Quiz 5 Language Acquisition

What is a register?

A form of language that varies according to participants, settings and topics.

Feature-Blind Aphasia

A grammatical deficit characterized by difficulty in using grammatical morphemes, such as the forms of the past tense. Some researchers have claimed that this disability is genetically determined by the FOXP2 language gene.

Competition model

A model of language development based on parallel-distributed processors (PDP) networks that assumes that various cues in the language environment compete with one another. The most available and reliable cues will be learned first.

What is signifying?

A type of sarcastic or witty language play generally used by some African American youth to make indirect comments upon socially significant topics.

Name two semantic components that speakers use when considering context?

Aggravators - Ex: Right now Mitigators- Ex: Please

Linguistic Approach

An assumption that language has a structure or grammar that is independent of language use.

What arguments did Skinner have about behavioral scientists?

Behavioral scientists should not accept traditional categorizations of linguistic units, but should examine language as they would any other behavior. They should search for the functional units as they occur and the relationships that predict their occurrence.

Observable Behavior

Behaviorists identify observable environmental conditions (stimuli) that co-occur and predict specific verbal behaviors (responses).

Classical Conditioning

Changes in behavior is through the connection or association of stimuli in the environment and certain responses from the organism.

Operant Conditioning

Changes in voluntary, non-reflexive behavior that arise due to environmental consequences dependent upon that behavior. When behaviors are rewarded, they are repeated and when they are punished they are not repeated.

Learnability Problem

Children are able to master native tongues across the world despite the complex nature of language

Hypothesis testing

Children form hypotheses about communicative conventions and then test these hypotheses through trial and error and by asking questions and commenting on communicative behavior.

Code switching allows...

Children to control who participates in or is excluded from conversations, and marks degrees of familiarity.

What is Markov Sentence Models?

Children's word combinations that are assumed to be acquired in the same manner as single words. The first word serves as a stimulus for the next word and so forth.

Theoretical Adequacy

Chomsky's 3rd and most ambitious level. Accounts for all language behaviors observed and the actual set of mechanisms used by language learning children. Achieved when a limited set of principles is discovered.

Descriptive Adequacy

Chomsky's first level Separates language behaviors from non-language behaviors. Children's language is creative and potentially infinitely variable.

Model Adequacy

Chomsky's second level. Limited number of unifying principles are identified that account for the emerging language behaviors.

Is recursion more of a cognitive ability or linguistic ability?

Cognitive

Name and define the two types of topic maintenance.

Cohesive devices: A way to link the content of different parts of a conversation through the use of pronouns, ellipsis, connectives, etc. Ellipsis - The omission of a word or words from an utterance that would be necessary for a complete syntactic construction, but that are not necessary for understanding. Understanding rests on referring back to earlier parts of the conversation.

Competence versus Performance

Competence refers to the individual's knowledge of language. Performance refers to the actual instances of language use. Example: She will be home yesterday.

Effective speakers take ________________ into consideration.

Context

Describe the various prompts used to support communicative competence. Provide an example of each.

Direct comment on omission - "You say excuse me when you sneeze" Indirect comment on omission - "What the magic word?" Direct comment on error - "Don't chew with your mouth full" Indirect comment on error - "What did you just say" Anticipatory suggestion- "Don't forget to say thank" (preparing them for a response)

Connectionist models

Each node is connected to other nodes by pathways that vary in the strengths of their connections. The pathways are meant to model the dendrites and axons that connect neurons in the brain.

True/False Children will learn language based on what they hear

False, will not

True or False: Communicative competence (CC) rules are fixed.

False: Context determines this, it is not universal. CC varies across different settings. This concept is difficult for kids to understand. Ex: funerals vs birthday party

True or False: Behaviorists are at the nativism end of the nativism-empiricism continuum.

False: Empirical end

Recast

Form of parental utterance that restates the child's immature utterance in an acceptable adult form.

What is the main difference between young female and male language styles?

Girls tend to use more collaborative, supportive,and ,mitigated speech styles. Boys use more controlling and unmitigated speech styles.

Poverty of Imagination

Grammar is not learned though any known principles and is not equivalent to concluding that it is innate.

Provide examples of routine & polite terms.

