Deck 7: Language

Question 1

The portion of the cerebral cortex that controls language comprehension is called ________ area.

A) Broca's
B) Wernicke's
C) Luria's
D) Lenneberg's

Answer 1

B

Question 2

Umberto was in an automobile accident and suffered damage to the left side of his brain in the region called Wernicke's area.Umberto may suffer

A) hemispatial neglect.
B) an inability to produce vocalizations.
C) expressive aphasia.
D) an inability to understand the speech of others.

Answer 2

D

Question 3

The loss of the ability to comprehend speech is called ________ aphasia.

A) Broca's
B) receptive
C) expressive
D) productive

Answer 3

B

Question 4

Case studies of children who were isolated from social contact for protracted periods of time have been used to support the hypothesis that

A) there is a critical period for language acquisition.
B) social interaction plays little or no role in language acquisition.
C) language learning is influenced primarily by nurture.
D) children play an active role in language acquisition.

Question 5

Olga,who is five years old,and Natalya,who is fourteen years old,recently moved to the United States.According to recent research on second-language learning,

A) Olga and Natalya should be equally proficient at learning English.
B) Natalya is likely to learn English more easily than Olga.
C) Olga is likely to learn English more easily than Natalya.
D) it is difficult to predict any differences in Olga's and Natalya's abilities to learn English.

Question 6

The rules for using language effectively within a social context are called

A) phonology.
B) semantics.
C) syntax.
D) pragmatics.

Question 7

The regions of the brain that are known to be associated with language abilities in most people are found in the

A) left hemisphere.
B) right hemisphere.
C) sensorimotor strip.
D) temporal hemisphere.

Question 8

Before young children begin speaking,brain wave activity as they listen to words they comprehend is

A) distributed across many regions of the brain.
B) focused in the right hemisphere.
C) focused in the left hemisphere.
D) similar to the brain wave activity of an adult.

Question 9

The grammatical rules that dictate how words can be combined are called

A) phonology.
B) semantics.
C) syntax.
D) pragmatics.

Question 10

The basic building blocks of language are called ________,the smallest units of sound that change the meanings of words.

A) phonology
B) phonemes
C) pragmatics
D) prosody

Question 11

When Amanda wants a drink,she says "drink cup," but when she wants someone else to drink from her cup,she says "cup drink." The fact that Amanda changes the word order to convey different meanings suggests that she is learning the _______ of her language.

A) pragmatics
B) syntax
C) semantics
D) phonology

Question 12

The words cat and sat differ in meaning because of the sounds /c/ and /s/,which are referred to as

A) semantic variables.
B) tonal morphemes.
C) phonemes.
D) syntactic consonants.

Question 13

By learning that adding "-ed" to the end of a verb creates a change in its tense,a child is acquiring the rules of

A) phonology.
B) morphology.
C) pragmatics.
D) semantics.

Question 14

Language learning occurs within a social context,and children must learn the socially appropriate ways to express themselves.In this way,they are learning the ________ of the language.

A) semantics
B) grammar
C) syntax
D) pragmatics

Question 15

Once children reach seven years of age,patterns of brain activation related to language are

A) distributed across many regions of the brain.
B) focused in the right hemisphere.
C) focused in the frontal lobes.
D) focused in the left hemisphere.

Question 16

Expressive aphasia,or loss of fluent speech,is a result of damage to ________ area.

A) Luria's
B) Wernicke's
C) Broca's
D) Lenneberg's

Question 17

The fundamental sound units and combinations of sound units in a given language are called

A) phonology.
B) reverberants.
C) syntax.
D) pragmatics.

Question 18

One of the most important achievements that a child will make in learning words will be to acquire the meanings of the words as well.Thus,________ is very important to learning words.

A) phonology
B) semantics
C) syntax
D) pragmatics

Question 19

One of the first steps that ten-month-old Molly will take in learning a language is to acquire the ________ of the language.Molly will probably accomplish this task by making various speech sounds and various combinations of sounds until she learns to speak.

