SLA Final

Linguists

People who decipher how people communicate with one another

Speech

A verbal means of communicating that includes speaking, writing, drawing, and signing

Language

A socially-shared code or conventional system for sharing concepts through symbols and rule-governed combinations of those symbols

Communication

The exchange of information, ideas, needs, and desires between two or more people

Paralinguistic Codes

Include intonation, stress and emphasis, speed or rate of delivery, and pause or hesitation, which are all used to signal attitude or emotion

Suprasegmental Devices

can change the form and meaning of a sentence by acting across elements, or segments, of a sentence

Nonlinguistic Cues

include gestures, body posture, facial expression, eye contact, head and body movement, and physical distance or proxemics, and also convey the use of language

Metalinguists

the ability to talk about language, analyze it, think about it, judge it, and see it as an entity separate from its context or out of context

Linguistic Competence

A language user's underlying knowledge about the system of rules that govern language

Linguistic Performance

Linguistic knowledge in actual use; linguistic competence is often deduced from linguistic performance

Syntax

The form or structure of a sentence; these rules specify word, phrase, and clause order, sentence organization, and the relationships among words, word classes, and other sentence elements. In addition, it specifies which word combinations are acceptable/grammatical and which ones are not

Morphology

internal organization of words

Morpheme

The smallest indivisible grammatical unit that carries meaning

Free morphemes

Are independent and can stand alone

Bound morphemes

Grammatical markers that cannot function independently

Phonology

The rules governing the structure, distribution, and sequencing of speech sounds and the shape of syllables

Phonemes

The smallest linguistic units of sound that can signal a difference in meaning

Allophones

Variations of a phoneme that do not alter the meaning of a word

Semantics

A system of rules governing the meaning or content of words and word combinations

World Knowledge

an individual's autobiographical and experiential understanding and memory of particular events

Word knowledge

contains word and syllable definitions and is primarily verbal

Lexicon

Each person's mental dictionary or thesaurus

Semantic Features

Aspects of meaning that characterize the word

Selection Restrictions

Are based on semantic features and prohibit certain word combinations because they are either meaningless (oxymoronic) or redundant

Pragmatics

Sees language as a communication tool, used to achieve social ends; pragmatics is more concerned with how we communicate rather than with the way language is structured

Discourse

A language activity, such as having a conversation, or telling a narrative

The Deficit Approach

says that certain dialects are further from the ideal than other dialects, which is influenced by status

The Sociolinguistic Approach

Says that no dialect is better than another, and that they are all related to each other and to the main language; preferred by speech pathologists and linguists alike

Registers

Socially influenced language variations

Vernacular Variation

a casual, informal, or intimate register

Style Shifting

Reverting from informal American English to formal American English

Neurolinguistics

the study of the relationship between language and the brain

soma

contains the nucleus and other parts of the cell needed to sustain its life

Axon

transmits information to other neurons, muscles, or glands

Dendrites

a neuron's bushy, branching extensions that receive messages and conduct impulses toward the cell body

Reticular Formation

a nerve network in the brainstem that plays an important role in controlling arousal

Thalamus

the brain's sensory switchboard, located on top of the brainstem; it directs messages to the sensory receiving areas in the cortex and transmits replies to the cerebellum and medulla

Cerebrum

Area of the brain responsible for all voluntary activities of the body

vermis

Connects the two hemispheres of the cerebellum

Cortex

outermost covering of the brain consisting of densely packed neurons, responsible for higher thought processes and interpretation of sensory input

Corpus Callosum

the large band of neural fibers connecting the two brain hemispheres and carrying messages between them

Prefrontal Cortex

part of frontal lobe responsible for thinking, planning, and language

Executive Function

conscious control of thoughts, emotions, and actions to accomplish goals or solve problems

Motor Cortex

an area at the rear of the frontal lobes that controls voluntary movements

Frontal Lobe

A region of the cerebral cortex that has specialized areas for movement, abstract thinking, planning, memory, and judgement

Temporal Lobe

A region of the cerebral cortex responsible for hearing and language.

Occipital Lobe

A region of the cerebral cortex that processes visual information

Parietal Lobe

Sensory integration

Basic brain functions

regulation, processing, formulation

Dominance

When one hemisphere is lateralized for a specific task or function

Myelination

the process by which axons become coated with myelin, a fatty substance that speeds the transmission of nerve impulses from neuron to neuron

Heschl's Gyrus

A superior temporal lobe gyrus that is located in the lateral fissure of each hemisphere; it is the location of most of the primary auditory cortex

Broca's area

Controls language expression - an area of the frontal lobe, usually in the left hemisphere, that directs the muscle movements involved in speech.