Hello Thank you Goodbye Excuse me Please

Describe the early family support for communicative competence. Provides examples

Highly organized scripts that model socially appropriate phrases Ex: "Say hello to your grandpa" "Say thank you" "Say trick or treat"

What are other types of support for CC?

Hypothetical situation - "What would you do if" ; challenges the child to think hypothetically so that they can think critically about what they would do. Retroactive evaluation - Comment or reinforcement after the fact. Ex: "You did good at school today."

What is combined to to demonstrate new forms and their equivalent transformations?

Imitation, hypothesis testing, and recasts.

Describe environmental & peer influence that supports CC

Informal conversations with teachers/principals & peers Games Small groups Storytelling Role playing

What is descriptive adequacy?

It is Chomsky's first level

Explain the cognitive development theory?

Jean Piaget; young children think and act more egocentrically than adults.

What is pragmatics?

Knowing what to say to whom and how in a social situation. Also includes volume of voice, tone, gestures and body language.

Explain the speech act theory by John Austin.

Language is used to direct behavior. It was designed to explain communicative competence.

What is the difference between linguistic competence and communicative competence?

Linguistic competence is knowledge of syntax, phonology, morphology and semantics for language use. Communicative competence includes all of the above, and the social rules for language use. (pragmatics)

Name the three speech acts.

Locutionary Act Illocutionary Act Perlocutionary Act

Stylized Pantomimes

Mimicking what they'd like to do or be done.

Tomasello and Farrah concluded

Mothers who spent more time talking about the object of a child's visual gaze pattern had babies who used their first word earlier and had larger initial vocab.

Parallel processing

Multiple operations occur simultaneously.

Can grammar be constructed from any kind of linguistic textual presentation according to LAD?

NO

Is the linguistic approach on the nativism end, or the empirical end of the continuum?

Nativism (and structural)

Nativism versus Empiricism

Nativists insist that language is too complex to be learned through any methods and must be innate. Empiricists focus on influence of the environment.

Parallel-distributed processors

Networks of processors are connected such that multiple operations or decisions proceed concurrently.

What is referential communication?

Non-egocentric language. The ability to describe a set of similar items so that the listener can identify it; used in everyday situations; ex: requesting a specific snack; requesting a specific book.

Serial processing

Operations that are performed one at a time, sequentially.

Name and describe the types of modeling that a child receives for CC.

Parent Model- generally praising to show models for what they should be doing. Or being the model of the desired action. Sibling Model - Praising the other sibling so that the other child will also want to do the action. Peer model - Ex: look how hard the class is working Jimmy

What behavior of children strongly predicts the onset of the first words?

Pointing

What is a declarative joint noticing function?

Pointing to an object and looking at caregiver Giving object to caregiver (purposely trying to engage someone)

Priming

Prior processing causes some spreading activation throughout the system or network of information related to the stimulus.

Activation nodes

Processing units in parallel distributed processing (PDP) models that are meant to resemble or model individual neurons or assemblies of neurons in the brain.

Usage and Gestural approach

Recognizes that symbols developed from their natural iconicity in gesture and that words emerge from such gestures.

What is an example response that display request comprehension?

Refusal to comply with indirect requests. Ex: "I can't"; "I don't want to."

What is an imperative function request?

Request social interactions Pointing with vocalization Request for action

Name the two techniques applied for behavior modification that behaviorists believe helps children make progress in learning to speak or use language, even with the child has very limited speech skills.

Shaping & reinforcement

What are the distinguishing features of Theoretical Approaches?

Structuralism versus Functionalism Competence versus Performance Nativism versus Empiricism

Structuralism versus Functionalism

Structuralists analyze the form of the utterance. Ex) I want milk. Subject (I), Main verb (want), and Object (milk). Functionalists examine the situation in which the utterance occurred. Ex) I want milk in presence of the mother.

Constructivism

Structures emerge as a result of the continuing interaction between the child's current level of cognitive functioning and his or her current linguistic, and non-linguistic, environment.

Home Signs and Gestures

Symbols used specifically in the home.

What is a dialect?

Systematic subvariety of a language spoken by a sizable group of speakers sharing characteristics such as geographic origin or social class.

Name the three conversational skills that pre-school children develop.

Taking turns Topic maintenance: Cohesive devices & ellipsis Repairing misunderstandings

What is the purpose of a barrier game?

Targets use of specific language.

What is an imperative function rejection?

Terminates an action or object

What is a locutionary act?

