PSC 140 Chapter Notes - Chapter 7: Language Acquisition Device, Syntactic Bootstrapping, Language Acquisition
Language Development
● Infant - directed speech (motherese or baby - talk: speech that adults use w/ infants,
characterized by high pitch, exaggerated intonation, clear boundaries between
meaningful parts of utterance, & simplified vocabulary
● Phonological development: learning to segment speech into meaningful units of sound
● Semantic development: learning meanings of words & of combinations of words
● Grammar: the rules of a given language for the sequencing of words in a sentence &
the ordering of parts of words
● Pragmatic development: learning the conventions that govern the use of language in
particular social contexts
● Morpheme: the smallest unit of meaning in the words of a language
● Overextension: the error of applying verbal labels too broadly
● Underextension: the error of applying verbal labels too narrowly
● Fast mapping: the way in which children quickly form an idea of the meaning of an
unfamiliar word they hear in a familiar & highly structured social interaction
● Metaphor: use of a word in a way that draws a comparison between the thing the word
usually refers to & some other, unrelated thing
● Syntactic bootstrapping: use of knowledge of grammar to figure out the menaing of
new words
● Grammatical morphemes: words & parts of words that create meaning by showing hte
relations between other elements within the sentence
● Conversational acts: actions that achieve goals through language
● Protoimperatives: early conversational acts whose purpose is to get another person to
do something
● Protodeclaratives: early conversational acts whose purpose is to establish joint
attention & sustain a dialogue
● Chronology: in language development, a simple story structure used by young chldren,
in which they present a sequence of concrete events
● Cultural modeling: culturally specific ways of telling stories
● Language acquisition device (LAD): chromsky’s term for an innate language -
processing capacity that is programmed to recognize the universal rules that underlie
any particular language that a child might hear
● Formats: recurrent socially patterned activities in which adult & child do things together
● Language acquisition support system (LASS): Bruner’s term for the patterned
behaviors & formatted events within which children acquire language. It is the
environmental complement to the innate, biologically constituted LAD
● Collective monologues: communications in which young children each voice their own
thoughts without attending to what the others are saying
● True dialogue: a communication in which each person’s utterances take into account
the utterances of others
● Inner speech: according to Vygotsky, the internalization of egocentric speech that
occurs during early childhood & allows individuals to mentally plan activities & solve
problems
Document Summary
Phonological development: learning to segment speech into meaningful units of sound. Semantic development: learning meanings of words & of combinations of words. Grammar: the rules of a given language for the sequencing of words in a sentence & Pragmatic development: learning the conventions that govern the use of language in. Morpheme: the smallest unit of meaning in the words of a language. Overextension: the error of applying verbal labels too broadly. Underextension: the error of applying verbal labels too narrowly. Fast mapping: the way in which children quickly form an idea of the meaning of an. Metaphor: use of a word in a way that draws a comparison between the thing the word. Syntactic bootstrapping: use of knowledge of grammar to figure out the menaing of. Grammatical morphemes: words & parts of words that create meaning by showing hte. Conversational acts: actions that achieve goals through language. Protoimperatives: early conversational acts whose purpose is to get another person to.