A) referents
B) syntax
C) phonology
D) pragmatics

Question 20

Roger suffered a brain injury last year and can no longer produce meaningful speech.Arthur also suffered a brain injury last year,but he can no longer understand the speech of others.It is most likely that Roger suffered damage to ________ area and Arthur suffered damage to ________ area.

A) Broca's;Broca's
B) Broca's;Wernicke's
C) Wernicke's;Broca's
D) Wernicke's;Wernicke's

Question 21

Carrie's mother is generally intrusive and uses many directives to control Carrie's behavior.Lindsey's mother uses more conversational turn taking and follows Lindsey's vocalizations with responses.Which of the following statements about Carrie and Lindsey is true?

A) Carrie is likely to develop language skills faster than Lindsey.
B) Lindsey is likely to develop language skills faster than Carrie.
C) Carrie and Lindsey will probably develop their language skills at similar rates.
D) Carrie and Lindsey will have similar language skill development,but Carrie will learn to read faster than Lindsey.

Question 22

The patterns of intonation,stress,and rhythm that communicate meaning in speech are called

A) prosody.
B) phonology.
C) semantics.
D) pragmatics.

Question 23

Critics of the critical-period hypothesis of language acquisition believe that rare cases,such as Genie,are not good evidence for the biological nature of language learning because

A) Genie was deaf.
B) Genie may have suffered serious cognitive,physiological,and psychological deficits due to the lack of human contact she encountered in her life.
C) Genie was exposed to a number of teratogens prenatally.
D) Genie willingly isolated herself from human contact and may not have performed well on language learning tasks due to her discomfort with human interaction.

Question 24

Social interaction researchers believe that children need models who can provide a scaffold by using speech that

A) does not exceed their processing capacities.
B) falls just below their processing capacities.
C) exceeds their processing capacities.
D) exceeds their productive capacities but lags their receptive capacities.

Question 25

________ models describe language development in terms of networks of associations,which are organized in interconnected layers.

A) Learning
B) Cognitive
C) Connectionist
D) Social interaction

Question 26

The fact that most infants,regardless of their culture,begin to coo and babble at similar ages adds further evidence that

A) biological factors dictate the onset of these behaviors.
B) environmental factors dictate the onset of these behaviors.
C) cooing and babbling are predominantly the effects of nurture.
D) biology is not very well related to the infant's first vocalizations.

Question 27

After returning from a car trip,Cheryl incorrectly said to her mother,"I go car." Mother corrected Cheryl by saying,"Yes,you went in the car." This form of correction is called

A) semiotic conversing.
B) motherese.
C) a recast.
D) turn taking.

Question 28

Which of the following traits of "baby talk" do infants prefer?

A) The phonemes
B) The volume
C) The high pitch
D) The content

Question 29

At ten months of age,American children begin to prefer hearing

A) a stream of speech in their native language.
B) a stream of speech in a foreign language.
C) words with a strong-weak stress pattern.
D) unfamiliar,isolated words from their native language.

Question 30

Who is most likely to show overlapping regions of activation for two languages in Broca's area?

A) Charles,a native French speaker who learned English after the age of fifteen.
B) Rick,a native English speaker who learned Japanese after the age of sixteen.
C) Jean-Paul,a native French speaker who learned Russian in the first grade.
D) Marc,a native English speaker who learned Italian in the ninth grade.

Question 31

_________ vocal noises are mostly vowel-like utterances that are sometimes accompanied by consonant sounds produced in the back of the mouth.

A) Cooing
B) Babbling
C) Prosody
D) Baby talk

Question 32

Which of the following is a characteristic of Chomsky's linguistic perspective on language acquisition?

A) The rare-event learning mechanism
B) Inner speech
C) Partial representative parameters
D) Universal grammar

Question 33

Researchers believe that it is easier for children to organize objects on the intermediate levels,rather than on more broad or general levels.If word learning parallels children's ability to organize objects,which of the following words is most likely to appear the earliest in a young child's vocabulary?

