May 10, 2011 Handout

Social Linguistics
May 10, 2011
Professor Barbara Gleason
Ayse K. Saglam
Quiz: Language Acquisition

1. Young infants can discriminate between speech sounds in all human languages. Then, at some point, they only recognize the speech sounds in their parents' language. At what age do babies typically start to hear mainly the speech sounds of their parents' language and not the speech sounds of other people's languages?
a. 2 months
b. 5 months
c. 10 months
d. 14 months
2. Babies start to babble at what age?
1. 2 months
2. 3 months
3. 5 to 6 months
4. 7 to 8 months
3. Babbling serves which of the following functions?
1. Babies are babbling to practice use of their vocal cords, tongues, lips and other articulators.
2. Babies are babbling to request milk.
3. Babies are babbling to create a special language shared with other babies.
4. Babies are babbling to practice producing speech sounds that they hear people speaking.
4. At what age can babies imitate adults' facial movements?
1. Babies can imitate adults' facial movements just a few hours after birth.
2. Babies can imitate adults' facial movements 3 to 4 days after birth.
3. Babies can imitate adults' facial movements 2 weeks after birth.
5. Babies can imitate adults' facial movements 4 weeks after birth.
5. Here is one reason for why it is important that babies can imitate adults' facial movements (e.g., open their own mouths or stick out their tongues) when they are quite young:
1. This shows that babies are born with a sense of humor.
2. This shows that babies recognize that they themselves have something similar: a face.
3. This shows that babies like their parents.
4. This shows that babies can move their speech articulators at an early age.

6. Why do children between the ages of 8 to 12 years learn 12.1 words per day? What could be the influences on this performance?

7. Some children start speaking earlier than other children. What could be the reason?