Animal Communication, Language, and Thought Flashcards
why is studying psycholinguistic important?
because of the effect on language on everyday life
what is communication? (Beattie & Ellis)
- when one organism (the transmitter) encodes information into a signal
- this passes through another organism (the receiver) which decodes the signal and can respond appropriately
what does verbal communication consist of?
spoken/written transmission of a message
- this can also be dialects and constructed languages
what are non-linguistic aspects of language?
body language, gestures, emoticons
- tone, rhythm, and stress are other non-verbal elements
Why is verbal and non verbal communication essential
people combine both features together to make assumptions about one another
- e.g. pitch may equate to a certain area
what is language?
a type of communication between the combination of a structured system of symbols (words) and their rules (grammar)
how many languages are there? Why isnt this clear ?
-between 3,000-8,000
- because we don’t have a clear definition of language
how often do languages die out?Why is this important
at a rate of 1 every 2 weeks.Shows its important hat we preserve languages
european languages consist of _% of all total languages
3%
the most common languages are…
chinese, spanish, and english
examples of domains that language is relevant in
eduction- whether someone is a good reader
clinical- dyspraxia, aphasia, speech therapy
second language learning
marketing
social and cultural- accents and expressions
forensic- analysis of speech patterns and voice identification
what is the definition of what makes a human language?
a system of communicating thoughts, feelings, and information using words to form unlimited expressions
- that can be understood by a group of people beyond the here and now
Is communication the same as language? why
No, any living thing can communicate however language is more specific than that
what did hockett (1960) come up with to distinguish language from communication?
a communication system must require all 16 design features to be called a “language”
which design features are important for human language?
- semanticity
- arbitrariness
- displacement
- productivity/generativity
- prevarication
- reflexiveness
semanticity
words are symbols/signs that express meaning
Arbitrariness
No intrinsic relation between words and their meaning
- e.g.microorganism= big word but it refers to something small
displacement
not tied to here and now, and can discuss hypotheticals (e.g. if, then)
productivity/generativity
it has a finite collection of sounds and words that allows for infinite number of messages/structure and thus new language
prevarication
we can lie
reflexiveness
we can use language to talk about language
disagreement over arbitrariness
-individual sounds or clusters can convey meaning, e.g., the bouba-kiki effect as an example of sound symbolism
why is it important to be careful with regards to animal language?
- they can communicate however there is no evidence they can combine distinctive sounds to form language
limitations of bee dances
- can only convey novel messages about food
limitations of dolphins
- no evidence of syntax use
- only communicate about water
animal language in songbirds
- there is overlap with human language acquisition
- babbling,critical period, left-hemisphere speculation
what is the human genetic overlap with apes?
95%-98.5%, which may explain their rich communication systems
similarities between apes and humans
- similar brain asymmetries as humans, such as enlarged broca’s area
- however this is used for complex hand movements rather than complex speech sounds
why is it impossible to teach apes to speak?
they have a different articulatory apparatus (throat) than humans, so sign language or artificial lexigrams are used instead
artificial lexigrams
a symbol or figure that represents a word or concept
gua (1933)…
cross fostered with their infant son and learned to understand a few words but never produced any
viky (1952)…
could understand some word and word-combination after 6 years, but articulated with some difficulty
washoe (1969)…
taught ASL and by 4 years-old had acquired 85 signs and novel sign combinations
- e.g. you-drink
- however sensitivity to word order and new combinations
nim chimpsky (1979)…
learned 125 ASL signs and made combinations, however longer combinations were mostly redundant
Comparison of chimps to children
- Chimps require lots of explicit training, children do not
-chimps rarely signed spontaneously,children are spontaneous
-chimps have little evidence of syntax , children have a clear structure
-chimps output was mainly non creative, children are
-chimps don’t ask questions,children do
evidence that language might influence our thinking?
-examples of female-doctor and male-nurse having longer eye-scan times
-people have a visual rep of what a doctor is depending on how often they encounter them
- suggests frequency and stereotype can effect how language is used
what is the sapir-whorf hypothesis?
states that languages shapes our thoughts
linguistic determinism
-strong version
-thoughts are constrained by language, as this determines our thinking
-people with different language think differently
linguistic relativism
-weak version
-people who speak a different language perceive and experience the world differently
-they may still think the same
Evidence of linguistic determinism
- vocabulary differences
-there are many variations for ‘snow’ depending on the language
-suggests people see the world differently
what is not good evidence for linguistic determinism?
- vocabulary differences, as differences may be perceived but not always labelled
- instead, behaviour must be measured
linguistic relativity in gender (Borodisky et al., 20020)
-masculine gendered objects were described using masculine terms, and feminine descriptions were used for feminine gendered word
- Voice for object was dependent on if it was masculine or feminine in their language
What did Carmichael et al., (2002) discover
- how an ambiguous object is described affects later recall/memory
- associated word to ambiguous image reproduced images that looked like the word
what did glucksburg and weisberg (1966) discover?
-the way an object is described affects how we think about its use
- we have a better performance if described in a less obvious linguistic manner
language affects encoding in space. What does the study show
dutch/english speakers used relative egocentric ordering as a frame of reference
- 60% of tenejapans restructured the table using allocentric ordering
-speakers of different language can experience the world differently
egocentric
gives a relative frame of reference
allocentric
gives an absolute frame of reference
language affects encoding in time
english speakers think of time horizontally whereas mandarin think of time vertically
What did Boroditsky (2001) find when testing how language affects encoding in time
-speakers helped when prime coincides with their way of conceptualizing time
-when trained to talk about time vertically, English speakers behaved more like Mandarin speakers
critiques of linguistic determinism
-pinker (1994) believes language ≠ thought, as we have a different language for thought (mentalese) which becomes before we use language
- if our thoughts depends on existing words, how can we make up new words?
evidence of idelfonso, to critique linguistic determinism
had no problem communicating his thoughts, despite having no language and only being taught sign language
Linguistic determinism critique: hopi indian language
- ‘timeless language’ with no distinction in language for past present and future
- however this does NOT mean they cannot distinguish between them as they have tenses and units of time
What differentiates human communication from animal communication?
Humans use multiple channels (e.g., gestures, speech, expressions) and complex, rule-governed grammar to convey information.