A) Animal
B) Mammal
C) Dog
D) Collie

Question 34

According to linguists,language is

A) modular,separate,and distinct from other kinds of processing.
B) a general cognitive problem-solving capacity.
C) framed by advances in the child's thought processes.
D) more environmentally determined than it is biological.

Question 35

Seven-month-old Tamara has begun to say things like "bababababa" over and over again.Her vocalizations are called

A) cooing.
B) babbling.
C) canonical babbling.
D) baby talk.

Question 36

Eileen was playing with her daughter Alice,and during the course of their play,they had several conversations.Eileen would always ask her daughter questions that required some response from Alice,such as,"You like this doll,don't you?" or "Can you tell me why this doll is your favorite?" This type of interaction is usually called

A) turn taking.
B) turnabout.
C) motherese.
D) scaffolding.

Question 37

In an exchange with her baby,Micah would ask a question and wait for a response from the baby (usually reduplicated babbling).Then Micah would respond to the baby's response,and so on.This type of exchange is called

A) turn taking.
B) turn-style communication.
C) motherese.
D) turnabout.

Question 38

The consonant-vowel utterances that characterize the infant's first attempts to vocalize are called

A) cooing.
B) babbling.
C) canonical babbling.
D) baby talk.

Question 39

Changes in the infant's ability to produce speech sounds occur as a result of

A) physiological changes in the vocal apparatus and the nervous system.
B) increased control of the brainstem over voluntary utterances.
C) innate preferences for prosody.
D) repetitive attempts at copying the language spoken around them.

Question 40

According to linguistic theory,as children are exposed to a specific language,a process called ________ takes place,whereby "switches" for the grammatical rules for that language are set.

A) overregularization
B) parameter setting
C) recasting
D) semantic bootstrapping

Question 41

Deaf infants who are exposed to sign language

A) display no evidence of babbling.
B) babble vocally but at a much later stage in development than hearing children.
C) display rhythmic hand gestures that parallel babbling,and these gestures appear during the same developmental window of time when hearing infants babble.
D) never display any signs of babbling,but often acquire their first one-word hand gestures far earlier than hearing infants usually begin to speak one-word utterances.

Question 42

When considering a child's comprehension of language versus a child's ability to produce language,researchers have found that

A) children's vocabularies are composed primarily of words they do not understand.
B) children's productive language far exceeds their receptive language.
C) children's receptive language far exceeds their productive language.
D) children have difficulty using words that their parents tend to underextend.

Question 43

Just before or around the same time children learn to speak,they begin to use gestures to communicate.When a child uses a gesture to call attention to an object or event,that gesture is called

A) protodemonstrative behavior.
B) protodeclarative communication.
C) protoimperative behavior.
D) prototypical communication.

Question 44

In a research study,six-month-old Nadine listened to a voice that said either "mommy" or "daddy." At the same time,Nadine saw two side-by-side video images of her mother and father.Every time the voice said,"mommy," Nadine looked at the screen showing her mother;every time the voice said,"daddy," Nadine looked at the screen showing her father.This suggests that Nadine

A) can produce words before she can comprehend them.
B) can determine the meanings of words she has not yet heard.
C) does not know the specific meanings of words.
D) can comprehend words before she can produce them.

Question 45

Which of the following is an example of an underextension effort?

A) A child who uses fewer than half the number of words of an average child her age
B) A child who uses the word juice for all drinking cups
C) A child who uses the word candy for lollipops only and not for other sweets
D) A child who is unable to reliably grasp objects that are an arm's length away

Question 46

The words that a child is able to say and use herself comprise her ________ language.

A) referential
B) expressive
C) productive
D) receptive

Question 47

A strong relationship seems to exist between the development of gestures and verbal abilities because

A) gestures do not appear until after children begin speaking.
B) gestures appear with the two-word phase.
C) words do not appear until gestures have been mastered.
D) both gestures and words appear around the same time.