Wernicke's Area

controls language reception - a brain area involved in language comprehension and expression; usually in the left temporal lobe

Angular Gyrus

transforms visual representations into an auditory code

Insular Lobe

The lobe tucked away in the lateral sulcus

Supramarginal Gyrus

Phonological development (rhyming and reading development)

Exner's area

a brain region located in the left frontal premotor cortex just above Broca's area that stores the motor programs for handwriting gestures

Arcuate Fasciculus

a bundle of axons that connects Wernicke's area with Broca's area; damage causes conduction aphasia

Information Processing

a continuum including attention, sensation, perception, learning, memory, and cognition

Working Memory

a newer understanding of short-term memory that focuses on conscious, active processing of incoming auditory and visual-spatial information, and of information retrieved from long-term memory

articulatory rehearsal process

Rehearsal process involved in working memory that keeps items in the phonological store from decaying.

phonological short-term memory

Responsible for temporarily storing and processing verbal information

Episodic buffer

A component of working memory where information in working memory interacts with information in long term memory (eg. relating information you are processing to a previous memory)

Short-Term memory

activated memory that holds a few items briefly, such as the seven digits of a phone number while dialing, before the information is stored or forgotten

long-term memory

the relatively permanent and limitless storehouse of the memory system. Includes knowledge, skills, and experiences.

top-down processing

information processing guided by higher-level mental processes, as when we construct perceptions drawing on our experience and expectations

bottom-up processing

analysis that begins with the sensory receptors and works up to the brain's integration of sensory information

Passive/Active Processing

Different ways of analyzing incoming stimuli; passive processing operates by dealing with fragments of information whereas active processing operates by comparing incoming to previously stored information

serial and parallel processing

Processing multiple levels of information at a time either simultaneously or in parallel with each other

Generative/Nativist Approach

assumes that children are able to acquire language because they are born with innate rules or principles related to structures of human languages

constructionist approach

a sociological approach that focuses on the way specific groups, activities, conditions, or artifacts become defined as problems

child-directed speech

language spoken in a higher pitch than normal with simple words and sentences

Emergentism Approach

An approach of language acquisition that describes language as a structure arising from existing interacting patterns in the brain rather than from language-specific structures

Interactionalist Approach

emphasizes the combination of biological and environmental influences

neonate

newborn baby

Habituation

decreasing responsiveness with repeated stimulation. As infants gain familiarity with repeated exposure to a visual stimulus, their interest wanes and they look away sooner.

Reflex

a simple, automatic response to a sensory stimulus, such as the knee-jerk response

Milestone

An important event in human development

Sensitive Period

A limited phase in an animal's development that is the only time when certain behaviors can be learned.

Schemes

In Piaget's theory, actions or mental representations that organize knowledge.

Mental Map

A map which represents the perceptions and knowledge a person has of an area

Adaptation

A characteristic that improves an individual's ability to survive and reproduce in a particular environment.

Organization

the tendency to integrate particular observations into coherent knowledge

rehearsal

the conscious repetition of information, either to maintain it in consciousness or to encode it for storage

Integrative Rehearsal

Use of repetition or rehearsal to transfer information to long-term memory. Information-processing concept.

Equilibrium

A state of cognitive balance, or harmony, between incoming stimuli and the organism's cognitive schemes

Assimilation

interpreting one's new experience in terms of one's existing schemas

Accomodation

adapting our current understandings (schemas) to incorporate new information

Prosody

Inflections and stress of words that influences their meanings

phonotactic regularities

phonemes, phoneme combinations, and syllable structures typical of the native language and noticed by young children

phonotactic probabilities

the likelihood of phonemes appearing together and/or in certain locations in words

quasi-resonant nuclei (QRN)

non-crying sounds accompany feeding or are produced in response to smiling or talking by the mother. Contains phonation, or vibration of the vocal folds

babbling

stage of language development at about 4 months when an infant spontaneously utters nonsense sounds

fully resonant nuclei (FRN)

Vowel-like sounds that are fully resonant laryngeal tones

reduplicated babbling

babbling that consists of repeating consonant-vowel pairs, such as "da da da"

variegated babbling

long strings of nonidentical syllables that appear in the vocal play of some 8-10 month old infants

jargon

nonsensical talk

phonetically consistent forms (PCFs)

consistent vocal patterns that accompany gestures prior to the appearance of words

recognition memory

the identification of a stimulus that was encountered earlier