8.3 | Language and Communication

Question 1

Aphasia

Answer 1

• aphasia: a language disorder caused by damage to the brain structures that support using and understanding language
• Broca’s area: the region of the left frontal lobe that controls our ability to articulate speech sounds that compose words
  
  • patients with Broca’s asphasia have difficulty procuding speech and often utter single words separated by pauses (e.g. uh, er)
  • the individual words are often produced without normal grammatical flair: no articles, suffixes, or prefixes
• Wernicke’s area: the region of the brain most associated with finding the meaning of words
  
  • patients with Wernicke’s aphasia are unable to produce speech that other people can understand
  • i.e. the words are spoken fluently and with a normal intonation and accent, but these words seem randomly thrown together

Question 2

Properties of Language

Answer 2

• language: a form of communication that involves the use of spoken, written, or gestural symbols that are combined in a rule-based form
• can involve communication about objects and events that are not in the present time and place
• can produce entirely new meanings
  
  • it’s possible to produce a sentence that has never been uttered before in the history of humankind, simply by reorganizing words in different ways
• is passed down from parents to children
  
  • experience dictates which language(s) we will speak

Question 3

Phonemes and Morphemes: The Basic Ingredients of Language

Answer 3

• phonemes: the most basic of units of speech sounds
• morphemes: the smallest meaningful units of a language
  
  • our ability to combine morphemes into words is one distinguishing feature of language that sets it apart from other forms of communication
• language gives us productivity—the ability to combine units of sound into an infinite number of meanings
• semantics: the study of how people come to understand meaning from words
• when you recognize a word, you effortlessly translate the word’s visual form (known as its orthography) into the sounds that make up that word (known as its phonology or phonological code)

Question 4

Syntax: The Language Recipe

Answer 4

• syntax: the rules for combining words and morphemes into meaningful phrases and sentences
• the most basic units of syntax are nouns and verbs
• most speakers cannot tell you what the rules are; syntax just seems to come naturally.
• the order of words in a sentence helps determine what the sentence means, and syntax is the set of rules we use to determine that order

Question 5

Pragmatics: The Finishing Touches

Answer 5

• pragmatics: the study of nonlinguistic elements of language use
• reminds us that sometimes what is said is not as important as how it is said

Question 6

Infants, Sound Perception, and Language Acquisition

Answer 6

• babies are experts at identifying the sounds of their own language
• infants learn how to separate a string of sounds into meaningful groups (i.e. into words)
• newborn infants can distinguish between function words (e.g. prepositions) and content words (e.g. nouns and verbs) based on their sound properties
• fast mapping: the ability to map words onto concepts or objects after only a single exposure
• naming explosion: a stage of development where a rapid increase in vocabulary size occurs

Question 7

Producing Spoken Language

Answer 7

• imitation and reinforcement are involved language acquisition, but are only one component
• the behaviourist approach falls short in explaining how language is learned; whereas adults typically struggle, children seem to learn languages effortlessly
• psychologists have started using the term language acquisition when referring to children instead of language learning

Question 8

Sensitive Periods for Language

Answer 8

• sensitive period: a time during childhood in which children’s brains are primed to develop language skills
• children can absorb language almost effortlessly, but this ability seems to fade away starting around the seventh year

Question 9

The Bilingual Brain

Answer 9

• bilingual children tend to have a smaller vocabulary in each language than unilingual children
• in adulthood, this difference is shown not by vocabulary size, but by how easily bilinguals can access words
• bilingual individuals are much better than their unilingual counterparts on tests that require them to control their attention or their thoughts; these abilities are known as executive functions (or executive control)
• being bilingual also helps protect against the onset of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease

Question 10

Genes and Language

Answer 10

• claims that language promotes survival and reproductive success are difficult to test directly with scientific experimentation, but there is a soundness to the logic of the speculation
• the KE family had a mutated copy of the FOXP2 gene, and those who were affected had a hard time putting thoughts into words, but had no difficulty actually carrying out these tasks or thinking
• interestingly, the FOXP2 gene is also found in songbirds, highlighting its possible role in producing meaningful sounds

Question 11

Can Animals Use Language?

Answer 11

• cross-fostered: when an animal is raised as a member of a family that was not of the same species
• studies with apes and spoken language were unsucessful, but using ASL proved that they could acquire a language just as we do
• researchers have also developed lexigrams: small keys on a computerized board that represent words, and, therefore, can be combined to form complex ideas and phrases
• although, there are some critical differences between human communication and other animals
  
  • apes are communicating only with symbols, not with the phrase-based syntax used by humans
  • little reputable experimental evidence showing that apes pass their language skills to other apes
  • productivity is rare
  • to what extent does personal attachments to the animals interfere with the objectivity of the data?
• a major factor in humanity’s unique language abilities is the complexity and plasticity of the brain