The act of making a statement. Listener must understand. (meaningful statement)

Interactionist Approach

The assumption that many factors affect the course of development, and these factors are mutually dependent upon, and modify another.

Acquiring Language

The basic processes of learning (classical and operant conditioning) direct and control the increasing complexity of children's verbal behavior. Imitation is an important factor into language learning.

Phonetic Form

The cognitive system of how the language faculty connects to the pronunciation systems. The articulators-perceptual system.

Logical Form

The cognitive system of how the language faculty connects with the conceptual system. Conceptual- intentional system

What is a perlocutionary act?

The effect of that statement. (effect of the locutionary and illocutionary act)

What is behaviorist support?

The environment that is responsive to young children's utterances may support language development in children.

What is egocentrism? When is it more prominent?

The inability to understand others' knowledge, feelings, thoughts and perception; fails to consider the listener's perspective More prominent in preschool than school aged children. Piaget determined kids are egocentric until the age of 7 1/2 years.

Language Faculty

The innate ability to acquire language.

Language Acquisition Device

The innate language component that allows particular abstract grammar of a child's native tongue to be produced.

Poverty of Stimulus Argument

The language children hear is too imperfect for them to be able to learn grammatical systems.

What is an illocutionary act?

The speaker's purpose with making the statement.

Universal Grammar

The system of grammatical rules and categories common to all languages around the world.

text presentation

The type of language learning children are exposed to. It contains no negative evidence.

Theory versus Model

Theory: A plausible or scientifically acceptable general principle or body of principles offered to explain, describe, or predict a phenomena. Model: A system or thing used as an example to follow or imitate.

What does the interactive view of language acquisition suggest?

There are instances where the parent ay provide examples thats are salient to the child.

What are skills that display a child is acquiring communicative competence?

They adapt their language to different context. They recognize characteristics???

Children are most likely to imitate forms that...

They at least partially understand, and adult like forms rather than reduced forms similar to the ones they produce.

What is scaffolding?

To support young children's language.

T/F imitation usually results in the recast of the full original sentence.

True

True or False: Behaviorists rely on imitation as an especially important factor in language learning.

True

True or False: The basic processes of learning (i.e. classical and operant conditioning) are assume to control the increasing complexity of children's verbal behavior

True

T/F indirectness is a risky way to teach communicative competence.

True, though it may be difficult for children to understand what they are supposed to do. It is however a good way to challenge children cognitively and provides more information about communicative conventions compared to direct.

Describe what knowledge is required in communicative routines.

Various routines require: changes in tone of voice, appropriate volume and choice of words. Routine requires knowledge of how to join in conversation, how to repair conversational breakdowns and how to consider their communicating partner.

Name a type of reinforcement that is used to support CC.

Verbal praise; often used to encourage correct speech/language/behavior (positive)

What are offers when drawing a child's words to a referent?

When the focus is a noun

What are demonstartions when drawing a child's words to a referent?

When the focus is on a verb

What is back channel feedback?

verbal and nonverbal behaviors that indicate to the speaker continuing attention and satisfactory comprehension. Ex: Uh-huh, I see

What is some supporting evidence of Chompsky's Theory?

❖ Grammar is the link between what is meant and what is said. ❖ Processing the hierarchical sentence structure to determine meaning. ❖ Use of subject-word order. ❖ Children presuppose the existence of grammatical classes. ❖ Sensitivity to sounds of human language. ❖ Infant babble similarities among languages. ❖ Only humans have the ability to create and understand infinite combinations of linguistic symbols. ❖ Language is acquired by learning syntactic rules through present data in the environment

Provide an example of an indirect request. (Consider form & context)

"Do you remember my favorite book?" "I'm bored." "Didn't I pay for lunch last time?"

Provide an example of a direct request. (explicit)

"Let's play a board game" "Get me my book"

What are three basic factors for the interactionist approach?

-Cognitive: perception, problem solving memory to language behavior. -Social: child interactions with others -Usage-based gestural: deveoplment retraces evolution.

What are the features of development from Chompsky's Theory

-Immediate detection of sound -Production of those sounds present in language environment. -Maturation of phonological skills create concepts of referents in environment. -Move to an understanding that "everything has a name" = increasing vocabulary. -Sentence structure differentiates over time into nouns, verbs, and phrases.