Question 48

The words that a child is able to understand comprise his ________ language.

A) referential
B) receptive
C) productive
D) expressive

Question 49

Underextension errors occur when a child applies a label to

A) a narrower class of objects than the term signifies.
B) objects that have different functions.
C) objects that look different.
D) a broader category than the word signifies.

Question 50

Which of the following is an example of an overextension error?

A) A child who is unable to reliably grasp objects that are less than an arm's length away
B) A child who is more likely to gesture to obtain objects than to use words to obtain objects
C) A child who uses the word candy for lollipops only and not for other sweets
D) A child who uses the word juice for all drinking cups

Question 51

Preverbal children often use gestures to communicate with people just as they are learning to speak,usually

A) late in the first three months of life.
B) late in the second three months of life.
C) late in the first year of life.
D) late in the second year of life.

Question 52

At about eighteen months of age,children show a virtual explosion in the acquisition of new words.This explosion is called

A) the nominal dynamic.
B) the verbal dynamic explosion.
C) early language absorption.
D) the vocabulary spurt.

Question 53

Children's first words are typically _______,labels for objects,people,or events.

A) numbers
B) nouns
C) descriptives
D) declaratives

Question 54

Overextension errors occur when a child applies a label to

A) objects that look different.
B) objects that have different functions.
C) a broader category than the word signifies.
D) a narrower class of objects than the term signifies.

Question 55

During the vocabulary spurt,children typically display

A) a decrease in active play but an increase in social skills.
B) an acceleration in their fine motor skill development.
C) a reduction in their attention to auditory stimuli.
D) a simultaneous spurt in the number of words they understand.

Question 56

During the second year of life,children begin to

A) combine a word and a gesture.
B) limit their uses of words.
C) stop their use of gestures.
D) limit their use of words and gestures.

Question 57

One way the child may derive the meaning of a new word is to attend to the context in which the word occurs.This process is called

A) pragmatics.
B) fast-mapping.
C) semantic derivation.
D) semantic mapping.

Question 58

While playing house,Kerri decided that it was nighttime.As she pretended to brush her teeth,she squeezed her fist into a ball and waved it up and down in front of her open mouth.Kerri's behavior tells us that her gesture

A) is recreating the form of the toothbrush.
B) is recreating the shape of the toothbrush.
C) is recreating the function of the toothbrush.
D) has nothing to do with a toothbrush.

Question 59

Which of the following is not a likely reason for the tapering of gestural communication in children in the middle of their second year of life?

A) Gestures are not an effective means of communication when the recipient is not in the same room as the child.
B) Parents tend to encourage verbalizations over gestures.
C) Children begin to understand that gestures do not really symbolize objects and actions.
D) Gestures are primarily understood only by a limited number of adults.

Question 60

Children are more likely to acquire labels for ________ objects than for items that are ________.

A) dynamic;stationary
B) stationary;dynamic
C) functional;dynamic
D) dynamic;functional

Question 61

At three years of age,some children will modify their speech according to pragmatics.Therefore,three-year-old Casey is likely to be most polite to

A) a teacher.
B) a peer.
C) a sibling.
D) a younger child.

Question 62

Children who are beginning to produce two-word utterances tend not to include

A) nouns.
B) verbs.
C) conjunctions.
D) adjectives.

Question 63

Children will often form the correct past tense of a verb shortly before or after using the incorrect past tense of a verb.One explanation for why children overregularize at some times and not others is that

A) children want the attention they receive when being corrected for using the wrong form of a verb.
B) children may forget the exception to a general rule for forming tense.
C) children are unaware that one form is correct and one is not.
D) children who overregularize lack a neurological function necessary for the discrimination of correct and incorrect verb tenses.

Question 64

During the two-word stage,children's speech often contains only the elements essential to communicating the message.This type of speech is referred to as

A) telegraphic speech.
B) pivot speech.
C) reduplicated grammar.
D) mutual exclusive speech.

