Psyc 310 Chapter 11

language

a small number of individually meaningless symbols (sounds, letters, gestures) that can be combined according to agreed-on rules to produce an infinite number of messages

communication

he process by which one organism transmits information to and influences another.

vocables

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

psycholinguistics

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

phonology

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

phonemes

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

morphology

the rules governing the formation of meaningful words from sounds

semantics

the expressed meaning of words and sentences.

morphemes

smallest meaningful language units

free morphemes

morphemes that can stand alone as a word (e.g., cat, go, yellow).

bound morphemes

morphemes that cannot stand alone but that modify the meaning of free morphemes (e.g., the -ed attached to English verbs to indicate past tense).

syntax

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

pragmatics

principles that underlie the effective and appropriate use of language in social contexts.

sociolinguistic knowledge

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

linguistic universal

an aspect of language development that all children share.

language acquisition device

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

universal grammar

in nativist theories of language acquisition, the basic rules of grammar that characterize all language.

language-making capacity

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

Broca's area

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

Wernicke's area

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

sensitive-period hypothesis

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

interactionist theory

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

child-directed speech, or motherase

the short, simple, high-pitched (and often repetitive) sentences that adults use when talking with young children.

expansions

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

recasts

responding to a child's ungrammatical utterance with a nonrepetitive statement that is grammatically correct.

prelinguistic phase

the period before children utter their first meaningful words.

coos

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

canonical babbles

vowel-consonant combinations that infants begin to produce at about 6 to 9 months of age.

receptive language

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

productive langauge

that which the individual is capable of expressing (producing) in his or her own speech.

holophrastic period

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

holophrase

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

naming explosion

he term used to describe the dramatic increase in the pace at which infants acquire new words in the latter half of the second year; so named because many of the new words acquired are the names of objects.

multimodal motherese

an 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

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

expressive style

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

process of linking a word with its referent after hearing the word once or twice.

overextension

the young child's tendency to use relatively specific words to refer to a broader set of objects, actions, or events than adults do (e.g., using car to refer to all motor vehicles).

underextension

the young child's tendency to use general words to refer to a smaller set of objects, actions, or events than adults do (e.g., using candy to refer only to mints).

processing constraints

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

object scope constraint

the notion that young children 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 (e.g., its colour).

mutual exclusivity constraint

the notion that young children assume that each object has only one label and that different words refer to separate and not overlapping categories.

lexical contrast constraint

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

syntactial boostrapping

the notion that young children make inferences about the meaning of words by analyzing the way words are used in sentences and inferring whether they refer to objects (nouns), actions (verbs), or attributes (adjectives).

telegraphics speech

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

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

overregularization

the overgeneralization of grammatical rules to irregular cases where the rules do not apply (e.g., saying mouses rather than mice).

transformational grammar

rules of syntax that allow us to transform declarative statements into questions, negatives, imperatives, and other kinds of sentences.

referential communication skills

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

morphological knowledge

knowledge of the meaning of morphemes that make up words.

metalinguistic awareness

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

bilingual

fluent in two languages.

core language

involves explicit instruction in a second language, usually through a specific language course (such as French class); occasionally the explicit instruction is embedded within a particular curriculum area.

immersion

involves instruction in a second language where all or most of the curriculum is provided in the second language.