Journal #4

babbling

repetitive consonant–vowel sequences
(“bababa . . .”) or hand-shapes (for learners of signed languages) produced during the early phases of language development

bilingualism

ability to use two languages

categorical perception

the perception of speech
sounds as belonging to discrete categories

collective monologues

conversation between children that involves a series of non sequiturs,
the content of each child’s turn having little or nothing to do with what the other child has just said

critical period

the time during which language
develops readily and after which (sometime between age 5 and puberty) language acquisition is much more difficult and ultimately less successful

distributional properties

the phenomenon that
in any language, certain sounds are more likely to
appear together than are others

dual representation

the idea that a symbolic artifact must be represented mentally in two ways at the same time—both as a real object and as a symbol for something other than itself

generativity

refers to the idea that through the
use of the finite set of words and morphemes in humans’ vocabulary, we can put together an infinite number of sentences and express an infinite number of ideas

holophrastic period

the period when children
begin using the words in their small productive vocabulary one word at a time

infant-directed speech (IDS)

the distinctive mode of speech that adults adopt when talking to babies and very young children

morphemes

the smallest units of meaning in a
language, composed of one or more phonemes

narrative

descriptions of past events that have
the basic structure of a story

overextension

the use of a given word in a
broader context than is appropriate

overregularization

speech errors in which children treat irregular forms of words as if they
were regular

phonemes

the elementary units of meaningful
sound used to produce languages

phonological development

the acquisition of knowledge about the sound system of a language

pragmatic cues

aspects of the social context used for word learning

pragmatic development

the acquisition of knowledge about how language is used

production

with regard to language, speaking (or writing or signing) to others

prosody

the characteristic rhythm, tempo, cadence, melody, intonational patterns, and so forth with which a language is spoken

reference

in language and speech, the associating of words and meaning

semantic development

the learning of the system for expressing meaning in a language, including word learning

symbols

systems for representing our thoughts,
feelings, and knowledge and for communicating them to other people

syntax

rules in a language that specify how words from different categories (nouns, verbs, adjectives, and so on) can be combined

word segmentation

the process of discovering where words begin and end in fluent speech