Language Development Terms
Terms
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- Meaning unit that can't occur alone but must be joined to a free morpheme; generally includes grammatical tags or markers that are derivational, such as -ly, -er, -ment or inflectional, such as -ed or -s
- Bound morpheme
- Meaning unit that can occur alone, sug as dog, chair, run, and fast
- Free morphemes
- Smallest unit of meaning; indivisible (dog) without violating the meaning or producing meaningless units, (do, g). There are two types of morphemes, free and bound.
- morpheme
- Smallest linguistic unit of sound, each with distinctive features, that can signal a difference in meaning when modified
- phoneme
- Aspect of language concerned with the rules governing the structure, distribution, and sequencing of speech-sound patterns.
- phonology
- A code whereby ideas about the world are represented through a conventional system of arbitrary signals for the purpose of communication
- language
- Organizational rues specifying word order, sentce organization, and word relationships
- syntax
- Aspect of language concerned with rules governing the meaning or content of words or grammatical units.
- semantics
- Autiobiographical and experiential understanding and memory of events reflecting personal and cultural interpretations
- world knowledge
- Perceptual or functional apsects of meaning that characterize a word
- semantic features
- Linguistic intuitions on the acceptability of communication
- metalinguistic cues
- Aspect of language concerned with rules governing change in meaning at the intraword level
- morphology
- Language rule system of an identifiable group that varies from the rule system of an ideal standard
- dialects
- Verbal word and symbol definitions
- word knowledge
- Basic unit of communication; an intentional, verbally encoded message that includes the speaker's intentions, the speaker's meaning, the message's meaning, and the listener's interpretation.
- speech act
- Long strings of sounds that children begin to produce at about four months of age
- babbling
- Head to foot development progession
- cephalocaudal
- Immediate, whole or partial vocal imitation of another speaker; characterizes the child's speech beginning at about eight months
- echolalia
- Expressions that use words or phrases in an impression or represent an abstract concept, can't be interpreted literally.
- figurative language
- Strings of unintelligible speech sounds with the intonational pattern of adult speech
- jaron
- Individual dictionary of each person containing words and the underlying concepts of each. The lexicon is dynamic, changing with experience
- lexion
- Cortical area of the left frontal lobe of the brain responsible for detailing and coordinating the programming of speech movements
- Broca's area
- Partial resonance of speech sounds found in neonates
- quasi-resonant nuclei
- Long strings of consonant-vowel syllable repetition, such as ba-ba-ba-ba-ba, that appear in the vocal play of six to seven month old infants
- reduplicated babbling
- Long strings of nonidentical syllables that appear in the vocal play of some eight to ten month old infants
- variegated babbling
- Area located in the auditory cortex of each hemisphere of the brain that receives incoming auditory signals from the inner ear
- Heschl's gyrus
- Language-processing area of the brain, located in the left temporal lobe; responsible for organizing the underlying structure of outgoing messsages and analyzing incoming linguistic information
- Wernicke's area
- Memory in which information is held while being processed
- working memory
- Process of reorganizing cognitive structures or schemes or creating new schemes in response to external stimuli that don't fit into any available scheme
- accommodation
- Process by which external stimuli are incorporated into existing cognitive structures or schemes.
- assimilation
- Theory that the experiences of speakers of different languages vary; that groups with the same language think in the same manner.
- linguistic relativism
- Process of maintaining information within the long-term memory; repetition, drill, or pracitce.
- rehearsal
- Entity that represents another entity containing similar features. Ex: a word is a symbol or the entity it represents
- symbol
- Process of breaking a speech stream into analyzable units by detecting end points or divisions through the use of intonational cues.
- bracketing
- Process of breaking speech stream into analyzable units based on predictability of syllables and phoneme structures
- clustering
- Shared action sequences of mother and child, often routines. Provide for many scripts
- joint action
- Vocal interactions between mother and infants that resemble the verbal exchanges of more mature conversations.
- protoconversation
- Scaffolding or predictable structure of an event that provides "slots" for participation and aids comprehension.
- script
- Differentiation of one entity from many; noting the presence of a single object, action, or event for one's communication partner.
- referencing
- Process of learning language in which the child uses what he or she knows to decode more mature language.
- bootstrapping
- Style of talking used most often by white middle-class American mothers when addressing their eighteen to twenty-four month old toddlers.
- motherese
- Toddler language-learning strategy in which the child attempts to learn the name of an entity by asking What? That? or Waassat?
- interrogative utterance
- The number of possible words that differ by one phoneme and a factor characteristic in shaping a child's emerging lexical system.
- neighborhood density
- Process in which a child applies a word's meaning to more exemplars than an adult would. The child's definition is too braod and is thus beyond acceptable adult usage
- overextension
- Process in which a child applies a word meaning to fewer exemplars than an adult would. The child's definition is too restrictive and more limited than in adults usage
- underextension
- Grammatical mechanism that notifies the listener that the speaker is referring to a previous reference.
- anaphoric reference
- The linking of entities in a narrative to form a story necleus. Links may be baesd on similarity or complementarity of features, sequences, or causality.
- centering
- Narrative form consisting of a sequence of events that share attributes and lead directly from one to antoher.
- chaining
- Process of using the speaker's perspective as a reference. Ex: seen in words such as this, that, here, there, me, and you.
- deixis
- Conversational device of omitting redundant information
- elipsis
- Consists of self-generated story; familliar tale, retelling of a movie, television show, or preiviously heard or seen story; and pesronal experience recounting
- narrative
- Situationally influenced language variations, such as motherese.
- register
- Group of words containing a subject and the accompanying verb; used as a sentence (independent clause) or attached to an indedpendent clause (dependent clause)
- clause
- Form of the verb to be as a main verb. Signifies a relationship between the subject and a predicate adjective
- copula
- Placing a phrase or dependent clause within a phrase or clause
- emedding
- Process of inserting a vowel sound where none is required.
- epenthesis
- Auxillary or helping verb used to express mood or attitude, such as ability (can), permission (may), intention (will), possibility (might), and obligation (must)
- modal auxillary
- Clause that can't occur alone but functions in support of the main clause
- subordinate clause
- Sentence consisting of two or more main clauses
- compound sentence1
- Joining two or more main clauses with a conjunction
- conjoining
- Process of moving from one dimensional descriptions of entities and events to coordinated multiattributedal ones
- decentration
- Aspect of linguistic processing that enables the user to think about language in the abstract and/or out of context and to make judgements about the appropriateness or correctness of language.
- metalinguistic
- Term used to refer to changes in sound production related to meaning changes
- morphophonemic
- Consideration of phonology at a conscious level, including syllabification; sound identification, manipulation, segmentation, and bleding; needed for for the development of reading
- phonologic awareness
- Vocabulary of a dominant language used by speakers of a nondominant one with little or no grammatical structure.
- pidgin
- One member of a word class used to the exclusion of all others.
- archiform
- Grammar and structure from two or more languages used as a single language system
- creole