Unit 7B: Language

The first stage of language development, in which children spontaneously utter different sounds, is the ___ stage. This stage typically begins at about ___ months of age. The sounds children make during this stage (do/don't) include only the sounds of the language they hear.

babbling; 4; don't

According to the _________ __________ hypothesis, language shapes our thinking. The linguist who proposed this hypothesis is ____________.

linguist determinism, Whorf

Phonemes are grouped into units of meaning called ___.

morphemes

During the second stage, called the ___-___ stage, children convey complete thoughts using single words. This stage begins at about ___ year(s) of age.

one-word; 1

The basic sound units of language are its ___. English has approximately ___ of these units.

phonemes; 40

During the ___-___ stage, children speak in sentences containing mostly nouns and verbs. This type of speech is called ___ speech. It (does/doesn't) follow the rules of syntax.

two-word; telegraph; does

it appears that thinking _____ occur without the use of language. Athletes often supplement physical with _______ practice.

can; mental

animals definitely _______. for ex, honeybees do so by means of a ________.

communicate, dance

Deaf infants (do/don't) babble. Many natural babbling sounds are ___-___ pairs formed by _____________.

do; consonant-vowel; bunching the tongue or closing and opening the lips

In several studies, researchers have found that using the pronoun he ________ influence people's thoughts concerning gender.

does

Considering the two theories together, we can say that although we are born with a readiness to learn language, ___ is also important, as shown in linguistically stunted children who have been isolated from language during the ___ ___ for its acquisition.

experience; critical period

human language may have evolved from ______ communications.

gestural

The system of rules that enables us to use our language to speak to and understand others is called ___.

grammar

One study of canadian children found that english-speaking children who were _____ in their french had higher _______ scores and math scores than control children.

immersed; aptitude

By ___ months of age, babies can read lips and discriminate speech sounds. This marks the beginning of their ___ ___, their ability to comprehend speech. This ability begins to mature before their ___ ___, or ability to produce words.

4; receptive language; productive language

B.F Skinner believed that language development follows the general principles of learning, including ___, ___, ___, and ___.

association; imitation; reinforcement

Bilingual children, who learn to inhibit one language while using the other, are better to inhibit their ______ to irrelevant info. This has been called the ______ ____________.

attention, bilingual advantage

By about ___ months of age, infant babbling begins to resemble the household language. At about the same time, the ablility to perceive speech sounds outside their native language is (lost/acquired).

10; lost

Other theorists believe that humans are biologically predisposed to learn language. One such theorist is ___, who believes that we are all born with a ___ ___ ___ in which ___ switches are thrown as children experience their language. This theorist contends that all human languages have the same grammatical building blocks, which suggests that there is a ____ ____.

Chomsky; language acquisition device; grammar; universal grammar

Many people who are bilingual report feeling a different sense of _______, depending on which language they are using. There are estimated _______ languages in the world today.

self, 6000

The system by which meaning is derived from morphemes, words, and sentences is the ___ of a language.

semantics

the gardners attempted to communicate with their chimp by teaching her ________ _______

sign language

In one study of psychology students preparing for a midterm exam, the greatest benefits were acheived by those who vizualized themselves _______

studying effectively

The system of rules we use to combine words into grammatically sensible sentences is called ___.

syntax