PSYC 223 - Language Development

Surface Structure

The way words and phrases are arranged in spoken languages

• Chomsky’s Language Model

Deep Structure

The inborn knowledge humans possess about the properties of language

• Chomsky’s Language Model

Language Acquisition Device (LAD)

A brain mechanism that allows young children to quickly acquire the language to which they are exposed

Transformational Grammar

A set of rules developed by the LAD to translate a language’s surface structure to a deep structure that the child can innately understand

Sensitive Period

A biological deadline for language

• a language can only be naturally learned before a certain age and cannot be acquired as easily after that point

Infant-directed Speech

Simplified speech directed at very young children by adults and older children

Sociocultural Approach

A language acquisition support system process by which parents provide children with assistance in learning language

Format

A script, that consist of structured social interactions, or routines, that commonly take place between infants and their mothers

Cognitive-developmental Approach

Acquisition of language forms that children can “map onto” cognitive concepts they already possess

• children use their early cognitive concepts as a means of extracting the rules of language from the speech they hear

• agent, action, object

Categorical Perception

The ability to discriminate when two sounds represent two different phonemes, and when they lie within the same phonemic category

Perceptual Narrowing

The loss of the ability to discriminate phonemes from unfamiliar languages

Babbling Drift

The hypothesis that infants’ babbling gradually gravitates toward the language they are hearing and will soon speak

Semantics

The study of meaning in language

Referential Style

A language acquisition style of vocabulary acquired during the '“naming explosion” that involves producing a large proportion of nouns and object labels.

• information function of language

Expressive Style

A language acquisition style of vocabulary acquired during the naming explosion that emphasizes the pragmatic functions of language

• interpersonal use of language

Overextensions

An early language error in which children use labels they already know for things whose names they do not yet know

• associated with a lack of vocabulary

Underextensions

An early language error in which children fail to apply labels they know to things for which the labels are appropriate

Coining

Children’s creation of new words to label objects or events for which the correct label is not known

Holophrases

A single word used to express a larger idea; common during the second year of life

Wug Test

A test designed to investigate the acquisition of plural-formation and other rules of grammar

• may use random, nonsense, made-up words

Syntactic Bootstrapping

A proposed mechanism of semantic development in which children use syntactic cues to infer the meanings of words

Fast-mapping

The children’s ability to acquire the meaning of a word after a brief exposure

• assumes a predisposition to a particular mode of object-label relation

Constraints

Implicit assumptions about word meanings to narrow down the possibilities, thus facilitating word learning

Whole-object Assumption

A child’s assumption that a new word refers to the whole objects

Shape Bias

A child’s extension of new labels on the basis of similarity in shape

Lexical Contrast Theory

The theory that children automatically assume a new word has a meaning different from that of any other words they know

• children always choose word meaning that are generally accepted over more individualized meanings

Principle of Mutual Exclusivity

A child’s assumption that an object can have only one name

Modelling

A process of word learning when children repeat the words most frequently said by their parents

Telegraphic Speech

Speech from which non-essential function words are left out

• ex, a, the, of are left out

Overregularization

The application of inflectional rules to irregular forms

Operation Principles

Hypothesized innate strategies for analyzing language input and discovering grammatical structures

Language-Making Capacity (LMC)

A set of strategies or learning principles that underlie the acquisition of language

Competition Model

A model which suggests that children use a strategy for language acquisition that involves weighing possible cues in terms of availability and reliability

Expansions

A repetition of speech in which errors are corrected and statements are elaborated

Recasts

Responses to speech that restate it using a different structure

Clarification Questions

Responses indicating that a listener did not understand a statement

Productivity

The property of language that permits humans to produce and comprehend and infinite number of statements

Naming Explosion

A period of language development when children suddenly begin to acquire words at a high rate

• approximately at 18 months