Children's Language Acquisition Key Terms

?
Idiolect
An individual's own 'linguistic fingerprint'
1 of 66
Register
A variety of language appropriate to a particular purpose
2 of 66
Phoneme
The smallest contrastive unit in the sound system of a language
3 of 66
Phonetics
The study of the sounds used in speech, including how they're produced
4 of 66
Lexis
The vocabulary of language
5 of 66
Semantics
The study of meaning
6 of 66
Syntax
The way words are arranged to make sentences
7 of 66
Morphology
The are of language study that deals with the formation of words from smaller units called morphemes
8 of 66
Phonology
The study of the sound systems of language and how they communicate meaning
9 of 66
Discourse
A stretch of communication
10 of 66
Pragmatics
The factors that influence the choices that speakers make in their use of language - why we choose to say one thing rather than another
11 of 66
Language Acquisition Device (LAD)
The human brain's inbuilt capacity to acquire language
12 of 66
Universal grammar
The explanation that all world languages share the principles of grammar despite surface differences in lexis and phonology. Sometimes called linguistic universals
13 of 66
Phonemic expansion
The variety of sounds produced increases
14 of 66
Phonemic Contraction
The variety of sounds is reduced to the sounds of the main language used
15 of 66
Consonant
A speech sound that is produced when the vocal tract is either blocked or so restricted that there is audible friction
16 of 66
Vowel
A sound made without closure or audible friction
17 of 66
Dipthong
A vowel in which there is a perceptible change in quality during a syllable
18 of 66
Proto-word
An invented word that has a consistent meaning
19 of 66
Holophrase
A single word expressing a whole idea
20 of 66
Vocative
A form (especially a noun) used to address a person
21 of 66
Content word
A type of word that has an independant 'dictionary' meaning also called a lexical word
22 of 66
Function word
A word whose role is largely or wholly to express a grammatical relationship
23 of 66
Social interactionists
Those who believe that child language develops through interaction with carers
24 of 66
Positive reinforcement
When a behaviour is rewarded, including verbal praise to encourage this behaviour to be repeated
25 of 66
Negative reinforcement
When an undesirable behaviour is unrewarded with the intention that it will not be repeated
26 of 66
Behaviourists
Those who believe that language is acquired through imitation and reinforcement
27 of 66
Overectension
A feature of a child’s language where the word used to label something is ‘stretched’ to include things that aren’t normally part of that word’s meaning
28 of 66
Underextension
A feature of a child’s language where the word used to label is ‘reduced’ to include only part of it’s normal meaning
29 of 66
Hyponymy
A more specifit word within a category or under a hypernym
30 of 66
Inflection morphology
The alteration of words to make new grammatical forms
31 of 66
Derivational morphology
The creation of new words by adding prefixes and suffixes
32 of 66
Mean length utterance (MLU)
A measure of children’s ability to produce stretches of language; the number of morphemes is divided by the total number of utterances to find the average length. A higher level of language proficiency.
33 of 66
Copula verb
A verb used to join or 'couple' a subject to a complement
34 of 66
Deixis
Lexical items that 'point' towards something and place words in context
35 of 66
Free morpheme
One that can stand alone as an independant word, e.g apple
36 of 66
Bound morpheme
One that cannot stand alone as an independent word, but must be attached to another morpheme/word (affixes, such as the plural ‘-s’, are always bound, as in the comparative adjective inflection ‘-er’.
37 of 66
Cognitive theorists
Those who belive that language acquisition is part of a wider development of understanding
38 of 66
Virtuous error
Syntactical errors made by young children in which the non-standard utterance reveals some understanding though incomplete, of standard syntax.
39 of 66
Overgeneralisation
A learner's extension of a word meaning or grammatical rule beyond its normal use
40 of 66
Stative verb
Verb that describes a state; stative verbs are not usually used in the progressive aspect, which is used for incomplete actions in progress.
41 of 66
Dynamic verb
A type of verb that expresses activities and changes of state, allowing such forms as the progressive
42 of 66
Egocentric speech
The running discourse style of speech used by children where no listener is directly addressed and the talk is focused on the child’s activities
43 of 66
Child-directed speech (CDS)
Any of various speech patterns used by parents / care givers when communicating with young children, particularly infants, usually involving simplified vocabulary, melodic pitch, repetitive questioning, and a slow or deliberate tempo.
44 of 66
Expansion
The development of a child's utterance into a longer, more meaningful form
45 of 66
Recast
The commenting on, extending and rephrasing of a child's utterance
46 of 66
LASS (Language Acquisition Support System)
The child’s interaction with the adults around them and how this interaction supports language development.
47 of 66
Object permenance
The awareness that objects continue to exist even when they are no longer visible
48 of 66
Scaffolding
The process of transferring a skill from adult to child and then withdrawing support once the skill has been mastered.
49 of 66
Nativists
Those who believe that humans have an inbuilt capacity to acquire language
50 of 66
Cohesion
The way in which a text appears logical and well-constructed
51 of 66
Grapheme
a written symbol, letter or combination of letters that is used to represent a phoneme
52 of 66
Synonyms
Words with very similar semantic value
53 of 66
Typography
The study of the graphic features of the printed page
54 of 66
Phonics
A system of teaching reading and spelling that stresses basic symbol-sound relationships and their use in decoding words; a system used especially in the early stages of reading.
55 of 66
Cueing
the strategies used to help decode written texts successfully
56 of 66
Miscue
Errors made by children when reading
57 of 66
Cursive handwriting
Handwriting in which the characters are joined in rounded and flowing strokes
58 of 66
Convergence
A process of linguistic change in which people adjust their dialect, accent or speech style to those of others, often occurring to express solidarity and understanding.
59 of 66
Sociolect
a defined use of language as a result of membership of a social group
60 of 66
Orthography
The study of the use of letters and the rules of spelling in a language
61 of 66
Emergent writing
Children's early scribble writing, as stage of their literacy development
62 of 66
Ascender
The typographical feature where a portion of the letter goes above the usual height for letters in any font.
63 of 66
Descender
QWhere part of a letter goes below the baseline of a font
64 of 66
Digraph
A graphic unit in which two symbols combine, or any sentence of two letters produced as a single sound, eg 'sh'
65 of 66
Homophone
Lexis that has the same pronunciation as another.
66 of 66

Other cards in this set

Card 2

Front

A variety of language appropriate to a particular purpose

Back

Register

Card 3

Front

The smallest contrastive unit in the sound system of a language

Back

Preview of the back of card 3

Card 4

Front

The study of the sounds used in speech, including how they're produced

Back

Preview of the back of card 4

Card 5

Front

The vocabulary of language

Back

Preview of the back of card 5
View more cards

Comments

No comments have yet been made

Similar English Language resources:

See all English Language resources »See all Child language acquisition resources »