Questions Bank for Chapter 1

King Abdulaziz University

Applied Linguistics – LANE 423 – Section GA & DA

Faculty of Arts and Humanities

Spring 2012

Department of European Languages and Literature

Lecturer: Haifa Alroqi

Questions Bank for Chapter 1 Contributed by the students of Applied Linguistics/LANE 423/ Section GA and DA, Class of Spring 2012 Reviewed and edited by: Lecturer Haifa Alroqi Notes: 

Definitions are found in the Glossary at the end of the book



The linguists’ names mentioned in the questions below are included. The linguists’ names that are not mentioned here are NOT included.

Pages 1-2: 1. Define the following term: Developmental Sequences (Answer: See the Glossary or the slides) 2. Fill in the blanks with the correct answer ……………………………………….. can be defined as the order in which certain features of a language are acquired in language learning. (Answer: See the Glossary or the slides) 3. By the age of two years old, many children produce simple sentences that are described by linguists as Telegraphic Sentences. Why are they called telegraphic and why are they called sentences? (Answer: See the slides)

Pages 3-4: 4. Compare between a longitudinal study and a cross-sectional study by giving a definition of each? (Answer: See the slides) 5. List the three findings of Roger Brown's (1973) study of children’s acquisition of grammatical morphemes (Answer: See the slides) 6. How does Jill and Peter de Villiers’ (1973) study confirm Brown's study of children’s acquisition of grammatical morphemes? (Answer: Findings - See the slides) 7. What are the different hypotheses that were proposed to explain why certain grammatical morphemes are acquired in a particular order? (Answer: See the slides) 8. What is the Wug Test? Who proposed it? Explain with examples. (Answer: See the slides or the textbook) 1

9. What does the Wug Test prove? (Answer: See the slides or the textbook) 10. Choose the right answer: (Answer: See the slides or the textbook) a. Roger Brown's (1973) study was a study of the language development of .............child/ children. a) 3

b) 10

c) 21

b. Jill and Peter de Villiers’ (1973) study was a study of the language development of .............child/ children. a) 3

b) 10

c) 21

11. Fill in the blanks with the correct answer In Roger Brown's (1973) study, mastering certain grammatical morphemes by all children before other grammatical morphemes, is an evidence for …………………………………… (Answer: See the slides) Note: Questions about the development of Negation and Questions (pp. 4-7) in children will be in this form: A. Identify the stage of negation development in native English speaking children represented in the following example: Mama no go home

……………………………………………………….

B. Identify the stage of question development in native English speaking children represented in the following example: We go home?

……………………………………………………….

[I will not use these examples. I will give other examples. In order to be able to answer the questions, you

need to understand the characteristics of each stage of development for both negation and questions.]

Pages 5-6: 12. According to Bloom (1991), there is a predictable order in which the 'wh-words' emerge. List the whwords in the order of their emergence in the speech of English native speaking children. (Answer: See the slides) 13. Fill in the blanks with the correct answer a. …………………………………….. is generally the first Wh- question word to be produced by native English speaking children. (Answer: See the slides)

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Pages 7-8: 14. Fill in the blanks with the correct answer a. …………………………………….. is the ability to treat language as an object, e.g. being able to define a word, or to say what sounds make up that word. (Answer: See the slides)

Pages 9-10: 15. Fill the blanks with the correct answer (Answer: See the slides or the textbook) a. Behaviorism was very influential in the …………………………… (Year) and ………………………… (Year), especially in …………………………… (Place) and the best-known proponent of this theory was …………………………… b. Positive reinforcement could take the form of ……………………………or just …………………………… c. Behaviorism gives great importance to the ……………………………as the source of everything the child needs to learn. d. According to Behaviorism, when children imitate the language they hear around them, their attempts to reproduce what they heard receive …………………………… e. The behaviorists viewed ……………………………and ……………………………as the primary processes in language development. 16. Compare between imitation and practice by giving a definition and an example of each? (Answer: See the slides or the textbook)

Pages 11-12: (Read only - No questions)

Pages 13-14: (Please study this part form the textbook or the slides. I did not receive questions on this part.)

Pages 15-16: 17. Who is the most influential figure in the innatist perspective? (Answer: See the slides or the textbook) 18. Fill the blanks with the correct answer (Answer: See the slides or the textbook)

a. According to Chomsky, children are born with a specific …………………………….. ability to discover for themselves the underlying rules of language system.

