Language Development

Question 1

ibbotson and tomasello disputed…

Answer 1

chomsky’s theory of an innate grammar module

• principles and parameters theory replaced this with rules that interact with cultures to produce variations in language

Question 2

stages of vocabulary growth

Answer 2

1. 12mo- production of first word
2. 15mo- 25 words/fragments
3. 2y- about 300 words
4. 5yo- 10-15,000 words and vocabulary bursts (10-20 new words a day)
5. 18yo- 60,000 words

Question 3

main stages in language development

Answer 3

babbling (4-9mo)
holophrastic (9-18mo)
two-word (18-24mo)
telegraphic (24-30mo)

Question 4

babbling stage

Answer 4

meaningless, speechlike vocalisations with simple reduplicated CV structure

becomes more language-specific over time

Question 5

holophrastic stage

Answer 5

consists of relevant names/objects, and nouns are easier to produce
high frequency of demonstrative words, e.g., this, that, there…

Question 6

two-word stage

Answer 6

different from idiomatic expressions, most often nouns
lack of grammatical markers and beginning of syntax

Question 7

telegraphic stage

Answer 7

three-word expressions
absence of function words, auxiliary verbs, prepositions, and tense
quick progression

Question 8

foetuses and hearing in the womb

Answer 8

can hear impoverished sounds due to high frequencies being blocked by amniotic fluid
- prosody, stress, rhythm, intonation and duration

Question 9

evidence of early speech perception

Answer 9

1yo using categorical perception- sensitive to speech sounds

Question 10

evidence of early speech production

Answer 10

crying, cooing, and laughing as involuntary responses to emotional states
- vocal play between 4-7 months

Question 11

fast mapping

Answer 11

children learn new words for objects after one experience of exposure

Question 12

how do newborns contribute to communication?

Answer 12

• head turning to noise
• discriminate between sounds and mother’s voice

Question 13

how do 1-4mo contribute to communication?

Answer 13

• smiling, cooing, sounds
• laughter starts to occur

Question 14

how do 4-9mo contribute to communication?

Answer 14

• different responses to different information
• vocal play and babbling
• intentional communication between 8-10mo

Question 15

how do 8-12mo contribute to communication?

Answer 15

• interpretable reaction to some words
• showing and pointing
• recognition of around

Question 16

what do CDS and motherese show?

Answer 16

contribution of the parent to communication

Question 17

phonological differences in motherese

Answer 17

higher pitch, exaggerated intonation, segmented, slower

lots of repetition and diminutives to acquire noun morphology

Question 18

is CDS essential?

Answer 18

can facilitate language learning, by marking syntactic boundaries, but it is not essential

Question 19

language acquisition theories

Answer 19

• behaviourist accounts
• nativist
• constructivist/cognitive
• social accounts

Question 20

behaviourist accounts (skinner)

Answer 20

language is used in response to stimuli and learned by children through imitation and reinforcement

• poverty of stimulus
• children often use ungrammatical language

Question 21

nativist accounts (chomsky, pinker)

Answer 21

language capacity is innate (LAD) and children learn worldwide universal grammar without explicit instruction

Question 22

constructivist and cognitive accounts (piaget)

Answer 22

language learning is driven by cognitive development of mental schemas

Question 23

social accounts (vygotsky, bruner)

Answer 23

language has a social origin; high importance of social interaction and learning

adults model concepts and culture to children

Question 24

errors with word learning

Answer 24

overextension- all animals are called doggie

underextension- only roses are called flowers

Question 25

mechanisms for word learning

Answer 25

low-level mechanisms, e.g., classical conditioning conceptual prerequisites, e.g., children know basic ontological categories linguistic prerequisites, e.g., children assume words have meaning

Question 26

predispositions

Answer 26

children have innate assumptions when assigning meaning to sounds

Question 27

types of assumptions

Answer 27

- whole object - shape bias - mutual exclusivity - taxonomic assumption - basic level category assumption - noun-category bias

Question 28

whole object

Answer 28

assumes the word is a label referring to the whole object rather than its parts

Question 29

shape bias

Answer 29

extend names to objects that are similar in shape over other functions

Question 30

mutual exclusivity assumption

Answer 30

an object can only have one label

Question 31

taxonomic assumption

Answer 31

novel words referring to something will also refer to similar things, leading to overextension

Question 32

basic level category assumption

Answer 32

assumes a novel word refers back to the basic level, rather than superordinate or subordinate

Question 33

noun-category bias

Answer 33

nouns are conceptually easier to learn than other syntactic categories

Question 34

evidence of rule-based morphological development

Answer 34

wug test- applying the plural rule to produce the correct phonological form

Question 35

stages of morphological development

Answer 35

1. holophrastic- right answer, wrong reasons 2. rule-based- wrong answer, right reasons (overgeneralisation of rules) 3. rules and exceptions- right answer, right reasons

Question 36

U-shaped morphological learning

Answer 36

instance-based overgeneralisations exceptions

Question 37

critical age hypothesis

Answer 37

biological events related to language (e.g., lateralisation) can only happen during a limited period of maturation - during this period, linguistic input is vital for normal language development

Question 38

linguistic theory of syntax

Answer 38

grammar is developed by analysing grammatical and ungrammatical sentences suggests children are born with a linguistic capacity

Question 39

what is LAD?

Answer 39

provides the rules and principles to learn any language in the world only input is needed to trigger LAD operation

Question 40

chomsky believed language acquisition is guided by...

Answer 40

LAD or universal grammar (UG)

Question 41

UG

Answer 41

limited number of principles common to all languages, which provides the range of parameters to explain variation in human language

Question 42

how do children use LAD?

Answer 42

using the input, must decide which parameter is appropriate for their language

Question 43

opposition to LAQD

Answer 43

usage-based learning, where children use general cognitive abilities, learning mechanisms, and knowledge of social situations

Question 44

clear correlations between _____ and _______ development

Answer 44

lexical, syntactic first grammatical knowledge occurs when words are combined

Question 45

stages of syntactic development

Answer 45

1. beginning of word combinations 2. add grammatical morphemes 3. questions and negatives 4. complex sentences

Question 46

multiword utterances

Answer 46

arises when children know around 50 words at 2yo

Question 47

MLU

Answer 47

observes the mean number of morphemes to assess syntactic and phonological development

Question 48

pragmatics- using context

Answer 48

adults: - use context (integrating discourse and syntactic information) - semantic context biases interpretation children fail to use discourse or semantic context in language processing