q

Productive vocabulary

A

Refers to the words a child can say

  1. children are limited by their ability to produce words clearly enough for recognition

–> this is why they adopt simplification strategies

ex. : brother –> “bubba”
2. first things they say is limited to their immediate environment
ex. : siblings, pets

!! Infants understand more words than they can produce !!

23
Q

Holophrastic phase

A

Expressing a whole phrase with a single word

24
Q

Overextension

A

Using a word in a broader context than is appropriate

ex.: dog –> every four legged animal

–> represents an effort to communicate, rather than lack of knowledge

25
Q

How can adults influence the learning of speech of infants ?

A
  1. IDS
  2. highlighting new words
  3. Repetition of words
  4. naming games
    ex. : “ich sehe was was du nicht siehst”
26
Q

Fast mapping

A

Process of rapidly learning a new word from hearing the contrastive use of a familiar word + unfamiliar word

ex.: “bring me the chromium tray, not the red one”

27
Q

Mutual exclusivity assumption

A

Children will expect a given entity will only have one name

–> bilingual children will not follow this assumption

28
Q

Whole object assumption

A

Children expect a novel word to refer to a whole object rather than to a part/ property/ action

29
Q

Pragmatic cues

A

Aspects of the social context are used for word learning

ex. : adults focusing of attention
- -> relation between eye gaze + labeling

ex.: emotional Response of adults

30
Q

Syntactic bootstrapping

A

Strategy of using the grammatical structure of whole sentences to figure out meaning

31
Q

Telegraphic Speech

A

Term describing children’s first sentences that are 2 - word utterances

–> function words + auxiliary verbs are missing

32
Q

Overregularization

A

Speech errors in which children treat irregular forms of words as if they were regular

ex.: instead of go –> went
they will say “goed”

–> parents will more likely correct factual errors than grammatical errors

33
Q

Private speech

A

Children talk to themselves as a strategy to organize their actions

–> this is then internalized into thought

34
Q

Collective monologue

A

Conversation in which the content of each childs turn has nothing or little to do what the other child said

35
Q

Behaviorist theory of language development

Skinner

A

Parents teach children to speak by means of the same reinforcement techniques that are used to train animals

36
Q

Universal Grammar

Chomsky’s nativist theory

A

Refers to a hard wired set of principles + rules that are common to all languages

  • -> every human is born with
  • -> explains why most children learn language with such rapidity
37
Q

Modularity hypothesis

A

The human brains contains an innate, self contained language module that is separate from other aspects of cognitive functioning

38
Q

Speech stream

A

Undifferentiated series of speech sounds

–> must separate speech stream into individual sounds to learn the relevant sounds of their language

ex.: wheredidyougowithgrandpa ?

39
Q

Discrimination of different sounds in adults

A

a) can distinguish sounds from different categories
ex. : “ba” vs “pa”
b) can’t distinguish sounds from the same category
ex. : different “ba” sounds

–> suggests that infants engage in categorical perception of sounds

40
Q

Ability to discriminate between phonemes in infancy

A

< 6 months : Ability to discriminate between a wide range of phones

> 12 months: Experience diminishes this ability
–> infants are unable to discriminate between phonemes of other languages, just native one

41
Q

What does a childs acquisition of the phonemes of its native language depend on ?

A

a) innate predisposition for categorical perception

b) experience
- -> necessary for the infant to learn which phonemes are most important to the language

42
Q

The development of speech production

A

0-2 months: REFLEXIVE VOCALIZATIONS

  • -> cries, burps, coughs
  • -> different types of cries might have different meanings

2-4 months: COOING + LAUGHING

  • -> is produced while child is in a happy state
  • -> reciprocal cooing might teach turn taking in conversations

4-6 months: BABBLING + VOCAL PLAY

  • -> gaining control over vocal cords, lips, mouth, tongue
  • -> infants produce a wide range of sounds

6-10 months: CANONICAL BABBLING

  • -> production of sound combinations that sound like words
    ex. : “mamama”

10 months +: MODULATED BABBLING

  • -> Overlaps with the beginning of meaningful speech
  • -> acquisition of the intonation patterns important for the native language (knowing difference between statement + question)

2 years: ability to combine words into simple sentences

43
Q
S structure 
(Surface structure)
A

Sentence that can have more than one meaning

–> its meaning is determined by the d-structure

“There was a shooting in the mall yesterday”
–> may refer to an armed shooting or photo shooting

44
Q
D structure 
(Deep structure)
A

More abstract representation of a sentence

45
Q

Creative overgeneralizations

A

Creating new verbs by treating a noun as if it were a verb

ex.: “why is it weathering ?”

46
Q

Voice onset time

VOT

A

The time delay between when a sound begins and when the vocal cords begin vibrating

47
Q

Initial perceptual bias

A

Initially infants have a bias towards familiar sounds they picked up in the womb

–> mothers voice, songs etc