Podcast
Questions and Answers
Which aspect of language involves the sounds and patterns of stress in speech?
Which aspect of language involves the sounds and patterns of stress in speech?
- Phonemes
- Semantics
- Prosody (correct)
- Syntax
What is the term for the minimal units of sound in a language that differentiate meanings?
What is the term for the minimal units of sound in a language that differentiate meanings?
- Prosody
- Grammatical rules
- Morphemes
- Phonemes (correct)
In which stage of language development do infants show a preference for their mother's voice?
In which stage of language development do infants show a preference for their mother's voice?
- Fetal stage (correct)
- Imitative stage
- Cognitive stage
- Babbling stage
What are the rules about how words are arranged in sentences called?
What are the rules about how words are arranged in sentences called?
What does the process of speech segmentation involve?
What does the process of speech segmentation involve?
Which type of study measures infant preferences without prior training?
Which type of study measures infant preferences without prior training?
Infants are able to discriminate languages with different prosody. Which pair of languages exemplifies this?
Infants are able to discriminate languages with different prosody. Which pair of languages exemplifies this?
What phenomenon describes how infants can cry with an 'accent' reflecting their native language environment?
What phenomenon describes how infants can cry with an 'accent' reflecting their native language environment?
Which ability is NOT essential for infants to learn language?
Which ability is NOT essential for infants to learn language?
What aspect of language learning do controlled experiments primarily reveal?
What aspect of language learning do controlled experiments primarily reveal?
What might be a limitation of relying solely on controlled experiments to study language acquisition?
What might be a limitation of relying solely on controlled experiments to study language acquisition?
Which of the following skills aids infants in understanding the structure of their language?
Which of the following skills aids infants in understanding the structure of their language?
Which study might help further understand infants' ability to segment speech?
Which study might help further understand infants' ability to segment speech?
What does the concept of 'bootstrapping' refer to in language acquisition?
What does the concept of 'bootstrapping' refer to in language acquisition?
What role does phonetic perception play in infant language development?
What role does phonetic perception play in infant language development?
Which of the following challenges contributes to language acquisition difficulties in infants?
Which of the following challenges contributes to language acquisition difficulties in infants?
What is a phoneme?
What is a phoneme?
At what age do infants begin to show an increased ability to distinguish sounds from their target language?
At what age do infants begin to show an increased ability to distinguish sounds from their target language?
What role does prosody play in infant language acquisition?
What role does prosody play in infant language acquisition?
What is a key finding from the experiment with 8-month-olds and made-up language?
What is a key finding from the experiment with 8-month-olds and made-up language?
What age do infants typically begin to segment words from their language?
What age do infants typically begin to segment words from their language?
What can be concluded about adults and phoneme discrimination compared to infants?
What can be concluded about adults and phoneme discrimination compared to infants?
What factor does NOT contribute to infants finding words in their language?
What factor does NOT contribute to infants finding words in their language?
What principle governs how infants track the co-occurrence of syllables in language acquisition?
What principle governs how infants track the co-occurrence of syllables in language acquisition?
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Study Notes
Language Acquisition Fundamentals
- Infants learn language by identifying language sounds, segmenting speech into words, and understanding how words are organized to convey meaning.
- Language comprises phonemes (units of sound), semantics (meaning conveyed by language), and syntax (rules of word combination).
Early Phonological Development: Prosody
- Prosody refers to the pattern of stress and intonation in a language, which varies across languages.
- Newborns show a preference for their mother's voice, discriminate between languages with different prosody (German/Spanish) but not languages with similar prosody (English/Dutch), prefer their native language over foreign languages, and cry with an "accent."
- The foetal auditory system is fully functional during the final trimester of pregnancy.
Early Phonological Development: Phonemes
- Phonemes are distinct sounds that differentiate words (pat/bat). Languages have different phoneme sets, with a global average of 40 per language.
- Infants initially babble with a wide range of sounds, later transitioning to produce sounds specific to their target language.
- Between 1-2 months, infants can distinguish all sounds, including those from foreign languages.
- Adults only discriminate between sounds within their language.
- The ability to differentiate sounds declines from non-target languages and increases for target languages between 7-11 months.
Finding the Words: Prosody
- Infant-directed speech (IDS) is characterized by higher pitch and slower speaking rate.
Finding the Words: Statistics
- Infants are adept at tracking syllable co-occurrence patterns.
- They show a preference for Part-Words containing syllables that co-occur frequently, suggesting they can segment words from a continuous speech stream.
- This ability has been demonstrated with made-up languages and infant-directed speech.
Finding the Words: Experiment
- An experiment with 8-month-olds involved listening to a continuous stream of syllables.
- Infants displayed a greater interest in Part-Words, suggesting they were able to extract words from the speech stream.
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