Language Acquisition & Word Learning Review Sheet

Answer the following questions in the space provided.

1. At what age do infants prefer to listen to stories with pauses at clause boundaries, phrase boundaries and word boundaries?

2. In an attempt to test the emergence of syntax in children, researchers designed an experiment were children listened to passages that were identical except for the placement of certain function words. In the natural passages, each function word occurred in its proper sentential position. In the unnatural passages, the function words were misplaced by interchanging them with function words from another sentential position. What were the results of this study and what do they suggest?

3. Define the point made by Quine when he talked about an indeterminacy of reference as it relates to language acquisition.

 

4. It was noticed that children in their attempt to learn new words and use them in their every day interactions, they overextended some words (e.g. by calling a different animals dogs). However, some important observations were made about the use of overextensions by children that might suggest two different things. Identify the observations made and what they suggest.

5. Children show different biases in their word learning. One of these biases is taxonomic assumption. Define it and explain how it’s different from thematic relations.

6. Explain what the shape bias refers to and indicate when and at what age children generalize novel names to other objects on the basis of shape.

 

 

Answer the following multiple choice questions:

1. When we say the children's early multi-word utterances are telegraphic, we mean they
(a) are immediately understood
(b) include many content words and few functors
(c) include many functors and few content words
(d) are produced in a flat, mechanical tone of voice

2. A research study that follows the same children over some period of time to observe how their language develops is
(a) a cross-sectional study
(b) a retrospective study
(c) a longitudinal study
(d) a historical study

3. One of the shortcomings of the diary studies of child language carried out by early researchers (typically on their own children) was
(a) that all of these studies were longitudinal while the most interesting information comes from cross-sectional studies
(b) that the researchers tended to exaggerate the linguistic attainments of their children
(c) that the researchers tended to record what is unusual rather than what is daily and ordinary
(d) all of the above