Review Questions for EDHD 425 Test 1Introduction/overview1. What is language and reading? Are they same or different? What is the relationship between the two?- Language: a system of symbols & rules used for the purpose of communication; specifically refers to spoken form of language (oral/auditory communication).- has sounds (phonology)- has meanings (semantics)- has structures (morphology/syntax)- has social rules (pragmatics)- Reading: the process of mapping spoken form to written form (visual form) of the language; oral to printed words.- They are different because reading is printed words in the visual form & language has sounds & is auditory- Language is acquired before reading- They share many properties—sounds, meanings, & structures2. What are the three major criteria used to distinguish between human language and other animal communication such as primate language?- productivity: speakers can make many new utterances & can recombine or expand the forms they already know to say things they have never heard before; recombination, recursion, or generativity- semanticity: represents ideas, events, & objects symbolically; a word is a symbol that stands for something else; symbolism- displacement: messages need not be tied to the immediate context3. Give two examples of language and reading research methods?- Psycholinguistics: linguists & psychologists combined to study language or reading—whether the linguistic systems described by the linguist has psychological reality in the mind of speakers or readers- Observations: observe children’s language & reading activities in a natural setting- Experiments: design your own language & reading tasks for children, then record language & reading performance for analyses- CLAN (Children Language Analysis) computer software to code the dataPhonological development1. What are two major categories of our speech sounds and their features? Give two examples of each. What is a phoneme and what is a phone?- vowels: sounds made with an unobstructed vocal tract (about 16)- ex: /æ/ in cat- ex: /ɪ/ in bid - consonants: sounds made with a constricted vocal tract (24)- ex: /p/ & /t/ in put1- phoneme: the contrasting sounds in language; the smallest sound unit; most have no meaning by themselves; changing a phoneme will turn one meaning into another (minimal pair)- ex: lot & rot, /l/ & /r/ are two distinct phonemes - phone: an individual speech sound, the realization of a phoneme in a particular context;variants of a phoneme2. What is a syllable and its components? Describe two examples.- syllable: a phonetic unit larger & more stable than a phoneme- Consists of an onset & a rime (a rime consists of a vowel & final consonant(s))- ex: cat is a 1 syllable word; c is the onset & at is the rime.- ex: grasp is a 1 syllable word; gr is the onset and asp is the rime3. Describe the relationship between letters and sounds (phonemes) in English using two examples?- Words are made up of speech sounds or segments rather than letters; English has over 26 letters over 40 sounds; there can be no one-to-one correspondence between letters & sounds. Linguists refer to words as being made up of speech sounds or segments rather than letters- ex: “a”—about, fat, fate, farm, fall, says…4. What is phonotactics? Can you think of two words that violate the English phonotactics?- phonotactics: the rules that govern permissible sound combinations- ex: true—rtue & plot—lpot 5. What is a suprasegmental feature? Give one example, and explain its importance in a child’s language acquisition.- suprasegmental: superimposed on the sequence of vowels & consonants; two major features are pitch (tone) & stress- Have an affect on the early development of language because children tend to leave outthe initial unstressed syllables in a multisyllabic word & omit medial unstressed syllable- ex: tomato  mato or dessert  zert6. Describe infants’ ability to perceive speech sounds-what can they do? What do we learn from their ability in speech perception very early in life?- 1-4 months: infants can discriminate sound pairs (/b/ & /p/ in bah & pah)- 3 days: infants can identify & prefer listening to own mothers’ voices- before 6-8 months: infants also can discriminate sound pairs not used in their native languages (suggests they’re born with this sound distinction ability)- by 10-12 months: infants gradually lose their ability to detect sound pairs not used in their native languages (suggests language experience is important)7. What are the characteristics when young children (ages 1-2) learn to produce sound sequences?- By imitation, repetition, & practice, children learn to approximate their pronunciation ofsound sequences to that of adults2- Their first recognizable words: greetings, farewells- Children simplify complex syllable structures by dropping certain sounds (simplification & cluster reductions)- Children also substitute sounds—an easy consonant for a difficult one (avoidance)- Children may mispronounce sounds that they can correctly perceiveSemantic development1. Can we call “sun” another name, like “moon”? why? 2. How do young children link words and their referents (i.e., the lexical principles)?- children link words & their referents because they believe that words refer to whole objects, & objects can have only one name; therefore, new words refer to objects previously unnamed- they form the relationship by using characteristic words—gardener = plant man- principle of mutual exclusivity: a cognitive bias shown by young children, who typically avoid labeling anything at more than one level of generality; hence, they may refer to their pet as a “dog,” but not also as an “animal”- principle of contrast: children’s assumption that no two words have the same meaning; hence, they assume that a new word will not refer to something for which they already have a name* to improve semantic network—make links stronger, making activation of network more automatic, this is the outcome of the practice3. What is the receptive and productive vocabulary? How can we measure a child’s receptive and productive vocabulary?- receptive vocabulary: words that children can understand- productive vocabulary: words that children can pronounce- children can understand more words than they can produce- Receptive vocabulary can be studied by using “show me” technique4. What does a word family mean? Give an example.- base word + inflections