Language Acquisition Exam 4

Bilingualism

Use of two languages

Dominant language

Language more primarily used; proportional to amount of exposure

Sequential bilingualism

Learn two languages one after another

Simultaneous bilingualism

Acquire 2 or more languages from birth, or simultaneously

What is code switching?

Speakers alternating between languages they have in common with their language partner

Single-language assessment

Testing bilinguals in one language and comparing to monolingual norms; bad!

Total vocabulary

The sum of all words a child knows in both languages; good

Conceptual vocabulary

Credit for the concept, not the word; bad

Common Underlying Proficiency theory of bilingualism

Languages are viewed as interdependent, so skills in one language influence skills in the other language

Separate Underlying Proficiency theory of bilingualism

Languages are viewed as separate, so skills learned in one language will not transfer to the second language

What is a dialect?

Regional or social variety of a language that differs across all aspects of language

What is an accent?

Distinct mode of pronounciation for a language

Southern dialect

Pin-pen merger, diphthongs turn to monophthongs, vowel lengthening

Northern dialect

Non-rhoticity: dropping postvocalic r sounds

Midwestern dialect

Cot/caught merger, northern cities shift

Western dialect

Cot/caught merger, fronted back vowels, vocal fry, high rising terminal

Hearing loss prevalence

3.1% of children (currently have)

Hearing loss incidence

1% of infants (diagnosed per year)

What aspect of language is impacted the most by hearing loss?

Form - especially morphology; “s”

How many root words in preschooler’s vocabulary?

2300-4700

Is word knowledge all-or-none or incremental?

Incremental

How do we measure speed of word processing in children?

Looking-while-listening test; faster incremental processing as child ages

How does the brain organize meaning?

Brain is like a filing cabinet or information, keeps similar objects close by to recall it quicker

Head-turn preference procedure

Evidence for the organization of meaning; children prefer to listen to words that are more semantically related

Naming errors

Evidence for the organization of meaning; more likely to make a naming error with things that are semantically related

How do children define nouns?

• Physical characteristics: how it looks

• Functional properties: use

• Locational properties: where

What is the typical order of spatial preposition development?

1. In/on/under/beside

2. Between

3. In front of/behind

4. In front of/behind with objects like a box or bottle (no obvious front and back)

Why are adjectives difficult?

Must understand connection between noun and adjective; there can be multiple adjectives; elaborate noun phrases

How should we teach children adjectives?

• Describe two objects that are different from one another\ in just one way

• Describe two objects that are alike in one way

What types of words show the most vocabulary growth?

Words with derivational morphemes

Tier 1 vocabulary words

Basic words/sight words; high frequency in oral language

Tier 2 vocab words

General academic words; used by more mature language users across contexts; high frequency in written language

Tier 3 vocab words

Jargon; domain specific; low frequency in oral and written language

Homonyms

Words that have multiple meanings

Homographs

Words that are spelled the same way with different meanings

Homophones

Words that sound alike with different meanings

Lexical ambiguity

Word has more than 1 generally accepted meaning

Phonological ambiguity

Vary the pronunciation of a word slightly

Metaphor

An expression to refer to something that it does not denote literally, in order to convey similarity

Simile

Make the comparison explicit by using the word “like” or “as”

Oxymoron

Combines 2 contradictory terms in order to achieve rhetorical effect

Hyperbole

Use exaggeration for emphasis or effect

Idiom

A group of words established by usage as having a meaning not deductible from those of the individual words

Irony

Involves incongruity between what a speaker says and their intended meaning

Proverb

Statements that express the conventional values, beliefs, and wisdom of society

How do school-age children typically learn words?

Learn words while reading text - read to learn

How is school-age word learning different from infant-toddler word learning?

Infant-toddler: learn to read

School age: read to learn

What are the major changes in morphological development?

• Add prefixed to the beginnings of words in order to change their meanings

• Add suffixes to the ends of words to change their form class

• Derivational suffixes

What are the different types of derivational morphemes?

• Agent-suffix

• Comparative adjective suffix

• Diminutive suffix

• Negative prefix

What is morphophonemic change?

Sound modifications we make when we join certain morphemes; usually occurs as a change in the vowel

Derivational vs. inflectional morphology

• Derivational morphology causes a change in word class

• Inflectional morphology causes a change in tense

MLU of value in understanding language

• No longer as helpful after age 3-4

• As you age, sentences get more complex even if the MLU is low

How MLU changes with discourse

• MLU doesn’t increase very much with conversational discourse (5.7 - 6.9)

• MLU increases greatly with narrative discourse (6.0 - 9.3)

What are the 3 phonological components of phonological processing?

