Block 2 - Language Flashcards
What does Hockett list as the similarities between human and other communication systems in his design features?
- Sensorimotor mode of communication
- Semanticity
- Arbitrariness
- Interchangeability
- Pragmatic function
- Cultural transmission
What does Hockett list as the differences between human and other communication systems (i.e. which design features are mostly specific to humans?
- Discreteness
- Duality of patterning
- Displacement
- Productivity/creativity.
Discreteness
A small list of of mostly meaningless atoms form the basic building block of words; phonemes.
Duality of Patterning
Patterns of phonemes form words and patterns of words form sentences.
Displacement
Language is not limited to the here and now, or even the real
Productivity/creativity
Creating brand new words/expressions all the time.
Semanticity
Meaningful signs/representations
Arbitrariness
Physical characteristics of the signs themselves gives no indication about the meaning.
Pragmatic function
Serves some useful features
Interchangeability
Individuals can send and receive signals
Cultural transmission
E.g. some songbirds need conspecific models
What is Creolisation?
The development of full-fledged languages, creoles, from pidgins. Creolisation occurs when the sole linguistic exposure of a group of children consists of highly unstructured input (pidgin)
How does creolisation occur?
The children use their innate language capacity to transform the pidgin (which has high syntactic variability) into a language with highly structured grammar. As this capacity is universal, the newly resulting languages have many grammatical similarities.
What causes the structural similarities between the different creole languages?
The universal and innate language capacity of the children.
What is the language bioprogram hypothesis?
Human babies, through evolution, come with a bioprogram. This bioprogram provides a skeletal model of language. Children then use their input to turn the skeletal model into the target language
Mutations in which gene are strongly linked to grammar deficits?
FOX P2 gene
What was the original estimate for the critical period of language learning?
0-7 years
What do newer estimates say about the critical period of language learning?
That the learning rate is constant for approximately 17 years.
What does the Wada test show?
That paralysis of the left hemisphere leads to speech deficits.
When does left lateralisation of language begin?
At birth
Objects from which visual field will split-brain patients find impossible to name or report?
The left visual field, becuase info from the left visual field goes to the right hemisphere and since there is no transfer of this information to language areas in the left hemisphere, participants are unable to identify the object.
How does forward/backward speech elicit different patterns of activity in the brain?
Forward speech results in greater activation of the left hemisphere, but not backward speech or silence.
In the right hemisphere, forward and backward speech resulted in equal activation. n
Recovering from left hemisphere language impairments by compensating through right hemisphere involves…
- homologous areas
- The exact same areas that were responsible for language in the left hemisphere, are used when the right hemisphere takes over.
If you have a mutation in the Fox P2 gene you may not be able to recover from left hemisphere language impairments by compensating through right hemisphere.
N400
Marker of semantic anomaly
P600
Marker of syntactic anomaly
Transitive verb
Takes two arguments e.g. Jan pushes the cart
Intransitive verb
Takes only one argument e.g. Jan runs
What is one of the earliest speech signals available to the fetus?
Prosody
