language development

Language

is a small number of individually meaningless symbols that can be combined according to agreed-on rules to produce an infinite number of messages

Communication

is the process by which one organism transmits information to and influences another

Vocables

are unique patterns of sound that a prelinguistic infant uses to represent objects, actions or events

Psycholinguistics

are those who study the structure and development of children's language

Phonology

is the sound system of a language and the rules for combining these sounds to produce meaningful units of speech

Phonemes

is the basic units of sound that are used in a spoken language

Morphology

are the rules governing the formation of meaningful words from sounds

Semantics

are the expressed meaning of words and sentences

Morphemes

are the smallest meaningful language units

Free morphemes

are morphemes that can stand alone as word

Bound morphemes

are morphemes that cannot stand alone but that modify the meaning of free morphemes

Syntax

is the structure of a language; the rules specifying how words and grammatical markers are to be combined to produce meaningful sentences

Pragmatics

are principals that underlie the effective and appropriate use of language in social context

Sociolinguistic knowledge

are culturally specific rules specifying how language should be structured and used in particular social contexts

Linguistic universal

is an aspect of language development that all children share

Language acquisition device (LAD)

is Chomsky's term for the innate knowledge of grammar that humans were said to possess-knowledge that might enable young children to infer the rules governing others' speech and to use these rules to produce language

Language-making capacity

is a hypothesized set of specialized linguistic processing skills that enable children to analyze speech and to detect phonological, semantic, and syntactical relationships

Aphasia

is a loss of one or more language functions

Broca's area

is a structure located in the frontal lobe of the left hemisphere of the cerebral cortex that controls language production

Wernicke's area

is the structure located in the temporal lobe of the left hemisphere of the cerebral cortex that is responsible for interpreting speech

Sensitive-period hypothesis (of language acquisition)

is the notion that human beings are most proficient at language learning before they reach puberty

Interactionist theory

is the notion that biological factors and environmental influences interact to determine the course of language development

Motherese

are short, simple, high-pitched sentences that adults use when talking with young children

Expansions

is responding to a child's ungrammatical utterance with a grammatically improved form of that statement

Recasts

happen when there is a response to a child's ungrammatical utterance with a nonrepetitive statement that is grammatically correct

Prelinguistic phase

is the period before children utter their first meaningful words

Coos

are vowel-like sounds that young infants repeat over and over during periods of contentment

Babbles

vowel/consonant combinations that infants begin to produce at about 4 to 6 months of age

Receptive language

is that which the individual comprehends when listening to others' speech

Productive language

is that which the individual is capable of expressing in his or her own speech

Holophrastic period

is the period when the child's speech consists of one-word utterances, some of which are thought to be holophrases

Holophase

is a single-word utterance that represents an entire sentence's worth of meaning

Naming explosion

is the term used to describe the dramatic increase in the pace at which infants acquire new words in the latter half of the second year

Multimodal motherese

are older companion's use of information that is exaggerated and synchronized across two or more senses to call an infant's attention to the referent of a spoken word

Referential style

is an early linguistic style in which toddlers use language mainly to label objects

Expressive style

is an early linguistic style in which toddlers use language mainly to call attention to their own and others' feelings and to regulate social interactions

Fast mapping

is the process of acquiring a word after hearing it applied to its referent on a small number of occasions

Overextension

are the young child's tendency to use relatively specific words to refer to a broader set of objects, actions, or events than adults do

Underextension

are the young child's tendency to use general words to refer to a smaller set of objects, action or events than adults do

Processing constraints

are cognitive biases or tendencies that lead infants and toddlers to favor certain interpretations of the meaning of new words over other interpretations

Object scope constraint

is the notion that young children will assume that a new word applied to an object refers to the whole object rather than to parts of the object or to object attributes

Mutual exclusivity constraint

is the notion that young children will assume that each object has but on label and that different words refer to separate and non-overlapping categories

Lexical contrast constraint

is the notion that young children make inferences about word meanings by contrasting new words with words they already know

Syntactical bootstrapping

is the notion that young children make inferences about the meaning of words are used in sentences and inferring whether they refer to objects, actions or attributes

Telegraphic speech

are early sentences that consist of content words and omit the less meaningful parts of speech, such as articles, prepositions, pronouns, and auxiliary verbs

grammatical morphemes

are prefixes, suffixes, prepositions and auxiliary verbs that modify the meaning of words and sentences

Overregularization

is the overgeneralization of grammatical rules to irregular cases were the rules do not apply

Transformational grammar

are the rules of syntax that allow one to transform declarative statements into questions, negatives, imperatives, and other kinds of sentences

Referential communication skills

are the abilities to generate clear verbal messages, to recognize when others' messages are unclear, and to clarify any unclear, and to clarify any unclear messages one transmits or receives

Morphological knowledge

is one's knowledge of meaning of morphemes that make up words

Metalinguistic awareness

is a knowledge of language and its properties; an understanding that language can be used for purposes other than communicating

Two-way bilingual education

are programs in which English-speaking children and children who have limited proficiency in that language are instructed half of the day in their primary language and the other half in a second language