Language

• Functionalism


  William James philosophy that said human traits evolved to have a purpose
• Secondary language acquisition


  Conscious activity to understand rules, conventions, and patterns of a non-native language. Quite difficult to do
• Primary language acquisition


  Unconscious process that infants go through as they learn how to speak through super complex neural processes
• Noam Chomsky


  Said that humans must learn -- or develop their own -- language. Infants are neurologically prewired to learn, and deaf babies will babble sounds they've never heard
• Nativist


  Belief that some things are inherent, like Chomsky with his ideas of language
• Language acquisition device


  Ability/process coined by Chomsky to define how babies will always learn or develop language because that's what we're coded to do
• Edward Sapir


  Theorized that the language we are born into shapes, influences, or limits the kinds of thoughts and emotions we can experience in an unalterable way
• Linguistic determinism


  Idea that the language you were raised in and think in determines the kinds of thoughts you can have
• Linguistic relativism


  Suggests that thoughts can be altered if a person learns to think in a new language (not just speak it)
• Sapir Whorf hypothesis


  Combined theories of linguistic determinism and relativism for the AP Psych exam purposes
• Eye contact


  1st stage of language acquisition. A type of communication that shows intent and connectedness
• Babbling


  2nd stage LA. Consonant-vowel nonsense sounds. Could also be cooing, which is just vowel sounds and comes right before
• Holophrases


  3rd stage LA. One word but a complete thought, so like "juice" meaning i want juice
• Telegraphic speech


  4th stage LA. 2 word phrases, where grammar starts to come into play. In english, you see nouns coming before verbs at this point
• Fast mapping


  5th stage LA. When toddlers start to use context to understand what the people around them are saying and learn words on their own unconsciously
• Overgeneralization


  6th stage LA. Misapplying grammar rules where kids take rules they were never taught, and apply them, so like "i runned fast" because logically the -ed suffix fits even if they never heard it
• Critical period


  7th stage LA. When a child must learn something, when a child must learn something specific. After that plasticity is severely limited
• Sensitive period


  When the brain is best able to do something. For example, language acquisition is best done while very young