• Phonological working memory

• Rapid naming

• Phonological awareness

Phonological awareness

An individual’s awareness of the phonological or sound structure; detection and manipulation of sounds at different levels

Phonological working memory

A process of receiving, analyzing, and holding phonological information

How do we measure phonological working memory?

Nonword repetition task

What is the relation between phonological working memory and word learning?

Close relationship; word = a sequence of sounds/syllables; can’t create association if the word isn’t sticking in memory

How do we measure phonemic categorization?

Voice onset time task (hear /p/ vs. /b/ and distinguish between them)

What are the differences between written and oral language?

Written language is not universal and must be directly taught; oral language is acquired without direct instruction

What is the simple view of reading?

Language comprehension + word recognition = skilled reading

What is word recognition?

Recognizing words in text and sounding them out phonemically

Decoding

The ability to take letter-sound knowledge and be able to blend those sounds together to make words

Direct decoding

Access words directly from orthography; sight reading

Indirect decoding

Translation of letters to sounds; requires learning phonics

What is grapheme phoneme correspondence (alphabetic principle)?

Recognizing and associating graphemes (letters) with their corresponding phonemes (sounds)

Metalinguistics

The ability to think about your language

Phonological awareness

The ability to identify and manipulate sounds of a language

Phonemic awareness

The ability to identify and manipulate the individual phonemes within spoken words

What skills make up phonological and phonemic awareness?

• Rhyming

• Syllable awareness

• Onset rime awareness

• Segmenting, blending, and manipulating phonemes

Lexical restructuring model

Learning words that are phonologically similar causes greater specificity in phonological representations of words. Therefore, small vocabulary may lead to poorer phonological awareness.

Language comprehension

The ability to understand language

Background knowledge

Facts, concepts

Vocabulary

Breadth, precision, links

Language structures

Syntax, semantics

Verbal reasoning

Inference, metaphor

Literacy knowledge

Print concepts, genres

What is the Matthew effect and why does it matter?

The rich get richer while the poor get poorer; poor readers stay poor at reading while good readers continue to grow, widening gap

Stages of literacy development

1. Emergent literacy (0-5)

2. Learning to read (K-3rd)

3. Reading to learn (4th+)

Emergent literacy

• < 3yo: Pretends to read and makes some letter-like forms in writing; enjoys word-play, rhyming, and listening to oral language and stories

• 3-4: recognizes some environmental print, know alphabetic letters, scribbles messages; connects stories to lived experiences

Learning to read

• 4 yo: identify letters, inventive scribbling

• 5 yo: recognize common sight words, understand long stories

• 1st grade: read regular words automatically, discuss texts, invented and correct spelling

• 2nd grade: fluent and automatic readers, accuracy and fluency to support comprehension

Reading to learn

3rd and 4th: transition from basic reading skills to using reading as a tool to learn

Reading wars

Debate between the whole language approach and phonics approach to teach reading

What is the whole-language approach?

Exposure in naturalistic context; devalues phonology

Pros and cons of whole-language approach

• Pros: Emphasis on joint book reading and reading comprehension

• Cons: Little emphasis on word analysis, more difficult for those with language and reading difficulties

What is phonics approach?

Phonics-based instruction; emphasized the systematic teaching of letter-sound relationships

Pros and cons of phonics approach

• Pros: Explicit instruction important for children with learning and reading disorders

• Cons: Constant breaking down causes difficulty understanding texts; letters don’t always make the same sounds

What is culture?

A set of factors from multiple dimensions that can describe how one person or a group of people experience life, and engage in daily practices

Visible culture

Rituals, traditions, religious practices, language use, forms of dress, hairstyles

Invisible culture

Underlying values, beliefs, assumptions, worldviews

Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory

• Microsystem (individual)

• Mesosystem (immediate family, school, playground)

• Exosystem (extended family, community, workplace, neighbors)

• Macrosystem (values, laws, customs)

What are the steps of culturally responsive practice?

1. Cultural humility

2. Cultural self-awareness

3. Critical thinking (and dialectical thinking)

4. Cultural knowledge

5. Cultural reciprocity

Cultural humility

Ability to recognize diverse cultures and to learn from them

Cultural self-awareness

Engage in critical self-reflection of culture, values, and beliefs

Critical thinking (and dialectical thinking)

Imagining other possibilities/explanations

Cultural knowledge

Effort to continuously learn about other cultures

Cultural reciprocity

Using cultural knowledge to adapt strategies

What is racism?

Racial prejudice plus power (when a group dominates another and then makes decisions in the interest of one’s own group)

Institutional racism

The privilege and power of some groups based on race that occurs when racial inequalities take place within institutional policies and practices

Structural racism

Interaction of multiple institutions in an ongoing process of producing racialized outcomes