Question 65

The idea that children derive information about syntax from the meanings of words is called

A) syntactic bootstrapping.
B) syntactic pivoting.
C) semantic bootstrapping.
D) semantic pivoting.

Question 66

A word that regularly appears in a young child's language as an anchor for other words is called a(n)

A) open word.
B) tack word.
C) pivot word.
D) morpheme.

Question 67

Communication in situations that require the speaker to describe an object to a listener or to evaluate the effectiveness of a message is called

A) turnabout.
B) turn taking.
C) referential communication.
D) demonstrative pragmatics.

Question 68

Elsa,who is four years old,said to her friend,"I goed to Grandma's house." Elsa's use of goed illustrates the phenomenon of

A) overextension.
B) expressive aphasia.
C) overregularization.
D) inflection dyslexia.

Question 69

Recent studies on how young children learn meanings of words through early parent-child interactions suggest that comprehension will be best if

A) the adult shows emotion while providing the label.
B) an adult supplies a label after the child looks at an object.
C) an adult supplies a label before the child looks at an object.
D) the object that is being labeled is unfamiliar.

Question 70

During a referential communication task with his preschool teacher,Jonathan was asked to describe a piece of fabric that was hidden from the teacher's view.To do so,Jonathan told his teacher that the fabric looked just like the comforter on his parents' bed.This example demonstrates that young children often

A) rely on irrelevant descriptions.
B) rely on personal descriptions.
C) consider the perspective of the other person.
D) fail to accurately describe objects.

Question 71

Children are likely to treat new words as labels for unfamiliar objects,a tendency referred to as

A) the semantic feature hypothesis.
B) fast-mapping.
C) the mutual exclusivity bias.
D) functional theory.

Question 72

Which of the following is not considered a factor that might contribute to individual and cultural differences in language development?

A) Innate differences in temperament and sociability
B) The types of words parents use with their children,such as nouns versus verbs
C) Differences in neurological structures
D) The effects of cultural food variations on the formation of the lips and tongue

Question 73

The type of early language production in which the child uses many social words is called ________ style.

A) referential
B) receptive
C) productive
D) expressive

Question 74

Kristen's verbalizations include phrases such as "Kristen go," "Kristen milk," "Kristen doll," and "Kristen shoe." In this sample,Kristen is the ________ word.

A) telegraphic
B) pivot
C) open
D) slot

Question 75

The amount of time infants spend in joint attention with their caregivers predicts

A) their early language skills.
B) their ability to discriminate phonemes from foreign languages.
C) their acquisition of syntax.
D) their rate of pragmatic errors.

Question 76

Which of the following is not an example of a constraint on language learning?

A) Children tend to think that a novel word refers to a whole object,not to just part of an object.
B) Children treat new words as labels for unfamiliar objects rather than assigning the new word to an object for which they already know the word.
C) Children ignore novel words unless an object is pointed to directly and at the same moment the new word is introduced.
D) Children do not treat novel words as synonyms for words they already know.

Question 77

Which of the following is a reason for a child's poor performance on a referential communication task?

A) The child's inability to understand the passive voice
B) The child's lack of prosodic features
C) The child's inability to understand the perspectives of others
D) The child's lack of facial expressions

Question 78

The type of early language production in which the child uses mostly nominals is called ________ style.

A) referential
B) receptive
C) productive
D) expressive

Question 79

Tyrone is participating in an experiment in which he has to find the objects the researcher names.The three objects on the table are an apple,a balloon,and a garlic press.Tyrone has never seen a garlic press before.When the researcher asks Tyrone to find the "glipka," Tyrone points to the garlic press because ________.

A) children are fascinated with shiny objects
B) children tend to ignore words they do not know and pick up the object that interests them the most
C) children tend to attach novel words to unfamiliar objects
D) children are very imaginative and are aware that objects can have more than one name

Question 80

At the two-word stage,children's utterances are likely to

A) be unintelligible.
B) be inconsistent with respect to word order.
C) be unaffected by the semantic relationships among words.
D) contain consistent word orders.