Chapter 10 Flashcards
Language
Communication system that has a limited number of signals that can be combine together according to agreed upon rules and principles to produce messages that can be understood by others
Phonemes
Basic units of sounds that can change the meaning of word
Difference between Cats and Bats
Morphemes
Basic units of meaning that exists in a word
Re- or -ing
Syntax
Systematic rules about sentence structure
Semantics
The relationship between signifiers combines in sentences and bout their meaning in reality
“They’re blind with rage”
Pragamtics
Rules for how language is used in different social contexts
Prosody
Melody of speech
Includes pitch, stress, intonation, and timing of speech
Lexicon
Mental dictionary representing our knowledge of words themselves and how those words go together
Psycholinguistics
Studies what the structure of the representational system for language is and how humans acquire this knowledge.
Little direct instruction about how to structure sentences
Broca’s Area(left hemisphere of the brain)
Involved in production of speech sound
Wernicke’s area
Involed in Understanding of speech
Motor cortex
Controls the movements of muscules
Arcuate fasclculus
connect Wernicke’s area to Broca’s area
Noam Chomsky
Nature
- Theroized humans are born with predisposition to learn the rules of grammar that is not specific to any one language
- All languages share basic elements and common rules called universal grammar
- Language acquisition device (LAD)
Nativist perspective
- Minimizes the roles of evnironment
- capacity for acquiring language has a genetic basis
- Children learn native language with ease but struggle later to learn second language
Poverty of the stimulus
- Children don’t get instruction about language, and it’s something they pick up incidentally along the way.
- Children are not expose to enough information in their environment to acquire every feature of their language
Learning Theroists
- Children learn the words they hear spoken by others
- Learn to speak the language and adopt the accent of those around them
- More like to start using new words if they are reinforced
Interactionist perspective
- Children’s born ability and linguistic environment interact to shape the course of language develop
- Language acquisition is related to the development of other competencis
- Child directed speech(Baby talk)
- Parents help shape language by offering expansioins on children’s utteraions.
Associative model
Suggest that we present information by forming connections among bits of information
Semantic priming
- Primes usually embedded in a lexical decision task
- RTs for words related to the prime are faster than for unrelated words
Sentence Verifcation
- Judge if senteces are true or false
- Faster RT for related sentences
Language Acquisition: Infancy
- Show preference for speech over non-speech sounds
- Cooing begins around 6-8 weeks
- Babbling around 4 - 6 months
- Comprehension begins before production in language development(Usually 10 months)
Holophrases(12months)
-Use of single word to represent complex idea
- First 50 words consist of common nouns presenting objects and people
- Being using social linguistic cues to learns
- joint attention(purposely coordinate everyone’s attention to something)
18 months: vocabulary spurt
20 months: 150 words
24 months: 300 words
Fast mapping
Using context that a new word is presented in to make an educated guess about the meaning of these new words
Common mistakes
Overextension
Using a specific word to refer to too wide a range of objects, actions, or events
Bob for all pets/dogs
Common mistakes
Underextension
Using a general word to refer to a smaller set of objects, actions, or events
Using dogs for all different kinds of dogs
Common mistakes
Overregularization
Overapplying rules to cases in which the proper form of a word is irregular
Common Mistakes
Telegraphic speech
Stringing 2 - 3 words together to recreat meaning (But not grammatically complete)
Chomsky
Transformational grammar
we can use the same word in different context and convery tootally different meanings
Educational videos
For each hour spent watching videos, babies understood 6 - 8 fewer words
Educational preschool programs
- Intial advantage in basic academic skills
- Less creative, more anxious in testing situations and more negative towards school
Performance goals
Seeking to prove ability rather than improve it.
Focus on the outcome rather than the process.
4 steps of learning to read
- Prealphabetic Phase (Mimics)
- Partial alphabetic Phase (Figuring out how to make sounds in mouth)
- Full aplhabetic phase
- consolidated alphabetic phase(Know how to sound words)
Factors of Adolescent Achievement Decline
- Lose high academic self-esteem and high expectancies of success
- Family characteristics
- peer pressure
- Poor fit between person and environment
School Drop-out risk, Elementary School
- Low IQ and achievement
- Poor test scores
- Aggressive beahvior
- low SES
School Drop-out risk, Middle School
- Regularly smoke cigarettes
- Drink alcohol
- Engage in sexual activty
Language in Adulthood
- Knowledge of phonology stays the same
- Knowledge of the semantics of language expands
- Refine their pramatic use of language
- more often have “tip of the tongue” experiences than younger adults
Pramatic use: Speaking to boss is different than speaking to friends
Issue of accessibility
Feel as though the item is currently inaccessible but strong sense access to the item can eventually be recovered
Direct access view: blocking hyptohesis, incomplete activation, transmission
Indirect access view: cue-familiarity, accessibility heuristic
Literacy in adult years
- 22% have a third grade reading ability
- Half of adults with low literacry scores live in poverty
- programs to raise the literacy level of adults are rarely successful
