Glossary

babbling

a typical precursor to fluent speech involving short consonant-vowel or vowel-consonant combinations and reduplications.

code switching

using two or more distinct languages within the same communicative context, for example using both German and Arabic or American Sign Language and English in the same utterance.

comprehension

understanding of language (cf. production).

dominance

the relative proficiency and fluency that a speaker has in one language relative to another.

frozen utterances

chunks of language, where the elements in that chunk are not used very productively in other contexts.

phoneme

a unit of sound that distinguishes one word from another. For example, in English, the word ‘pin’ /pɪn/ is distinguished from ‘bin’ /bɪn/ by the phonemes /p/ and /b/.

production

public expression of language (see comprehension).

syllable

a basic unit of speech that typically features a comparatively loud unobstructed vowel sound at its centre which can be preceded or followed by a relatively quieter, more obstructed consonant sound.

vocalisations

a variety of sounds used by prelinguistic infants without the same communicative intent as later language (e.g., coos, squeals and yelps).