Chapter 2: Describing Language

Child Direct Speech

A parents adapted way of speaking to the child to provide appropriate model of language needed for acquisition; shaped by childs current language

Emergentism Approach

An approach of language acquisition that describes language as a structure arising from existing interacting patterns in the brain rather than from language-specific structures

Mean Length of Utterance (MLU)

Average length of utterance, primarily in morphemes

Constructionist Approach

Essence, which approach to language development suggests the child is a 'pattern finder' based on linguistic input from environment?

T/F. A central tenant of the Nativist approach to language development is that language structure emerges or develops from language use.

F

Any research studies examining child language data collected from samples, should have an assurance of intra-transcriber reliability.

One aspect of language sampling involves actual collection procedures. Whether the sample if collected electronically or not, the clinician/researcher must transcribe what is heard from the child. Transcription presents many possibilities for errors. Therefore, _____.

How representative the sample is to the child's actual language

One of the most common and effective ways to gather developmental data on the child's spontaneous language assures a more natural set a data, one important issue to consider in sampling language is _____.

Speech Perception Studies

Research studies on the speech discrimination abilities of young children primarily infants and what those abilities can contribute to language learning

Language Comprehension Studies

Studies examining young childrens understanding of language structure

Cross Language Studies

Studies that attempt to gather data across more than one language in order to examine the university, linguistic specificity, relative difficulty, or other acquisitioned principles of languages

Expressive Language Studies

Studies using a variety of formats from very structured to very open-ended as a way of examining that childs language output

T/F. The main theories of language development are in direct parallel to the nature vs, nurture framework in developmental psychology.

T

Constructionist Approach

The _____ to language development indicates that children learn language primarily from using their general cognitive skills to help make sense of the language input from their environment.

Nativist Approach

The approach by Linguistic theorists associated with Chomsky and his followers, who emphasize innateness of language and contend that there are specific mechanisms in the human brain dedicated to acquisition and use of language; also called Generativist Approach

Generativist Approach

The approach to language development indicating that children are able to acquire language because they are born with innate rules of principles related to structures of human languages; also called Nativist Approach

Constructionist Approach

The approach to language development indicating that children learn linguistic knowledge from the environmental input to which they are exposed and that children are contributing members in the learning process; also known as Empiricist Approach

Generativist Model

The theory of language development that purports children learn language because they are born with an innate set of rules of schemas related directly to the structures of human language is _____.