PSY 357 Exam 4 Review: Early and Later Language Acquisition

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering early and later language acquisition, bilingualism, innateness theories, and the biological foundations of language centered on the PSY 357 Exam 4 syllabus.

Mehler and colleagues (1988)

Researchers who showed that at 4 days of age, infants can distinguish the intonational contours of their maternal language (e.g., French) from those of another language (e.g., Russian).

Janet Werker Research Technique

A method used to examine phoneme discrimination in infants, leading to the conclusion that babies lose the ability to discriminate some non-native phonemes over the first year of life.

Jen Saffran's Speech Segmentation Theory

The proposal that infants use statistical learning to break long, unbroken strings of speech into meaningful units.

Cooing

An early speech pattern occurring around 2 months, consisting primarily of vowel sounds.

Reduplicated Babbling

A babbling pattern consisting of repeated consonant-vowel syllables, such as "bababa".

Variegated Babbling

A babbling pattern consisting of varying consonant and vowel combinations, such as "bagado".

Telegraphic Speech

Early speech characterized by short utterances that omit grammatical markers but retain essential content words.

One-Word Stage

The stage of language acquisition that begins at approximately 12 months of age.

The Mapping Problem

The difficulty a child faces in determining which specific object or referent a brand new word refers to in a complex environment.

MLU (Mean Length of Utterances)

A measure of linguistic productivity calculated by the average number of morphemes per utterance; it can be problematic because it does not capture the complexity or grammatical correctness of the speech.

Golinkoff et al. (1987) "Sesame Street" Evidence

Research demonstrating that children in the one-word stage are capable of comprehending far more complex sentences than they can produce.

Berko’s "Wug" Study

A study concluding that children have internalized morphological rules (such as pluralization) because they can apply them to novel nonsense words.

Overextension

A language error where a child applies a specific word to a wider range of objects than is appropriate, such as calling all four-legged animals "doggy".

Undergeneralization

A language error where a child applies a word too narrowly, such as using the word "cat" only for their specific pet and not for other cats.

Overregularization

A morphological error where children apply a regular rule to an irregular word, such as saying "breaked" instead of "broke" or "mouses" instead of "mice".

U-Shaped Curve

A developmental pattern in morphological learning where children first use correct irregular forms by rote, then overregularize as they learn rules, and finally return to correct usage as they master exceptions.

Rule and Memory Model

A model explaining the U-Shaped Curve by suggesting that children possess both a rule-based system for regular forms and a memory-based system for irregular exceptions.

Phonological Awareness

A specific metalinguistic skill involving the ability to reflect on and manipulate the sound structure of spoken language, which is a significant factor in reading acquisition.

Mow-Motorcycle Study

A study investigating children’s phonological awareness by testing their ability to associate the length of a printed word with the duration of the spoken word.

Allington and Strange (1977)

A study on individual differences in reading strategies that tested how children read sentences like "The frog hopped oven the snow" to see if they prioritize context or decoding.

Bottom-up Approach

A reading strategy equivalent to phonics-based instruction, emphasizing the decoding of letters into sounds to form words.

Top-down Approach

A reading strategy equivalent to the whole word/whole language approach, emphasizing the use of context and prior knowledge to identify words.

Alphabetic Principle

The awareness that printed letters correspond to individual sounds that can be combined to form words; it is associated with bottom-up/phonics approaches.

Simultaneous Bilingual

A person who is exposed to and learns two languages from birth.

Sequential Bilingual

A person who learns a second language after their first language is established; categorized as early or late depending on the age of acquisition.

Johnson and Newport Study

Research on Korean and Chinese immigrants that found language proficiency is highest when learned between ages 3 and 7, measured using a Grammaticality Judgment Task.

Pidgins and Creoles

Simplified languages (pidgins) that lack native speakers and develop into complex, rule-governed languages (creoles) when learned natively by children, supporting theories of innateness.

Universal Grammar

Chomsky’s proposed mechanism of inborn "switches" (parameters) that allow children to learn the specific structures of their native language.

Pinker’s Nativist Argument

The argument based on "negative evidence," suggesting that since children are rarely corrected for grammar (negative evidence), language acquisition must have an innate component.

Poverty of the Stimulus

The nativist argument that children's linguistic input is too limited or "poor" to explain the complexity of the grammar they eventually master.

Broca’s Area Function

An area of the brain involved in speech production and complex syntax, as evidenced by FOXP2 mutations in the KE family and deficits in aphasic patients.

Geschwind’s Model

A model describing the flow of linguistic information between different areas focused in the left hemisphere of the brain.

Caramazza and Zurif (1976)

A study testing Broca's and Wernicke's aphasics on their ability to match pictures to reversible sentences (e.g., "The cow was kicked by the pig") and non-reversible sentences.