Baby Rosalita, born to English-speaking parents, is able to differentiate between the soft "p" and sharp "p" phonemes used to distinguish meaning in the Thai language. Her parents perceive both sounds as identical. Rosalita's parents are exhibiting
A) categorical speech perception.
B) semantic bootstrapping.
C) referential communication.
D) overregularization.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Categorical speech perception refers to the ability to differentiate between phonemes of a language, even if they seem identical to speakers of another language. In this case, Rosalita is able to differentiate between the soft "p" and sharp "p" phonemes in Thai, whereas her English-speaking parents cannot. This is a demonstration of categorical speech perception. B) Semantic bootstrapping refers to the process by which children use knowledge of word meanings to infer grammatical rules, and is not relevant to this scenario. C) Referential communication refers to the ability to convey and understand meaning through language, and is also not relevant to this scenario. D) Overregularization refers to a grammatical error made by young children who apply a regular grammatical rule to an irregular word (e.g. saying "goed" instead of "went"). This is also not relevant to the scenario.

Baby Rosalita, Born to English-Speaking Parents, Is Able to Differentiate