Myers' Psychology for AP®, 2e, Module 36

aphasia

impairment of language, usually caused by left-hemisphere damage either to Broca's area (impairing speaking) or to Wernicke's area (impairing understanding). (p. 377)

babbling stage

beginning at about 4 months, the stage of speech development in which the infant spontaneously utters various sounds at first unrelated to the household language. (p. 374)

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. (p. 377?)

grammar

in a language, a system of rules that enables us to communicate with and understand others. In a given language, semantics is the set of rules for deriving meaning from sounds, and syntax is the set of rules for combining words into grammatically sensible sentences. (p. 373)

language

our spoken, written, or signed words and the ways we combine them to communicate meaning. (p. 372)

linguistic determinism

Whorf's hypothesis that language determines the way we think. (p. 379)

morpheme

in a language, the smallest unit that carries meaning; may be a word or a part of a word (such as a prefix). (p. 373)

one-word stage

the stage in speech development, from about age 1 to 2, during which a child speaks mostly in single words. (p. 375)

phoneme

in a language, the smallest distinctive sound unit. (p. 373)

telegraphic speech

early speech stage in which a child speaks like a telegram--"go car"--using mostly nouns and verbs. (p. 375)

two-word stage

beginning about age 2, the stage in speech development during which a child speaks mostly in two-word statements. (p. 375)

Wernicke's area

controls language reception--a brain area involved in language comprehension and expression; usually in the left temporal lobe. (p. 377)