What are the three types of linguistic communication?
- Oral language
- Sign language
- Written language
Linguistic communication involves various forms of language, including spoken, signed, and written forms.
Define generativity in the context of natural language.
Every natural language has a limited number of basic elements used to create an infinite number of different expressions
This concept highlights the creative potential of language.
-natural languages are languages such as English, French…
are children good at learning languages/ word learning ?
yes children seem to be able to learn languages automatically and effortlessly
WHEN placed in an environment where they’re surrounded by that language
children can learn languages easier than adults learn second languages.
What is the difference between comprehension and production in language learning?
- Comprehension: understanding
- Production: speaking/signing
Children typically understand words before they can produce them.
What are the three aspects of word learning?
- Segmenting words from a continuous speech stream
- General vocabulary development in the first few years
- Mapping words to concepts
These aspects are crucial for effective language acquisition.
What is infant/child directed speech?
- Baby talk/motherly speech
- Louder and slower speech
- Accentuation of boundaries between words or phrases
- Simpler words
- Repeat and expand
This type of speech is designed to aid language learning, though not all cultures utilize it.
List the cues used to segment words from a speech stream.
- Pauses between words
- Stress patterns
- Transitional probability
These cues help infants identify word boundaries in spoken language.
True or false: Pauses between words are a reliable cue for word segmentation.
FALSE
sho-ldwe cut thisa–pple ? pauses in words are incorrect
Often, there are no pauses between words, making this cue unreliable.
What are the two types of stress patterns in language?
- Trochaic pattern: stress on the first syllable-strong/weak pattern
- Iambic pattern: stress on the second syllable-weak/strong pattern
These patterns can vary by language and influence word segmentation.- they’re language specfic
What did Jusczyk’s 1999 study find about English-speaking infants?
- 7.5-month-olds can segment words using predominant stress patterns
- 9-month-olds can use both dominant and non-dominant patterns
This study highlights infants’ ability to learn language patterns early on.
What is transitional probability in language learning?
Likelihood of one sound following another sound within a word
pretty- ‘pre’ followed by ‘tty’
This concept helps infants predict word boundaries based on sound patterns.
What is a holophrase?
A single word standing in for a larger sentence
For example, ‘up’ can mean ‘pick me up’.
When does the two-word stage of language development typically emerge?
Around 18 months
Children start combining two words together during this stage.
What is telegraphic speech?
Leaving out less important words, straight to the point
An example is ‘man clean car’ instead of ‘the man is cleaning his car’.
What is fast mapping in vocabulary growth?
Quickly mapping a novel word to its meaning
This process allows children to learn new words rapidly.
What is the Referential ambiguity problem?
Ambiguity in naming moments, making it hard to know what a speaker is referring to
For example, a child sees a man pointing at a rabbit and saying ‘Gavagai’ the child would assume that means rabbit but it could mean rabbit foot, or rabbit in field its ambigous
Define perceptual heuristics in word learning.
Mental shortcuts that allow fast mapping to occur, such as shape bias
Children often associate words with the shapes of objects.- this is called the shape bias
What is the whole object bias?
Infants assume that a word refers to a whole object rather than a part
This bias affects how children interpret new words.
What are two social cues** in language learning?
- Pointing to an object
- Gaze of the speaker
These cues help infants understand the context of words.
What is the mutual exclusivity heuristic?
Assuming that a novel object must have a different name from an object that already has a name e.g key (child know this is called key) and if there is also a spoon they assumes that the other object is called the novel word
This heuristic helps children learn new vocabulary.
What is cross-situational learning?
Learning words of new things because by associating them with contexts you’ve seen before- dog and cat- cant distinguish see dog with a ball later on remeber that you’ve seen a dog before
This method helps infants distinguish between similar objects over time - this can also be used for verbs.
What external factor significantly influences vocabulary development?
Socio-economic status
Studies show that children from higher SES families tend to have larger vocabularies.
What was the 30 million word gap study about?
A study by hart and risley (1995) showing that children in professional families hear 30 million more words than those in welfare families
This gap affects children’s language development and vocabulary.
What did Fernald et al.’s 2013 study find regarding SES and language processing skills?
Higher SES children are quicker and more accurate in identifying words - looked at how quickly children identified a dog between an apple- looking while listening
-shown that lower ses that were 24 month were slower than the 18 month higher ses- shows a big difference in development
This suggests that socio-economic factors significantly affect language development.
