Nativist Approach
True or False? “All children are born with an innate ability to learn language.”
True.
Name the two leading figures of the Usage-Based approach.
Jean Piaget, Michael Tomasallo
True or False? “Social cognition distinguishes human communication from those of other species.
True.
True or false? "In contemporary linguistics, memory is denoted as set of cognitive processes concerning processing and organization of language."
True.
True or False? “Children have domain-general abilities that assist them learning a language.”
False: language-specific abilities.
The UBA argues that grammar is not innate, instead, language is …?
Learned through experience.
Name three early signs children show in order to establish joint attention.
Pointing gestures, head-movement, eye gaze.
What results out of the notion of automatization? Name one specific example.
Result = Chunking, f.e. a fixed general expression.
Explain the distinction between “core” and “periphery” and their importance for language acquisition.
The child’s knowledge of his ambient language is made up of rules determined by UG (core) and those that have to be learnt without the help of UG (periphery).
True or False? “Children build up their language relying on their language-specific cognitive skills.
False. (domain-general abilities)
Explain why the Theory of Mind is a prerequisite for language acquisition.
Theory of Mind is a prerequisite for language acquisition because one has to take into account what has been introduced to the discourse before in order to communicate efficiently.
Explain the Figure-Ground-Conception by using a specific example.
Rubin Vase Faces:
Figure-Ground: perceptual grouping that is vital for recognizing objects through vision -> the mind works on the black and white area (you can conceptualize this in different ways)
E.g., black writing on a white paper
Conceptual figure: the writing (what we perceive)
Background: the white paper