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b. The term …………………………….. can be defined as an innate linguistic knowledge that consists of a set of principle common to all language.

c. According to Chomsky, if children are pre-equipped with …………………………….. , then what they have to learn is the ways in which the language they are acquiring makes use of the set of principles common to all language.

d. …………………………….. hypothesized that all human languages are fundamentally innate. The same universal principles apply to all languages. 19. Define the following term: Universal Grammar (UG) (Answer: See the Glossary or the slides)

Pages 17-18: 20. Fill the blanks with the correct answer (Answer: See the slides or the textbook) a. …………………………………….. is the proposal that there is a limited period during which language acquisition can occur. It has two versions: strong and weak. 21. Define the following term: The Critical Period Hypothesis (Answer: See the Glossary or the slides) 22. Distinguish between the strong and the weak version of the Critical Period Hypothesis. 23. In 1799, Victor was found in the woods of France. When he was captured, he was twelve years old and completely wild, having had no contact with humans. In 1970, Genie, a thirteen-year-old girl who had been isolated, neglected, and abused was discovered in California. Write briefly about one of these cases with a focus on the acquisition of language after the critical periods. (Answer: See the slides)

Pages 19-20: 24. Discuss the findings and the conclusions of Elissa Newport’s (1990) study of deaf users of ASL. (Answer: See the slides) 25. Define the following term The Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) (Answer: See the Glossary or the slides) 26. Fill the blanks with the correct answer (Answer: See the slides or the textbook) a. According to ………………………………, Children’s cognitive development would partly determine how they use language. 4

b. According to Piaget, children’s ……………………………… would partly determine how they use language. e.g. the use of certain terms such as ‘bigger' or ‘more' depends on the children’s understanding of the concepts they represent. c. ……………………………… argued that in a supportive interactive environment, children are able to advance to a higher level of knowledge and performance. d. ……………………………… can be defined as the metaphorical place in which a learner is capable of a higher level of performance because there is support from interaction with an interlocutor. e. According to ……………………………… , learning takes place through and during interaction in the learner's ZPD.

Pages 21-22: 27. Define the following term Child-Directed Speech (Answer: See the Glossary or the slides) 28. What are the main characteristics of child-directed speech? (Answer: See the slides) 29. In Jacqueline Sachs’ (1981) study, Jim's younger brother Glenn did not display the same type of language delay. How can you explain this? (Answer: See the slides) 30. Based on Jacqueline Sachs’ (1981) study, the fact that Jim had failed to acquire language normally prior to the experience of having one-to-one conversational sessions with an adult suggests an important conclusion. Explain. (Answer: See the slides) 31. Fill the blanks with the correct answer (Answer: See the slides or the textbook) a. …………………………………….. can be defined as the language that caretakers address to children. It is usually simpler than that which is addressed to adults. In some cultures, it is also slower, higher pitched, more repetitive, and includes a large number of questions.

Pages 23-24: 32. Fill the blanks with the correct answer (Answer: See the slides or the textbook) a. ……………………………… interaction gives the child access to the language that is adjusted to his or her level of comprehension. b. One-to-one interaction gives the child access to the language that is ……………………………… to his or her level of comprehension. c. Connectionists explain language acquisition in terms of how children acquire……………………………… between words and phrases and the situations in which they occur. 5

d. Researchers such as Jeffrey Elman and his colleagues (1996) explain language acquisition in terms of how children acquire links between words and phrases and the situations in which they occur. This view is known as ……………………………… 33. How does one-to-one interaction give the child access to language that is adjusted to his or her level of comprehension? Explain. (Answer: See the slides or the textbook) 34. Give examples to clarify the following statement: (Answer: Make your own examples based on understanding. Use the slides’ examples as a model) a. For children, hearing a word brings to mind the object, and seeing the object brings to mind the word or phrase. b. Any of the characteristics of the object or event may trigger the retrieval of the associated words or phrases from memory. c. Language acquisition involves associating words and phrases with other words and phrases that occur with them. d. Language acquisition involves associating words with grammatical morphemes that occur with them. e. Language acquisition involves associating pronouns with the verb forms that mark person and number. f.

Language acquisition involves associating temporal adverbs with the verb tenses that work with them.

35. Choose the correct answer: 1) ................ explained language acquisition in terms of how children acquire links or ‘connections’ between words and phrases and the situations in which they occur. (Answer: See the slides) a) Jean Piaget b) Lev Vygotsky c) Jeffrey Elman d) Noam Chomsky 2) Connectionists’ claims differ sharply from...................... ’s in that language acquisition does not require a separate ‘module of the mind’ or an LAD. (Answer: See the textbook) a) Lev Vygotsky b) Jean Piaget c) Noam Chomsky d) B. F. Skinner 6

Pages 25-26: 36. Fill the blanks with the correct answer (Answer: See the slides or the textbook) a. Children who learn more than one language from earliest childhood are referred to as ‘…………………………………….. ’, whereas those who learn another language later can be called ‘…………………………………….. ’. b. …………………………………….. Bilingualism can be defined as partially or completely losing the first language as a second language is acquired, whereas …………………………………….. Bilingualism is learning a second language without losing the first. 37. Compare between Simultaneous Bilinguals and Sequential Bilinguals by defining each one of them. (Answer: See the slides) 38. Compare between Subtractive Bilingualism and Additive Bilingualism by defining each one of them. (Answer: See the Glossary or the slides) 39. Define the following terms: (Answer: See the Glossary or the slides) a. Simultaneous Bilinguals b. Sequential Bilinguals c. Subtractive Bilingualism d. Additive Bilingualism 40. What are the main disadvantages of Subtractive Bilingualism? (Answer: See the slides)

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