Chapter Four- Phonological Development

Question 1

What are Speech Sounds?

Answer 1

• acoustic signals that language uses to express meaning
• different languages have different inventories of sounds they use (waves that go into the ear)
• distinctive features of sounds that a language uses to create a meaning contest (eg. Voicing and aspiration)

Question 2

What are bilabial sounds

Answer 2

-these are sounds occurring in the vocal tract and lips (two lips)

Question 3

Are vowels obstructed ?

Answer 3

no

Question 4

Are consonants obstructed?

Answer 4

yes, somewhere in the vocal tract

Question 5

Human vocal tract parts

Answer 5

• nasal cavity
• lips
• alveolar ridge
• teeth
• tongue
• larynx
• epiglottis
• vocal cords
• trachea
• esophagus
• lungs

Question 6

How does the air flow through the human vocal tract?

Answer 6

• from the lungs to the trachea, passes the larynx with the vocal cords vibrating then to the pharynx, depending on the sound air would stop either in the parts of the mouth or not at all

Question 7

What is Phonetics?

Answer 7

• the study of speech sounds, these are not the same as the alphabet letters

Question 8

What is phonology? How many sounds does the english language have?

Answer 8

• the sound system of language, contains 26 letters but we use 45 different sounds in english

Question 9

What is the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)

Answer 9

• a more detailed alphabet that accurately captures the sounds really being used
• each symbol can be pronounced only one way and every sound has its own symbol

Question 10

How do you read the Canadian English Consonants Chart?

Answer 10

• along the top: the place of articulation / where the sound is made
• along the left side: the manner of articulation / how the sound is made
• two symbols in the same box? left is voiceless and right is voiced

Question 11

What are the phonetic features of speech sounds?

Answer 11

1. Manner of articulation
2. Place are articulation
3. Voicing

Question 12

What is the manner of articulation?

Answer 12

• it is the HOW the sound is made
• is the airflow blocked?
• vowels: the tongue does not block the air at all, the airflow is completely unobstructed !
• Stop- Consonants: the air is completely stopped and then released
• Fricatives: the air is partly blocked
• we also send air through the nasal passage for some sounds

Question 13

What is the place of articulation?

Answer 13

• WHERE the sound is made
• the tongue can also block airflow in many places from the front (/t/) of the mouth to the middle (/r/) to the back (/k/)
• we can also block airflow further down our throats as with the glottal stop

Question 14

What is Voicing ?

Answer 14

• WHEN the sound is made
• when the vocal cords start vibrating
• voiced: cords start vibrating early, usually before the sound is released
• voiceless: cords may not vibrate at all
• you can tell by touching your vocal cords

Question 15

Do voiced sounds Vibrate your vocal cords?

Answer 15

Yes

Question 16

What are phones?

Answer 16

any sound

Question 17

What is a Phoneme?

Answer 17

symbols on the phonetic table, sounds of any langauge

Question 18

What are allophones

Answer 18

sounds that do not differentiate meaning (aspirated vs un-aspirated)
eg. Lit , little, lite

Question 19

What is aspiration?

Answer 19

• aspirated sounds create a little puff of air eg. /p/

- non aspirated words do not release a puff of are eg. /b/

Question 20

Chronological Development of speech sounds

Answer 20

• 3 months: cooing
• 5 months: laughing, playful sounds
• 6 months: speech-like babbling sounds
• 1 year: babbles linger strings of sounds
• 3 years: familiar people understand the child’s speech
• 4 years: y and v in words, most people understand the childs speech

Question 21

What are Stark’s Stages of Prelinguistic Speech Development

Answer 21

1. (0-2m) Reflexive Crying and Vegetative sounds
   eg. Burping
2. (2-4m) Cooing and Laughter
3. (4-6m) Vocal Play
4. (6-9 m) Canonical Babbling (Reduplicated Babbling)
5. (9-12m) Variegated Babbling

Question 22

What are Vegetative sounds in newborns?

Answer 22

• natural part of biological functioning
  eg. burping, breathing, sucking, etc)
• use the same basic processes of speech, such as air moving through the mouth and vibration of vocal cords

Question 23

Explain the Cooing and Laughter stage of Stark’s Prelinguistic Speech Development

Answer 23

• 2 to 4 months
• sounds of happiness
• social interaction elicits cooing
• first coos sound like one long vowel (oooooo)
• later vowel-like sounds strung together separated by breathe
• Laughter develops around 16 weeks or 4 months

Question 24

Explain the Vocal Play stage of Stark’s Prelinguistic Speech Development

Answer 24

4-6 months

• consonants and vowels
• appear to be developing their own control over production abilities
• Marginal Babbling
• Squealing, growl and other sounds
• consonants follow a typical trajectory (velars then move to articulated at front of mouth)

Question 25

Explain the Canonical stage of Stark's Prelinguistic Speech Development (reduplicated babbling)

Answer 25

6-9 months - reduplicated babbling: repeated sets of syllables (mama) - babbling used in communicative and non-communicative settings - this is the first development the distinguishes the vocal development of hearing children from that of deaf children - deaf infants rarely producing babbling speech, maybe in signing tho

Question 26

what is Marginal Babbling?

Answer 26

- when infants string together sounds into increasingly complex series vowel- consonant or vice versa

Question 27

Explain the Variegated Babbling stage of Stark's Prelinguistic Speech Development

Answer 27

9-12 months - non-reduplicated - consists of series of syllables that are different from each other (domido) - prosody becomes more noticeable - sound like they are speaking but it is just a melody of language without the words aka jargon

Question 28

What is the Babbling Drift?

Answer 28

- prior to babbling, the development of pre-speech sounds does not seem to differ much by language - though when they do start babbling they appear to babble in their native language - acoustic signals of babbling has found that the content of babble depend on the language

Question 29

What are the Biological Processes of the development of speech sounds?

Answer 29

- physical growth: in the first year the vocal tract becomes larger and more adult-like in shape, the increased size of the oral cavity gives the tongue more room to maneuver - Nervous System Maturation: cooing may be linked to the maturation of the limbic system (associated with emotional expression) , babbling may depend on prefrontal cortex development

Question 30

What are the Experiential Processes of the development of speech sounds?

Answer 30

- the language of surrounding adults influence the sounds and intonation of speech - hearing their own speech through vocal play, auditory feedback - social feedback: parents who provide social feedback to vocalizations may encourage more vocal production in infants (treating babbling as conversational speech)

Question 31

What are Protowords?

Answer 31

- during the transition between babbling and the appearance of the first word, children often produce their own invented words - idiosyncratic sound sequence

Question 32

what age can children recognize when a familiar word is mispronounced?

Answer 32

11 months

Question 33

what age do accents affect children till?

Answer 33

1 year

Question 34

what is reduplication

Answer 34

the production of two identical syllables based on one of the syllables in the target word

Question 35

what is a canonical template ?

Answer 35

consonant + vowel + /j/ + vowel + consonant

Question 36

What is final consonant deletion

Answer 36

The omission of the final consonant in the target word eg. Tea- team We-week

Question 37

Weak Syllable Deletion

Answer 37

Omission of an unstressed syllable in the target word | eg. banana, nanana