Language and Thought Questions and Answers

Answer: D

The key's answer is seven years.

Jokes and riddles based on a play on words require metalinguistic awareness: the child must notice that a word can have two meanings or that two words sound alike, and enjoy the switch between them. This awareness develops in middle childhood, and children of around seven, in the early school years, typically begin to enjoy puns, riddles and word-play jokes.

A one-year-old is just beginning to speak, and a three-year-old is still building vocabulary and grammar and enjoys simpler, mainly physical humour. By twelve, children have long been enjoying word play, so twelve is not the age at which it begins.

Answer: B

Both (A) and (R) are true, but (R) is not the correct explanation of (A).

The Assertion is true. Piaget saw language as a product of cognitive development, reflecting thought that is already present, while Vygotsky saw language as a tool that shapes thought, with social speech turning into inner speech that guides problem solving.

The Reason is also true as a description of discovery learning: the teacher arranges opportunities and learners find out information for themselves. But it says nothing about the role of language in cognition, so it cannot explain why Piaget and Vygotsky differ. Options calling either statement false are therefore wrong.

Answer: B

Piaget sees egocentric speech as a sign of cognitive immaturity; Vygotsky sees private speech as effective in self-regulation.

Piaget thought children's talk to themselves reflected their egocentrism, an inability to take another's perspective, which fades as they mature. Vygotsky reinterpreted the same speech as private speech, a tool children use to guide and plan their own actions, which later becomes silent inner speech.

The other options swap the two terms or attach each theorist to the other's interpretation.

Answer: B

The age range is 18 to 24 months.

Children usually say their first words around 12 months. Between about 18 and 24 months, after a vocabulary spurt, they begin to combine words into two-word utterances such as 'more milk' or 'daddy go'. This telegraphic speech is the first step towards sentences.

At 12-18 months most children are still in the one-word (holophrastic) stage. By 24-36 months they are already producing longer, more grammatical sentences, so the start of word combinations is placed earlier.

Answer: A

They are specified in its phonological rules.

Phonology is the sound system of a language. Its rules state which sounds are used and how they may combine: in English, for example, a word can begin with 'str' but not with 'ng'. These phonotactic rules decide which sound combinations are acceptable.

Grammatical and syntactic rules govern how words are combined into phrases and sentences, and inflection is the change in the form of a word to show tense, number and so on. None of these concerns combinations of sounds.

Answer: B

The position is called linguistic determination (linguistic determinism).

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis holds in its strong form that the language a person speaks determines how that person thinks and perceives the world, so that speakers of different languages think differently. This is linguistic determinism; the weaker claim that language merely influences thought is linguistic relativity.

Cultural tendency and sociolinguistic genesis are not established terms for this position, and cognitive bias refers to systematic errors of judgment, not to the influence of language on thought.

Answer: B

The most critical period for language is early childhood.

The years from birth to about six are the sensitive period for language: children acquire the sound system, a large vocabulary and the basic grammar of the languages around them with remarkable speed and without formal teaching. Language learned later rarely reaches the same native fluency, which is why early exposure to rich talk matters so much.

The pre-natal period comes before any language use. By middle childhood and adolescence the foundations are already laid; vocabulary and style keep growing, but the critical acquisition has happened.

Answer: B

Piaget would support the statement that certain language concepts must be taught when the child has reached the appropriate stage of cognitive maturity.

For Piaget, thought comes first and language reflects it: language development depends on cognitive development. So a child can understand a language concept only once the thinking behind it has developed, which is what this statement says.

The first option reverses Piaget's view by making language the cause of cognitive development, a position closer to Vygotsky's. Memorising grammatical rules and treating language learning as habit formation are behaviourist ideas, associated with Skinner, not Piaget.

Answer: C

The idea is supported by the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis.

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, also called linguistic relativity, holds that the language we speak shapes how we think and perceive the world. In its strong form, language determines thought, so language provides the framework for our thoughts.

Piaget held the opposite: thought develops first and language reflects it. Bruner emphasised modes of representation and the role of language in learning, but not this hypothesis, and Chomsky argued that humans have an innate capacity for language, a theory of acquisition rather than of language shaping thought.

Answer: B

Most children can speak five or six coherent sentences at three years.

Around the first birthday a child is still at the one-word stage, and by about two the child combines two or three words in telegraphic speech. Between two and three years vocabulary grows very fast and simple sentences appear, so by about three most children can string together a few connected sentences.

One year is far too early for sentences. Five and seven years are ages by which children already speak at much greater length, so they overstate the age at which this milestone is first reached.